New home, new work
New home, new work
You must be imaginative, strong-hearted. You must try things that may not work, and you must not let anyone define your limits because of where you come from. Your only limit is your soul.
Life is complicated. There are things you should do, things you shouldn’t do, and things that you want to do. For each of these things, everyone else seems to have something to say about it to you and wants to provide their opinions about your life. I always try my hardest to surround myself with people who don’t give their opinions on my choices unless I ask for them (hint: almost never), people who don’t have conditions on a relationship with me, and I don’t take criticism from someone I wouldn’t take advice from. I refuse to let others tell me what my limits are. This is something that was actually instilled in me from a Disney-Pixar movie. This quote was my senior grad quote in high school, the caption of my Instagram post when I first arrived in France, and a quote I hold dear to me all the time -
You must be imaginative, strong-hearted. You must try things that may not work, and you must not let anyone define your limits because of where you come from. Your only limit is your soul.
I always make sure to live my life authentically, filter-free, and something I’d be proud to look back on. This includes having my values as the core of everything I do. The past year has been a weird one for me. I couldn’t say that my values have been applied everywhere in my life, and I’m making decisions based on a way to guarantee my residency in France rather than my values. Over the summer, I forced this to change. I started looking for a new job in a larger town where I could live independently, work in a team that shares my values in the kitchen of local and sustainable ingredients, and use traditional methods to apply in a modern context.
I’m excited to start my new job in less than a week's time and to move away in one week to start a new start with an environment that I feel safe and welcome in. Of course, it may not be as true as it seems, but I’m in desperate need of a change and my own space.
Long before my arrival in my new city, Trouville-sur-Mer, the team at my new workplace have been wonderful and very helpful. My first interaction with them over Teams was very pleasant. The pastry chef expressed his desire to use as many local and sustainable products as possible. It took him over a year to find as many local producers, and he is still not done trying to find more. Everything down to the flour is sourced locally. This makes me so very excited to start and use all of these local products and get to know the local terroir.
Another big change about my new workplace that I enjoy is the changing menu. At my former hotel, the menu would change every 3-4 months. Where I am now, the menu changes every month. This allows the chef and pastry chef to showcase the best fruits and vegetables of the moment. While at my former workplace, the menu would often change to reflect the season, we still barely used fresh ingredients, using mostly frozen fruits and purees. While this is standard for hotels and large production facilities, it doesn’t make them stand out.
I’ve also been enjoying living in an actual city. Le Conquet, where I was before, is a very small village on the west coast. That’s it. There isn’t much there, just the hotel, a few other small hotels, and that’s it. There is only one store (more like a corner store), one church, and city hall. That is pretty much the village tour. My former coworkers would joke that Trouville-sur-Mer is a trou, a hole; there is nothing here. Trouville is known to be a weekend getaway for Parisians, being so close to Paris, only 2h30 by train or car. But in reality, it’s a city in itself, full of restaurants, cafes, social services, a post office (which Le Conquet lost a couple of months before my arrival), and even tourist boat tours. It’s currently 19:30, and I just got back from the store to pick up some salt, only 5 minutes away from my apartment. The only store in Le Conquet closes at 19:15 and was 10 minutes away from where I was staying, so I am jumping up and down just in excitement of this.
Before leaving the Saite-Barbe hotel in Le Conquet, I also made a few really cool desserts. I introduced the pumpkin pie cheesecake as a weekly dessert. While it was well loved, all of the staff said that there’s too much cinnamon and you can’t taste the pumpkin, though that’s what a pumpkin pie is… Anywho, I also made a tropical tart. This was really fun to make. It was based on a recipe from pastry school, with a almond tart shell and a succès sponge (sponge based on egg whites with almond powder and a bit of flour). To really up the tropical feel, I dusted the succès sponge with grated coconut, and replaced a gelled vanilla cream with a gelled coconut cream. On top was a mango compote. I also added a passion fruit whipped ganache and a small dice of pineapple. This tart was very well received and staff were complementing the design of it as well. I quite enjoyed making this!
Small changes in life can make a difference, but the biggest changes are the ones that bring hope and new beginnings. I’m very excited for this new start at the Cures Marines Thalaso Hotel. I’ll keep you updated and we’ll keep in touch.
Happy adventuring,
Ahmed
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