About

G’day and welcome to my blog. My name is Fran Flint and I live in Adelaide, South Australia – originally from San Diego, California. I trained in French cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu school in Paris. Please enjoy my recipes and food adventures from France, Australia and elsewhere.

Le Cordon Bleu School, Paris

Le Cordon Bleu school, Paris

19 Comments

  • Reply
    Carol Rycraft
    September 25, 2013 at 3:25 am

    Robin told me you came into the store the other day and I looked at your blog. So lovely. I hope you’ll feature some of our cookie stamps one day. If you do, please let me know and I’ll put a link on our site to your site.
    Best of luck to you,
    Carol and Robin Rycraft

  • Reply
    Alisa
    December 11, 2013 at 10:04 pm

    Hi Fran,

    We just wanted you to know that we’ve selected your blog as Foodista’s Food Blog of the Day for December 11, 2013. Your blog post for Christmas Trifle will be featured on the Foodista homepage for 24 hours.

    We wont post any of your recipes on the feature, just a thumbnail-sized photo associated with the link and a snippet of what the post is about. It will be a clickable link so the readers will go directly to you to read more and check out your recipes. Besides posting your blog on the homepage, we will also be posting shout outs on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

    We also have a badge for you that we give out to our featured blogs. Just send me an email so I can send you the link. Thanks!

  • Reply
    Wendy Fowler Nunes
    January 13, 2015 at 10:45 am

    Beautiful blog, Fran! It’s so fun to see where we all strayed after high school, all over the world, doing creative things…

  • Reply
    Kaman
    May 20, 2015 at 1:07 am

    Hi Fran,

    I am so pleased to come across your blog, because I want to find out if it is a crazy idea for me to study at Cordon Bleu Paris not knowing any French and taking my 14 year old Pug with me as well? ;p I have been thinking about going to the one in London, but since it is French cooking I think it’s silly to do it in London… I am signing up for some French lessons next month, so I can at least have some very basic knowledge…but do you think the language barrier would affect my performance at school? I am going to apply for Cuisine Diploma only. Thank you very much for your help! 🙂

    • Reply
      Fran
      May 20, 2015 at 10:53 am

      Hi Kaman. It is helpful to understand a little French, however the classes all have an English translator standing next to the chef as he demonstrates. Most of the full-time chefs can speak English, so there is also no problem understanding them in the Practical classes. (However, sometimes you may have a ‘substitute’ chef in the Practical who doesn’t speak English, in which case another French-speaking student will translate for you). I’m not sure how the Paris course compares to the London one, but it is nice to have a total French immersion by attending the school in Paris. Taking you dog with you might be a problem, since most Paris rental apartments are small and I don’t know how many landlords would accept a pet. Good luck and thanks for stopping by my blog.

      • Reply
        Kaman
        May 25, 2015 at 3:09 pm

        Hi Fran,

        Thank you so much for your speedy response! I simply cannot sleep thinking about going to Paris 🙂 It’s so great to read your blog, I am inspired to go 100%! Did you study Grand Diplome? I wonder what the weekly schedule is like (because I am taking my old dog with me, who sleeps a lot and I am going to try my best to stay as close to school as possible to pop back inbetween classes). Any advice please? 🙂

        • Reply
          Fran
          May 26, 2015 at 10:20 am

          Kaman, glad to know you are excited about the Paris LCB. I studied only the Cuisine Diploma, not the Pastry dilploma (Grande Diplome). You normally have 3 demonstrations each week and 3 practical classes each week- each one is about 2.5 hours long. The schedule tends to be more uneven during the summer session, since the school has to accommodate the Intensive course students- therefore you might only have two demos and two practicals during the first few weeks, then everything ‘bottles up’ in the last 5 weeks to make up for the paltry classes in the first few weeks. The Paris school is located in the 15th arrondissement- a heavily residential area- so you might want to find an apt. there. I also recommend that you practice filleting a fish before coming to the school, since you’ll be doing a lot of that- refer to my post “How to Fillet a Fish”. Also, try practicing my Quiche Lorraine recipe- this gives you practice on how to make pastry the traditional French method and the recipe is based on the LCB recipe. Also, have a look at my ‘Magret de Canard’ recipe and also the ‘Filet de Poisson Duglere’ one- both taken from the Basic Cuisine curriculum. Bon Appetit!

  • Reply
    caryl armstrong
    August 22, 2015 at 9:20 am

    We did the beginners and advanced courses that Frances
    delivered and they were great!
    Caryl and Trevor

    • Reply
      Fran
      August 23, 2015 at 7:33 pm

      Thanks so much, Caryl and Trevor. I hope to see you perhaps in my ‘Mastering Seafood Class’ soon!

  • Reply
    Charlie Oakes
    November 21, 2015 at 4:23 am

    Hi Fran
    It was my pleasure meet, sit next to you and discuss the food at the pop-up last night. The noise level truncated the conversation a bit, but I enjoyed it. Back to exploring your blog.
    Take good care of yourself.
    Charlie

    • Reply
      Fran
      November 21, 2015 at 4:53 am

      Charlie, it was also my pleasure to meet you last night. I hope you enjoy some of the recipes on my blog!

  • Reply
    May Lawrence
    April 27, 2016 at 1:51 am

    Hi Fran, I’m an Australian living in Bangkok and I’m thinking of doing getting a LCB certificate. Just out of curiosity, why did you do the Cuisine first and not Pastry? Reason I’m asking is I’m undecided which one I should start with

    • Reply
      Fran
      April 27, 2016 at 7:36 am

      Hi May, I chose to do Cuisine first because it involves ‘essential food’ that I can eat, rather than desserts, that are optional to eat at the end of a meal. I like to work with food that I can taste as I cook- tasting sweet things along the way would also cause me to gain weight. In other words, pastry seems to me like a ‘secondary’ food. (But don’t get me wrong, I love sweets and could eat an entire pie in one sitting)! I suppose you have to think of your career and what sort of food you want to work with. If you study pastry, you could open your own store and work ‘reasonable hours’, instead of until late at night (i.e. working in a restaurant). The best solution is to study both cuisine and pastry; some people study both fields at the same time, however it’s pretty full on doing it that way. Good luck!

  • Reply
    David
    November 27, 2017 at 6:21 am

    Hi Fran – just enjoyed a good thorough perusal of your blog! So glad you found me through Chef Mimi! Just subscribed and look forward to many fun recipes from you!

  • Reply
    Fran Flint
    November 27, 2017 at 9:57 am

    Thanks David, I also look forward to reading your future recipes, as well!

  • Reply
    Shradha
    January 29, 2018 at 2:46 am

    Hi, I am thinking of starting the pastry program in June– I am very confused and have a lot of questions – could I email you or contact you?

  • Reply
    Shradha
    January 29, 2018 at 2:52 am

    Hi,
    Your blog is amazing. I am a planning to do the diploma de patisserie from le cordon Bleu paris and have a couple of questions. It will be really helpful if I could email you the same. Please let me know how to get in touch.
    Regards
    Shradha

    • Reply
      Fran Flint
      January 30, 2018 at 1:56 am

      Hi Shradha,

      Thanks so much for stopping by my blog. Yes, I’d be glad to answer your questions about the Le Vordon Bleu School. I am sending you my email address so we can connect!

  • Reply
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