Chef Pro II: Week 3: Flavors and Flavorings

I know this doesn't look very appetizing but the point I wanted to make with the photo is to show the wide array of foods we tried in this class, and this isn't even all of it. We are working hard on developing our palates and learning to recognize and use a variety of herbs, spices, nuts, oils, vinegars and condiments. We also conducted an experiment that demonstrated how cooking methods alter the flavors of food. Each person was assigned a different way to prepare raw onions. We all sampled each type of onion and here are my observations:

Raw onion: pungent, strong, stings

Raw onion soaked in water for 15 min: milder, less of a sting than raw

Raw onion soaked in apple cider vinegar: nice flavor, would taste great with a bowl of pinto beans and cornbread!

Steamed onion: very little flavor left

Sauteed in vegetable oil: sweeter but bland

Sauteed in olive oil: more flavorful

Sauteed in sesame oil: very sweet, nutty

Caramelized: sweeter, soft

Roasted (diced): dry, burnt flavor

Roasted whole: soft, sweet

Smoked: very flavorful, woody taste, would be great in salsa

I learned that soaking raw onion in water is an effective way to tone down the taste a bit.

I also like the idea of smoking onions and will try that myself in the electric smoker I have.

The next assignment was for each person to create a dry spice blend or paste to use on chicken, potato, and zuchinni. We were told to go out of our comfort zone and create a spice blend with ingredients we don't usually use. No safe cumin, cayenne, paprika, garlic, salt, and pepper Bobby Flay rub tonight. I decided to use some Asian ingredients and create a paste, something I have not done before. I chose the following ingredients:

Lemongrass, basil, cilantro, lime leaf, sesame, jalapeno powder, ginger, salt, and green peppercorns.

I roasted some chicken generously coated with the paste and also deep-fried chicken coasted with the paste. I also coated cubes of potatoes with it and sauteed them, coated zuchinni with it and sauteed it as well.

We also had to make a rice pilaf as a group. This pilaf had to have spices and ingredients we don't usually use. We toasted cumin and sage, sauteed the rice and onions, added chopped fresh tomatoes, sauteed poblano peppers, dried oranges, and fresh apples. Our pilaf was initially a little dry so water was added which made it too wet. Overall it was not very good and that's putting it mildly...

We all sat together a a big table and passed around the various spice blends and pastes to try alone, on the chicken, on the potato, and on the zucchini. It was fascinating to discover how the blends changed. Some tasted good to horrible by itself and then when applied to chicken had little taste or tasted pretty good. Some tasted bland on chicken but flavorful on shrimp.

Some spices did not balance well together--anise and caraway, and some were overpowering.

We noted that the spice blends tasted stronger on the potatoes and zuchinni. It was amazing that the flavors changed on both the potatoes and zuchinni, sometimes in a positive way and sometimes not so positive. We tasted a LOT of strange flavors, but it was a great learning experience. My own spice blend actually tasted pretty good on the chicken, although I think the ground up lime leaf made it a bit too strong. The other flavors, particularly the basil, cilantro and lemongrass tasted really good on the chicken. I am anxious to experiment with spices, herbs, infused oils and vinegars instead of relying on the usual combinations.

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Chef Pro II: Week 2: Garde Manger 2

Week #2 of garde manger. We started out the class by tasting 42 different herbs and spices and attempting to identify them. This is not easy to do. Next week we'll have to not only recognize them but also be able to describe them, i.e., sweet, bitter, pungent, woody, etc. After an interesting lecture on tea sandwiches and appetizers we broke into groups to start preparing our assigned dishes. I can't even remember the last time I made a tea sandwich but it's been years. We had a long list to prepare in groups of 3 at 4 tables. Each group was responsible for making a type of sandwich and then we would each create a platter of the different sandwiches. We also made chorizo puffs, corn cakes and our own creation with either fillo dough or puff pastry. Our group, Lisa, Eric and I, made the deviled ham sandwiches. We had to first make mayonaise for the class. It sure takes a lot long to make mayonaise than you would think, and Eric did an excellent job. My one good idea of the night was to make our deviled ham sandwich have a southwestern influence. I added cilantro, roasted poblano pepper, cumin, and cayenne, cut the bread into rounds, then rolled the edges, after brushing them with soft butter, into finely chopped cilantro. Our platter of tea sandwiches was so-so. The tomato flower and cucumber fans were unnecessary and we didn't spread our egg salad filling out to the edges of the bread (details get us every time). Chef Sively did, however, really like the deviled ham sandwich. Score! We learned that curry flavored egg salad does not go too well with pumpernickel bread. Our other dishes were good, although we slightly undercooked the chorizo puffs. We used pate a choux pastry for the chorizo puffs. This is the same dough used for cream puffs and it's a little tricky to make and cook, however I now know how it should feel when it's done--light and airy, not heavy like ours. The corn cakes were a little overdone but tasty. The biggest criticism of the night was our failure as a class to worker smarter and save time. We could have pooled our efforts to make all the choux pastry dough, and we could have worked together to creat a big bunch of puff pastry bases for everyone to share to save time. We were all assigned to create our own puff pastry or fillo appetizer but it took so much time to make all the other things most of us didn't get our individual creation done in time. Mine was very simple, cheddar parmesan twists, but lacked any special flair. I was struggling to get anything done by the time I made them. My area was a big mess and we were still trying to get group stuff done.

There is much more to culinary school than simply cooking!

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Chef Pro II: Week 1: Garde Manger

Chef Pro II is the second course of the four courses required for a culinary diploma. Chef Pro II is 14 weeks long and covers areas such as Garde Manger, Flavors and Flavorings, International Cuisines, American Regional Cuisines, Advanced Sauces, Healthy Cooking and Seafood.
Going back to school after a month long break was rather hectic, to say the least. My class in from 5:30-10:30 on a week night now. I get up at 5:30, work 7:30-4:00, then head off to culinary school. For the first couple weeks we are studying "Garde Manger". Literally it means, "keeper of the food" but more commonly today it means the taks of preparing and presenting cold foods. Think salads, hors d'oeuvres, cold soups, aspics, and charcuterie. We learned that the flavor of food diminishes when it is served cold so we will have to pay close attention to the seasonings and actually taste the food at the serving temperature, not just the temperature at which it is prepared. The lecture by Chef Kurima detailed the various elements of garde manger and she showed slides of various salads and sandwiches. I now know the difference between a composed salad, tossed salad, and side salad. We also drew the names of countries and regions we would be studying in the coming weeks, drawing names we would be responsible for presenting. I drew Northern Italy, Austria, Singapore, Connecticut, and Louisiana. Singapore isn't so bad. I actually prepared Singapore Chicken and Rice recently after seeing an Anthony Bourdain episode on it. Italy is easy, Austria not too bad, and Louisiana is a cinch, but Connecticut??? What do they eat there? I don't have a clue.

For the night's assignment we were divided into groups of 3 and given a list of dishes to prepare:
Plated Salad Nicoise, Plated Caesar Salad, Plated Reuben Sandwich with side, Plated Club Sandwich with Side, and each group made one of the following: Croque Monsieur, Croque Madame, Monte Cristo, Monte Cristo, Madame variation.
Does this sound like a lot of food to prepare in 2 hours and 45 minutes? Oh, I almost forgot, we also had to prepare our own choice of either sandwich and side or salad.
Somehow we managed to make the food by assigning things to one another we could share as a group. Only one person made the required homemade mayonnaise for all and only one person made the Caesar dressing for all. Still, it was hard to get it all done and we were also out of practice. I felt the kind of panicky, anxious feeling I got last semester for a while. I felt good about the dishes I prepared at the end, though. I made a decent Caesar salad, although I plated it on too small a plate (I should have learned last semester not to let the other students pick out the plates for the group.) I made the homemade potato chips which were OK, not quite crisp enough, but looked nice, and I helped with the Monte Cristo sandwich. My own creation was an herb-egg salad sandwich. I rushed to get it done in time and it was pretty tasty. I am including my favorite recipe of the night, Monte Cristo sandwich:

Makes 2 sandwiches
4 slices bread (white works good)
1/2 oz Dijon mustard
2 slices Gruyere cheese
2 slices ham
2 slices Muenster cheese
soft butter
Spread bread with mustard, layer with slice of Gruyere, ham, and Muenster cheese. Dip the sandwich in beaten eggs and grill in melted butter as you would french toast.
Cut into quarters on the diagnonal and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Melt some raspberry jelly and dip pieces of the sandwich into the jam. Delicious!

On another note, I am including a family recipe I sent to the Star Telegram for an article they are writing called, "Family Ties". They asked for family recipes passed down from generation to generation. In honor of my mother, Tommie Steele, I wrote the following:

Sukiyaki

My mother, Tommie Steele (Tamiko Abe before she married) was from Tokyo, Japan. She came to the United States in 1953 with my father, an American GI. American food in the 50’s was hard to like for my mother who grew up with the freshest fish, vegetables and fruits. My father, Zack Steele, was from Hickory, North Carolina, so my mother’s first exposure to food was fried chicken, vegetables cooked in bacon grease and bread instead of rice. She longed for a bowl of rice. My grandmother made her rice one day and my mother was so excited. The rice was covered with sugar, butter, and milk which made my mother want to cry. My first recollection of Japanese food is the special sukiyaki dinners prepared by my mother. These were special events since the sukiyaki was prepared at the table while we all watched and helped. In Japan, sukiyaki is a family style meal in which meat and vegetables are cooked in a simmering sauce at the table. Each person is given a bowl with beaten, seasoned egg to use as a dipping/cooling sauce as they pick out hot pieces of meat or vegetables from the pan. We always used an electric skillet. When guests came over they were always impressed with the delicious and different meal. I spent four years in Japan in the Air Force and was able to meet my Japanese grandmother, aunt, and cousins for the first time. They cooked a sukiyaki dinner for me one night and it was just like my mother’s! The only difference was the beef cost $40.00 a pound and that was in 1978. I started making sukiyaki for my family when I returned from Japan in 1980 and have been making it ever since. I never thought much about passing it on to my four children until a few years ago when my oldest daughter, Helen Olin, (who happens to be the News Editor at the Houston Chronicle) called me and asked for the recipe. She made it for her family, then friends, and is now known for her special sukiyaki dinners. My granddaughter Grace, when asked what her favorite food was in kindergarten, replied, “sukiyaki” Grace has blond hair and blue eyes and looks nothing like her Japanese obachan (great grandmother) but she loves all things Japanese. I believe Grace will be the next generation cooking sukiyaki just like my grandmother and mother made it for me.
Sukiyaki
Sauce
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup sugar
1 cup water
2 T Mirin
Mix ingredients together and put into a small glass pitcher to be brought to the table.
1 ½ lbs thinly sliced beef (I use rib-eye steak, frozen then sliced very thin)
1 T vegetable oil
1 bunch green onions or 1 large white onion (or both)
1 14 oz block fresh tofu (medium firm)
12 oz. shirataki (remove from package and boil briefly, rinse, and drain)
1 16 oz. can bamboo shoots, sliced
8 oz. fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
Udon noodles (pre boiled to loosen)
4 cups napa cabbage, chopped
Japanese rice, cooked
Place electric skillet or large pan on butane burner in center of table. Give each diner a plate, bowl of rice, a small bowl of pasteurized egg product sprinkled with togarashi (7 spice chili powder) Put oil in hot skillet. Add beef and cook until slightly done, just a minute or two. Put beef in a corner of the skillet and add the other ingredients, keeping them in their separate areas. DO NOT MIX EVERYTHING TOGETHER. Add sauce, enough to barely cover the ingredients and cook for four or five minutes. As things become ready diners use chopsticks to pick out what they like, dipping the items in the egg to cool. Although it’s not the Japanese style, Americans like to spoon sauce from the pan over their rice.
As the pan empties, add more meat, vegetables, sauce.

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New Year's Day dinner

Happy New Year!

I usually make tamales every year around New Year's Day so this year I decided to make them for our dinner. My favorite tamales are Reata Restaurant's tenderloin tamales with pecan mash and sun dried tomato cream sauce. A couple years ago I found their recipe and made their tamales a couple times. I did modify it by using sirloin instead of tenderloin and I changed the pecan mash. The pecan mash is a mixture of pecans, peppers, cilantro and garlic. I make it with very little oil, toast the pecans and hand chop everything instead of processing it with a bunch of olive oil. The sun dried tomato cream sauce is too good to modify and consists of garlic, butter, sun dried tomatoes, cream, and parmesan cheese. I also made the green chile cheese grits. These are grits mixed with butter, eggs, cheese, cilantro, peppers and garlic, then baked in the oven. The combination of sirloin tamales and chile cheese grits was delicious.

For dessert I finally used my Christmas present, a kitchen torch, from Steve. It's a little scary to use but once I got the hang of it everything went fine. The creme brulee was fantastic. My daughter Alexandra told me it was her favorite dessert so I can expect to make it often now.

I made the custard earlier in the day so it had plenty of time to get cold. The brulee part just involved putting sugar on top and then torching it.

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January 2009: Preparing for Chef Pro 2

The next class starts on January 15, 2009. I have been cooking with a new attitude. Recipes as guidelines, not instructions, and trying to develop my own philosophy about cooking and what it means to me. One day I plan to use my culinary school education to work with food, so in the meantime I want to cook with passion and creativity, not copying what others have done.
Whenever I eat something really wonderful I try to figure out how it was made so I can make it for myself and my family or friends. One such dish is tenderloin steak with pepper sauce.
I have been eating at a local restaurant, Cafe Soleil, in Azle, Texas and the chef, Paula Ambrose,
makes fantastic food, including her special tenderloin steak with hash and pepper sauce. I asked her about the sauce and she said it was "just beer and broth with different peppers, depending on what I have". Her restaurant has been closed for the past couple weeks and I've been out of town and she won't open up until January 10, so my craving for the steak with pepper sauce had to be satisfied. I decided to make it for New Year's Eve. I purchased some choice tenderloin steaks at the Naval Base for $10.99 a pound. Being active duty is a big advantage for getting great meats on base! I bought some potatoes, Niman Ranch Chipotle bacon, onions and field greens as well. For the pepper sauce I reduced Shiner Bock beer, (1 bottle) and about 4 cups of beef stock to which I added 2 roasted, peeled and seeded Jalapeno peppers and 2 Serrano peppers, some onion and bacon, and garlic. After this reduced down to about a cup and a half I added some honey, salt and pepper. I cooked it some more and ended up with a very tasty
and rich pepper sauce. I rubbed my steaks with oil, salt & pepper and let them sit out until they were not so cold, put them on my very hot gas grill and cooked them until they were medium for me, medium well for my husband and daughter. I also had pre-cooked, then sauteed the potatoes, onion and bacon to make a hash. I served the steak on top of the hash and pepper sauce with a salad of field greens dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette. My husband said the food was better than what we ate at The Vault last week and better than some steak houses we'd been to where they charge $40.00 or more for a filet not even as big. My five year old granddaughter kept asking for more steak as well. I plan to experiment with this meal and make other steak sauces.
I want to share my favorite vinaigrette recipe with you. I adapted this from The Nest, a wonderful restaurant in Fredericksburg, Texas. I found out the ingredients by asking our server, the owner and wife of the chef, what was in it.
The Nest Vinaigrette
2 tsp dijon mustard
2 T Balsami vinegar
4 T canola oil
4 T Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper
1 shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
Combine mustard, vinegar, garlic, and shallot, slowly add oils until combined.

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Week 14: Final Exam

December 13, 2008


The week we've all been waiting for--final exam. I studied my notes and practiced knife skills every day for a week. I cut an entire 10 pound bag of potatoes, pounds of carrots, and many, many onions to work toward the goal of julienne a potato, brunoise a carrot, and small dice an onion in 5 minutes or less. I was also worried about the cooking part of the final exam. We had been told we would be given chicken to breakdown, roast, grill, saute, fry and stew, as well as rice, macaroni, mushrooms and carrots. The actual final exam day was not so bad after all that worrying. I felt good about the written exam, completed the knife skills in time, and then worked on grilling and stewing chicken. I also made simmered rice. Since I knew in advance we'd be making different types of chicken I had already decided to made a jerk marinade for the grilled chicken and a Japanese style curry for the stewing. Both dishes were good, although my curry sauce was a little "flat" according to Chef Sively.


Ray's roasted chicken breast was terrific as were his fried chicken wings, which he added some sesame seeds to the breading--a nice touch.

I am including my Japanese Curry recipe because I love it and it reminds me of my Japanese mother, Tommie Steele, a fantastic cook who inspired me to make Japanese food and keep the tradition alive. My daughter, Helen, is also honoring her grandmother by making our family favorites for her family. She recently made a Sukiyaki dinner for her family and friends.

Japanese Curry

3 cups chicken stock

1 T canola oil

1 lb chicken, cut into 1" chunks (thighs are preferred)

salt and freshly ground pepper

3 T butter

1 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger

1 med onion, 1/2 finely diced, 1/2 cut into 1" pieces

1 clove garlic

3 T flour

2 T S & B brand curry powder

2 T crushed tomatoes

1 bay leaf

1 carrot, cut into 1/2 " rounds

1 med potato, cut into 1" chunks

1 fuji apple, peeled and shredded

1 tsp honey

1 T soy sauce

Bring chicken stock to simmer. Heat oil in large skillet. Season chicken with salt and pepper and brown chicken. Remove and add butter to pan. Add ginger, onions, garlic and cook, scraping up brown bits (about 3-4 minutes) Add flour, cook 2 more minutes, then add curry powder and tomatoes. Add 1/2 cup hot stock and whisk to combine. Whisk this mixture into pot of simmering stock, then add chicken, onion pieces, carrots, potatoes, and bay leaf. Bring to boil, reduce heat to medium-low, simmer until vegetables are tender, 30 minutes.

Add the apples, honey, soy sauce, and salt to taste. Cook 5 more minutes.

Serve with Japanese short-grain rice.

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Sunday Brunch: Internship hours

December 7, 2008
Part of the requirement for cooking school is to complete approximately 24 hours of internship at the school. The Sunday brunches, held the first and third Sundays of each month, are the typical way to meet this requirement. I had already worked two events so this was the final one for me. I arrived at 7:00 AM for the 8 hour day. I was given a variety of assignments from slicing bread to dicing fruits and vegetables, slicing and cooking potatoes, cooking bacon, and cracking lots of eggs for omelets. By 10:00 assignments were given out and I was assigned to the "front". The internship consists of working both in the kitchen and in the "front", the dining room. Working in the dining room gives the culinary student an idea of how diners receive their food and the importance of temperature, plate presentation, and timing. Working with the line and waiting on the customers is a real education for a future chef. I understand the rationale, but still felt a little strange waiting on tables. You see, I once worked as a waitress in my parents' restaurant, Mr. Ed's, in Seaside, California, 1971-74. I also worked at Denny's and the Officer's Club at Reese Air Force Base, Texas. These jobs inspired me to get college degrees! I did not want to wait tables ever again, so here I found my mature self smiling and greeting customers and pouring water and tea. It was what you might call a humbling experience. The customers realize we are all chefs in training so they are mostly good sports, however I did get a little testy inside when one man made a comment about being sure to keep his ice tea full. It reminded me of all those customers at Denny's demanding more coffee years ago, a PTSD flashback (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). All was well and I managed to get through the brunch service without tripping and spilling food. There was a record number of customers that day, around 80, and the clean up was hard. That's another part of this experience--cleaning up, doing dishes, sweeping and mopping floors. To think, I paid $2800.00 to sweat in a hot kitchen, wash and dry dishes, and do floors. Well, no one twisted my arm to enroll in this school and I'll have to admit I have learned a lot and enjoyed it for the most part. (I will never enjoy the clean-up)

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Week 13: Mystery Basket

December 6, 2008

The dreaded "Mystery Basket" class. Imagine your own personal Iron Chef experience, except you don't have a list of possible ingredients ahead of time and six months to prepare. Seriously,

I recently read in the new Food Network Magazine that six months before taping begins, producers picked a season's worth of secret ingredients and issued the Iron Chefs and their challengers three potential choices for each battle--the contenders discover which of the three is the final ingredient while the cameras roll. Many chefs, including the Iron Chefs, practice beforehand, preparing for any possible scenario.

We were told that anything we've cooked the previous 12 weeks of class could end up in the mystery basket so it was hard to narrow it down. I imagined a basket of kohlrabi, kale, celery root, jicima, and millet and who knew what "proteins" we'd get. I tried to prepare by studying recipes and copying numerous recipes into my little spiral notebook. We had been allowed to use our textbook to look for recipes in previous classes so I thought I would just have a selection of recipes at hand. I spent quite a bit of time typing recipes, cutting and pasting them into my little notebook, thinking I was going to be prepared for anything.

I don't know why this particular class was so nerve-wracking, but it was, and I was not alone. My classmates were all worried as well.

After being given the rules and instructions for the class (basically, make anything with our basket of ingredients, at least 4 or 5 dishes, and use anything in the par stock unless labeled for another use) we were allowed to go into the kitchen and see our basket.

I worked with my usual partners, Robert and Ray. We looked over our items:

Pork, chicken legs, fish fillet, purple potatoes, asparagus, spinach, zuchinni, leeks, eggs, apple, and quinoa. Yikes! The dreaded quinoa--no one wanted that. Ray selected pork, potatoes, asparagus, and apple and Robert selected fish. I took the chicken legs, egg, leeks, zuchinni and quinoa. Moment of panic!! What was I going to do with the ingredients? I made roasted chicken legs marinated in a Mediterranean style marinade of garlic, olive oil, oregano, salt & pepper. I would use the quinoa as a side dish, maybe a salad. I decided to make a frittata with roasted vegetables including the asparagus, zuchinni, and leeks. I found a recipe for a quinoa salad in my notebook and started making it. Chef Sively glanced at my notebook and asked me about it. I explained and she remarked that rather than using "recipes" we should be at a point when we were beyond relying on recipes and should be making things on our own. So much for the permission to use our books or the Internet we had gotten in previous classes I thought.

Now that I'm writing this entry a month later I realize her remarks were life changing for me.

I have since stopped being so stuck on using recipes! Heck, I've been cooking since I was a child of 12. My mother worked at night so I started making dinner for my father, brother, and myself at 12. Ok, so I made things like "shake and bake", canned vegetables, and instant mashed potatoes, but I was still in there cooking, so it's been 42 years of cooking. Surely I don't have to have written instructions to make a decent dish or do I? I am realizing that my own repertoire is sadly limited since I have been cookbook and Internet dependent for the past several years.

I'm always running to the Internet to get the recipe from Bobby Flay or a Top Chef contestant.

Since the Mystery Basket class I have changed my thinking and have begun to think in terms of using the knowledge I already possess instead of being dependent on the written instructions of others. I am still collecting recipes but trying not to worry so much about the exact ingredients, more like using them for guidelines.

Back to Mystery Basket class:

We were allowed to present the dishes as they were ready. My dishes were not so great.

The chicken legs were fine, could have been cooked a little more but my quinoa pilaf was way too oily. This is a good example of not relying on my own knowledge. I had glanced at a recipe for quinoa salad and used the recipe's instructions which called for a lot of oil. Had I just thought about it I would have used a much smaller amount for better taste.

Robert's fish and risotto got good remarks for taste but the raw cabbage was deemed inedible.

Ray's pork, potatoes, and asparagus were all good. I believe he garnished them with apple and was told it should have been on the side instead of on top of the food.

We got some bonus points for making extra dishes such as an apple waffle. (Ray's idea)

I don't even want to talk about my frittata. It was another example of not using my own instincts. In a nutshell, it was overdone but I was trying to get it to look like the fritatta I made for a cooking school event which was a very rich golden brown. I should have taken it out a lot sooner and knew it.

Overall, the best part of Mystery Basket was surviving it and learning not to be dependent on recipes.

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Week 12: Wine Class

December 1, 2008

Our instructor for the wine class was Jon Bonnell, of the nationally acclaimed Bonnell's Restaurant. Bonnell's has won the "Award of Excellence" from Wine Spectator the past four years and was rated one of the Top 10 DFW metroplex restaurants by the 2006 Zagat Survey. Jon Bonnell has been on local and national TV shows in recent years and is a big local celebrity chef so it was a true honor to have him teach our class. I have been to Bonnell's Restaurant several times and the food is out of this world. Recently my staff at the federal prison took me there for lunch on Bosses Day and my husband and I had dinner there in November.

On the to wine class:

We heard a very detailed and informative lecture on viticulture (growing the grapes) and viniculture (process of making the wine). I learned about the difference between Old World and New World wines and how the labels of wines from Europe are always the name of the place, not the grape, as in New World wines. We were taught how to properly taste the wine, with a funny clip from the movie Sideways

where the character, Miles, demonstrates the proper way to sample the wine by examining the color, putting his nose into the glass, etc. It was fascinating to me to finally learn what one is supposed to be looking for when tasting wine and the differences in taste between wine aged in oak vs. no oak. I was able to discern the difference between the earthy taste of Old World wine and the fruity taste of California wines and how wines can compliment food.

We tasted around 23 different wines, some from Jon Bonnell's personal collection, ranging from a common Blackstone Merlot ($10.00) to an ultra premium Kissler Chardonnay from Napa Valley ($120.00 on his wine list). He also demonstrated how pairing wine with food could be a disaster if done improperly. We tasted a piece of smoked salmon with a French Pouilly Frusse. The oily fish with the mineral taste of the wine was nasty! However, I thoroughly enjoyed tasting the Napa Papillion Cabernet Sauvignon 05 with the plates of crackers and cheeses we were liberally tasting throughout the evening. I tasted wines I had never paid much attention to before, such as a Syrah, which I really like. We ended the evening with samples of a really good Tawny Port, very flavorful, and another new taste for me.

Robert, one of the students, was really enjoying his tasting experience as you can see. We were supposed to be tasting and "spitting" but I'm not sure he followed the instructions.

I realized there is so much to learn about wine. I vowed to start paying more attention to wine and decided to look for a wine cooler so I can keep the red wines at the proper temperature, rather than sitting in a box on the floor of my pantry. I also subscribed to Wine and Food magazine recently so maybe I can pick up a few tips from there. I have also started paying more attention to wine lists and the wine selection at Central Market. Recently my husband picked up a selection of wines based on some wines I enjoyed by the glass at restaurants such as Ruth's Chris, Stephen Pyles', and Lonesome Dove. Those include: Napa Valley Rutherford Hill, Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 and Napa Valley Veraison Cabernet Sauvignon 2004. We also have several bottles of my long time favorite, Becker Iconoclast Cabernet 2006, from the Becker Vineyard in Fredericksburg, Texas. We go there a couple times a year and stock up on their wines.

Photo from our November dinner at Bonnell's, a bone-in tenderloin. Delicious!

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