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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