Hello World!

From the 14th of November to the 16th of December I'll be studying at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and hopefully I'll obtain my certificate de Cuisine de Base. This blog will be sort a diary to keep the folks at home updated and provide an insight into the LCB for the ones who are curious to attend.

Paulo's the name and I'm a Portuguese expat that found its home in Stockholm, Sweden about three years ago. Being my parents only child, I am was a momma's boy during my whole life and mom did all the cooking. So, to sort of quote Julia Child, I mostly ate my whole life and only started cooking at 25 when I moved to Sweden. What a revelation it was! I discovered that it was fun cooking. In quick time I filled my apartment with cookbooks and started cooking my way through them, but something was missing. I felt I missed all the basic principles of cooking and without them one can never excel at cooking. So, I decided to apply to study those basic principles at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. I got accepted and within some weeks I'll be chopping, dicing, reducing, roasting, boiling, flambéing and learning all those principles. Which principles you may ask? Here's how LCB puts them:

• French culinary terms & definitions


• Organization, safety and hygiene in the kitchen


• Professional knife handling and introduction to diverse cuts


• Classic French techniques


• Learning foundations : stocks, sauces, forcemeats & doughs

All this in five intensive weeks. So, I hope to have some energy to keep this blog updated!