Out of the kitchen for two weeks

I'm away from home on a deployment to Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico. It's been a break from cooking and unfortunately, a break from good eating. I'm staying in the Inn of the Mountain Gods, a beautiful lodge with two restaurants--a huge buffet affair and a fancy steak house. One meal at the buffet was enough--not bad food but too much of everything and nothing is great. Food is not the focus of this trip anyway--this is all about my real job, mental health services, so I was not expecting to have great food experience anyway.I did find one great place to eat, El Comal, a very small place on Sudderth in Ruidoso, a few miles from the inn. Only a few tables in this tiny place where the chips are cooked after the customers come in and order. Homemade salsa, homemade tortillas, and...

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Chef at last! No more Culinary School Chronicle

Kyndal, my 6 year old granddaughter jumped in at the last minute.My children call me Chef Mom and could care less if I have a culinary school diploma, but they were all there at my graduation, including my daughter, Helen, who drove all the way from Houston. I had such a great time with all four of the children and my two granddaughters here at the same time. We don't all get together that often now that they are out on their own. The simplicity of waking up every day to your own children in the house is not to be taken for granted. The time passes very quickly and suddenly they are gone (or should be gone--always the boomerang child, Glenn...

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Culinary School Graduation: December 12, 2009

Julie, Bill Byrd, Chef Kurima, Chef Waier, and Chef LoySeptember 6, 2008 was my first blog entry and I managed to write an entry for every single class this past 16 months. Graduation was attended by my family--all four children and both granddaughters there, as well as a few friends. Tom and Linda Collins, Jane and Brent Lyon, and Kevin and Kaki were there. The ceremony was short and we were each given our diploma, a medallion and a chef hat. I was also recognized for becoming a member of the NTHS, National Technical Honor Society. Six of us received purple and white cords to wear and a certificate. After the ceremony we had a lovely reception...

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Chef Pro III: Final Exam!!!

It's finally over! The written exam was not too bad--lots of writing and describing the techniques for several types of dishes. I knew that would go well, but the cooking part is always the wild card. There were 4 parts:Block 1: Knife skills--small dice an onion, julienne a potato, brunoise a carrot in 5 minutes.Block 2: Make an omelet, French onion soup, and whipped cream in 40 minutes.The omelet was fine, French onion soup not so great (onions did ot caramelize enough), and good whipped cream (by hand, of course)Block 3: Eggs Benedict and blond roux in 30 minutes. Making the Hollandaise sauce was a little stressful but it was actually a good sauce. My egg was poached nicely and the presentation was good. The blond roux was OK, a little thin.Block 4: Risotto Milanese and Chicken...

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Shift Gears Soon

I am now studying for the final exam, a written test and practical exam. I'll write about it next week. In the meantime I'm working on the website for my personal chef business and planning to continue my blog with a shift in focus. I'll be free to write about anything--and that's a nice thought. I have so many things to write about I don't know where to start, but I'll probably begin with my family. This Thanksgiving, my son Glenn remarked that the holiday meal was OK, but nothing all that special since he eats so many of my "gourmet" meals regularly. I had a good laugh over that. My husband, however, proclaimed that the ham was the best part of the Thanksgiving dinner. I made a cheese ball with applewood smoked bacon, fresh cranberry sauce, Garnet yam puree, mashed potatoes, cornbread dressing...

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Chef Pro III: Week 12: Plate Presentation

I came to class feeling unprepared, not having spent much time reading up on plate presentation or looking at books or google images. I've been out of town on business and just plain busy. I told myself that I would just be inspired by the ingredients and do my best to be creative, something I always stuggle with when it comes to plating food. Chef Waier had prepared three types of plate presentations for us to view. The naturalist, architecture,and minimalist. The NaturalistThe naturalist brings to mind Alice Waters-style while the architectural style is what you might call "tall food" (see photo). The minimalist can best be described as the...

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Chef Pro III: Week 11: Fusion Cooking

The week before this class we all drew slips of paper which contained our countries or regions for this class. I drew Ireland, Greece, Asia, California, and Carribean.Then for class we drew from three cups: 2 were countries and 1 was a type of dish to prepare. My first dish was Asia/Carribean/dessert. I greated a potsticker filled with a sweet potato, coconut puree. I fried the potsticker and sifted some confectioner's sugar on top. It was not too bad and best of all, it fit the assignment. I drew California/Ireland/soup next. Hmmm--this was a little tougher.I made a vegetable broth based soup with fresh vegetables and chopped potatoes. It was...

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Chef Pro III: Week 10: Wine Pairing

I've been so busy lately I've put off writing in the blog and now it's hard to catch up properly. Wine pairing class was something I was anticipating with a little anxiety. We were going to have Chef Jon Bonnell as our instructor and would be asked to make dishes to go with wine he selected for us. Chef Bonnell taught our wine class last year about this time and I knew how particular he is about attention to detail. He lectured very briefly on wine pairing and then had us taste the 6 wines we would be using. They ranged from lighter whites to very earthy reds, both oaked and unoaked, domestic and foreign. I wish I had paid more attention to the...

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Chef Pro III: Week 9: Escoffier

My cooking partner, RayOK, think of an assignment so complicated you will surely get a headache--that is the Escoffier class. Pick up the book, Le Guide Culinare sometime and you'll see what I mean. Escoffier is the first person to codify la grand cuisine, classic French cooking. We got a packet of "recipes" from Escoffier's book and were assigned a partner. Together we had to produce the following:367441614151See, I told you it was fun.We then had to scan through pages of small print to figure out what the numbers represented. 3674: Cotelettes de Cailles d'Aumale, 4151:...

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Chef Pro III: Week 8: International--Southwest

I'm a big fan of southwestern cooking. I have all of Bobby Flay's books after all, and a freezer full of Hatch green chiles I bought back in August, and many spices from the Santa Fe School of cooking in my pantry, along with bags of red chile powder, dried posole, and masa in the freezer. You'd think I was a freaking expert in southwestern cooking if you looked around my house. So why is it then that when Chef Loy tells us to create 5 southwestern dishes in the next 2 hours and 45 minutes I have such a hard time? Is it because mid life hormones have destroyed my memory? Is it pressure? What the heck is it? I did manage to make some pretty decent...

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Capstone Project Progress: Chef Julia Personal Chef Services

I'm getting excited about launching my real culinary business, Chef Julia Personal Chef Services. I have created several menus, recipes, and price lists, have business cards and am researching websites. I will have brochures made soon. The big project for our final semester has been to write up our business plan in a very detailed format. I am almost finished with the project and ready to move on to actually having a client one day, or teaching a class. I believe I will be more than ready when the time comes. Look for details on this blog and a link to the Chef Julia webpage once I construct ...

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Chef Pro III: Week 7: Advanced Nutrition

I felt pretty comfortable with the subject matter of this class. I am very interested in nutrition and read a lot about it, particularly eating for health. I am also very aware of special diets for people with health concerns after being around my mother, who was diabetic and then later on a renal diet. Then there's my son with the nut allergy who has made me cautious about using cashews in anything. He never had a reaction until he ate a cashew blondie, then started swelling and itching like crazy. He had to go to the Emergency Room for treatment!We studied various diets for celiac disease, heart disease, gastric bypass, diabetic and others and then were given our assignment. We were given a role on the line and then Chef Kurima would give us a ticket. The ticket would specify the...

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Chef Pro III: Week 6: Food Trends

Food fads come and go but a trend has the potential to become a long term influence on the market. A few years ago I thought the whole "tapas" trend was silly but I've come to accept it and actually like the idea of sampling small plates instead of one large entree. Some current trends include:Snack Attack--bar snacks, meze platesBarbeque--wood smoked everythingBeer--steamed mussels with Belgian beerFarm freshFrench cuisine--making a comebackAmerican Cheese--not the yucky orange stuff, but cheese made in AmericaNoodle mania--kobe short rib teriyaki lo-mein or chap-chae Korean noodlesFruit--used with savory dishesDolce!--Ricotta polenta pie, ricotta...

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Chef Pro III: Week 5: Timed Cooking

Chef Waier showing us how to clean squidDread, dread--timed cooking. Have you ever seen the show Chopped? Well this class is similar.Chef Waier gives us an assignment and we have 20 minutes to execute it. We had 45 minutes to set up mise en place, then we were told to prepare an amuse bouche in 20 minutes. Of course my mind is blank--no notes, no recipes, no instructions--just use anything we had available.The amuse bouche is a small bite, one bite, intended to wake up the taste buds and given at the beginning of the meal. I took a won ton wrapper, cut out a small circle, fried it, then topped it with a very thin cucumber slice, crumbled feta...

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Chef Pro III: Week 4: Classic Recipes

Chef Waier delivered a fascinating lecture on classic recipes including some history of haute cuisine, epicurian, Escoffier, Nouvelle cuisine, and fusion. We studied this in CP I so it was more of a review. The class tonight was intended to test our skills in actually preparing the classic dishes. Our recipe packet consisted of:Pork PiccataChicken KievVeal Cordon BleuCarpaccioGratin DauphinoiseDuck a l'OrangeQuiche LorraineBeef ConsommeRisotto MilaneseMulligatawny SoupBananas FosterI was assigned to prepare consomme and Bananas Foster with homemade vanilla ice cream, presented table side. I have never made either dish before and read all about...

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Chef Pro III: Week 3: Organization & Admin

Capstone project information was the focus of this class with no actual cooking, just lecture and discussion. We learned about menu development, food costs and cost controls, equipment issues, public health concerns, food purchasing, labor costs, and a lot of discussion on menu develpment. It's important to understand the technical details because the idea of having of food related business for many of us is just a fantasy and based on some general information we've read about or been told about by someone in the business, but not based on the reality of today's food prices and client behaviors. If you haven't already noticed, people are having...

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Chef Pro III: Week 2: Recipe Development

At the Zest Fest with Lisa WrightI have spent the entire week working on recipe development. I volunteered to participate in the Pace Recipe Contest for this year's Zest Fest, held in Ft. Worth on the 11-13 of September. Every year the CSFTW and the Tarrant County College Culinary Arts Program compete against one another on the stage at the Zest Fest. Previous years it's been a salsa contest and the CSFTW has won both years. This year it was a contest to see who could create a recipe using Pace Salsa Verde. A few of us got together with Chef Kurima to brainstorm recipe ideas. I brought in Korean Barbeque with Salsa Verde Slaw served on a fried...

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Chef Pro III: Week 1

This is it--the final semester of culinary school. It's been one year since I wrote the first blog entry and I will continue posting until graduation. Week 1 was time for testing skills we learned in previous classes. We had knife skills--5 minutes to julienne a potato, brunoise a carrot, and small dice an onion. We had to make an omelet with no utensils and French onion soup within 40 minutes. Then we had the rest of the class to make eggs benedict (with Hollandaise sauce), chantilly cream (whipped cream by hand), pork with a pan sauce, and 1/2 cup of roux. My omelet was very good--but I have spent many messy times in my kitchen making Julia Child style omelets by shaking the eggs and turning them in the pan with no utensils. I also made good chantilly cream. The eggs benedict were...

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Pastry Pro I: Final Exam

The Pastry Pro I final was on August 19, 2009. I have been putting off entering this post for weeks. I had to leave for a week a couple days after class for business, then we had a week of vacation in Santa Fe. I'll make it short since I have now started the final semester and need to catch up on that one as well.The pastry class final was hard. We were given a list of items we could make for certain point values and we worked in teams. My partner was Tela, who is very skilled and low key, an easy person to work with. I decided to make pie crust, blitz puff pastry, stirred custard, chantilly cream, and then create a chocolate cream pie and some type of turnover with the blitz puff pastry. Tela made a cake, muffins, and a few other things. Over all everything I made was just OK. My...

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Pastry Pro I: Week 12: Finished Product

My sad looking banana cream pieIt's really Week 13 for the class but 12 for me since I missed a couple classes. Today was a make-up day because I was out of town earlier in the week and missed class, but it's finished product class so it really doesn't matter. My assignment was to make a banana cream pie and pots de creme. I have never made pots de creme before which is not a good idea, since I wasn't quite sure how it should taste and I had never tried the recipe. The pots de creme was rather grainy tasting, probably over cooked the custard, although I did it in the bain marie. I topped it with a chantilly cream mixed with cherry preserves....

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Pastry Pro I: Week 11: Finished Product

At 10:00 PM it's hard to get excited about eating cake!I thought today would be fairly simple--make cake with mango lime curd filling and Italian Meringue. I figured I'd even have time to make some other types of cake. After all I had already made two types of cake--"magnificent butter cake" and pound cake. My cakes seemed OK so I started on the mango lime curd. Now I made this at home but for some dumb reason I messed it up at school by adding some simple syrup to the mangos when I pureed them. Then when I mixed the mangos with the lime curd it became too thin and watery. Still tasted very good though. I was successful with the Italian Meringue,...

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Pastry Pro I: Week 10: Finished Product, week 1

Pastries at the end of class--how would you like to sample all of these at 10:30 PM? Apple Peach tart with frangipane and peach coulisChocolate Croissant with chocolate sauceMixed berry turnover with berry creamWe are taking the next three classes to use various components we've made since the beginning of Pastry Pro I. We've made pie dough, tart dough, croissant dough, and various fillings and sauces. We can use the components we've already made or we can start over and make them fresh. If we wanted to we could have made puff pastry or croissant dough and brought it in but I didn't choose to do that. I decided to make blitz or quick puff pastry...

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Pastry Pro I: Week 9: Cakes

Pound cake We had a surprise drill when we came into class. Make a 2 egg omelet--no utensils of course.I was not afraid because I had practiced several times at home and I had actually watched Julia Child's original TV recording of the omelet show. She demonstrates over and over how to make an omelet with nothing but the pan and the movement you create. I mixed my 2 eggs with a little kosher salt and water, added clarified butter to the pan and heated it. It looked hot enough so I poured in the eggs and they immediately stuck to the pan! Chef Sively took the spatula and lifted the edges for me (thanks!) and then I recovered and made the omelet...

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Pastry Pro I: Week 8: Fillings and Sauces

I really enjoyed this class. Chef Loy lectured briefly about fillings, going over the differences between high and low pectic fruits, encouraging us to use a minimum amount of sugar so the fruit can be tasted. Fruit fillings need to have some starch so the rule is to use 1 1/2 tsp of starch per cup of fruit. Nutmeg goes with berries, cinnamon for apples, and cloves for peaches and apricots. Ginger goes with anything (but don't use too much). One thing he mentioned that I never really thought about was mixing 2 fruits to keep from being boring/ordinary. Mix 1 apple into a peach pie, or use 3 types of berries instead of 1.My cooking partner Kristin and I had the following assignments:Kristin:tart glazecaramel saucelime chiffonbaked fruit fillingI had:dark chocolate syrupfrangipanefruit coulisblueberry...

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Pastry Pro I: Week 7: Custards

A custard is anything thickened by the coagulation of egg proteins. Custards can be stirred or baked. Stirred custards are cooked on the stove top and must be stirred throughout cooking to stabilize the eggs and prevent curdling (overcooking). Think of the filling for a cocount cream pie, made with pastry cream. Pastry cream is a custard. Another common custard in creme anglaise (vanilla custard sauce). Now I have some experience making custards. I have made successful creme brulee, panna cotta, and recently a very good coconut cream pie so I went into this class with confidence. How hard could it be to make some custards after all? Chef Loy...

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Pastry Pro 1: Week 6: Laminated Doughs

Chef LoyThe thing I love about culinary school is learning new things and then seeing the finishedproduct. Other than cakes, which I bake for my family and friends, and holiday cookies, the occasional dinner rolls, quick breads, and cookies, I have stayed away from baking due to time constraints and the constant worry about weight gain. After working all day I hardly have time to make dinner let alone bake something. And then of course, the fact that it doesn't take too many pieces of any baked good to add on the pounds. I typically buy a loaf of multi-grain bread from Artisan Baking Company and enjoy a slice each morning. I would love to go...

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