Finished Products

I don't have much time to write, because I am officially on winter break (!!!) and about to catch a flight. But I wanted to make sure that I wrapped up my Garde Manger experience and posted some pictures of the beautiful plates we presented in the last few days. The assortment of dishes above was the end result of our group practical yesterday. Our team of five was presented with a mystery basket of ingredients and from them, we had to make five plates: one cold soup, one salad with emulsified dressing, two appetizers, and one mousseline. I made the mousseline for my group (it's the sushi-looking thing on the green plate) with shrimp, scallops, and tilapia and an interior garnish of bay scallops. My mom hit the nail right on the head when I told her about making mousselines: "That's just fancy gefilte fish." Tastes like it, too!


This is the first of our aspic-lined platters from Monday, with our pate en croute and sauce cups (made of cucumber) filled with the cranberry-ginger chutney that I made. Aspic is just gelatin and water, and you can make different colors using natural dyes--we used spinach for the green and beets for the red. When it sets, you can make designs and fill them with other colors. See our lovely snowflakes? We printed them out, stenciled the design on the green aspic with an exacto knife, cut them out, and filled in with white aspic (made with Bechamel sauce). Very tedious work!

Our second platter, with sliced mousseline and sauce cups (made of carrot) with mango-and-mint salsa. I don't know who actually spends the time making aspic-lined platters anymore, but it was a lot of fun to play with (even for the totally non-artistic like myself).

Not as glamorous a shot, but here's our pate de campagne (in front), the country-style pate made with liver and garnished with pistachios and dried fruit. In the background is our chicken galantine, a chicken forcemeat rolled in chicken breast and chicken skin and poached. Not my favorite--it was really dry. The rest of our pates and terrines were quite delicious, though...classmates who had never tried any of this stuff before and were a little hesitant at first were soon coming back for more.

I'll be back after the break to report on Intro to Baking and Pastry. Very, very excited about this next rotation! But in the meantime, I'm excited for some time off and trips to New Orleans, Costa Rica, and Miami. Happy holidays!

Getting Fancy

In this final week of Garde Manger 1, we've moved into elegant, high-end French cold food preparations: terrines, pâtés, mousselines, etc. We're finished with what Chef B. (American) calls "every day garde manger", the soups and sandwiches and pickles and platters.

I had a great time on platter day--I was thrilled when our group was assigned the fruit platter. I love fruit and have been known to do some serious damage to a fruit platter, especially at my Grandma's house with the help of my cousin Jenna. Grandma always has AT LEAST some cut-up melon with toothpicks on hand when we come to visit. Anyway...the whole point of these platters was presentation, and we needed to go a bit beyond melon chunks with toothpicks. I learned how to properly cut and core a pineapple and made uniform moon-shaped slices; then I did the same for cantaloupe and honeydew. I made the bottom of the pineapple into a bowl for our blackberry-yogurt dip. An artistic member of my group even made the watermelon into a swan! And of course, this was the one day that I forgot to bring my camera to school. Typical.

Now, after I've been through three days of forcemeats and charcuterie, I miss fruit platter day. But it has been really interesting. The meat grinders have been in constant use: first for sausages, then chicken gallantines (poached) and dodines (roasted), then shrimp-scallop-tilapia mousselines (my favorite).

Today, we took our leftover chicken-and-pork forcemeat from galantine/dodine day and mixed it with raw liver to make pâté de campagne, or country-style coarse pâté (the kind we're most used to seeing in restaurants). We also made a short dough to fill with forcemeat for the king of all pâté: pâté en croûte, which is baked in a pastry crust. There are a million steps to this process and I have to say that I felt pretty accomplished when they came out of the oven looking beautiful (ours is the first one on the left):


We left them to cool overnight and we'll add gelée (another step!?!) and then slice and taste tomorrow. I was amazed when the chefs explained why this time-and-labor-intensive process is worth it: you can typically sell a whole pâté en croûte for $1,000! Forget journalism...maybe I should go into charcuterie.

Insights from a French Chef

I find the French Chef B. so hysterical and lovable that I've actually started jotting down the funny things he says in my notebook, right alongside my notes for how to make cheese or pickle cucumbers. Some of his comments are so classic "French chef", straight out of a movie.

A few snapshots of his daily musings in class . . .

During our tasting on Cheese Day, the chefs arranged this spread of various cheeses for us to taste, compare, and discuss. French Chef B. holds up the log of fresh goat cheese. "Zees is really bland. Zees doesn't turn me on very much." He proceeds to tell us that fresh cheeses need the addition of herbs and spices for extra flavor, so he rolled the second log in chopped fresh herbs (a you can see above). He moves on to the soft-rind cheeses. "Zees is a crappy Brie. Anything that comes in a can, be suspicious." Takes a bite of the Camembert. "Mmm. Zees, zees is just like eating butter. A piece of cheese and a glass of wine, now zat is good living."

On Sandwich Day, we made Reubens with brisket we had cured earlier. "Zees is a very fatty cut of meat," French Chef B. explains while trimming a whole lot of fat off of the briskets. "Now, fat is good. You'll die from it eventually, but in the meantime, enjoy it!" He cuts off a piece (of meat, not pure fat!) and eats it.

Our sandwich platter: Reuben on the left, portobello on focaccia on the right, club in the middle, egg salad tea sandwiches up front

He moves on to the vegetarian sandwich we'll be making with portobello mushroom. "Portobello mushroom is an invention! Do you know zees? I never heard of portobello mushroom until I came to United States. It's just an enlarged cremini mushroom, you know? But you can make a lot of money off of zees thing!"

Today he cooked a big pot of delicious lentils to go with the duck confit we had made. "We eat lots of zees in Europe. Lentils are very healthy for you, you know? But I cook them with bacon. We French always use bacon. I guess it is a good thing I am not Jewish, I could never live without bacon." Don't worry Chef, some Jews couldn't live without bacon either--like Zack!

More of the food I've been making with the help of French Chef B.'s many words of wisdom. . .

On sandwich day, we also made cold soups. This cantaloupe soup that I made was nice and refreshing, but I kind of felt like it belonged in a smoothie cup instead of a soup bowl.

Today, we made our own pickles--and that doesn't just mean pickled cucumbers. My traditional sweet-and-sour pickle chips are on the left; pickled pineapple with dried cherries, dried cranberries, and mint on the right. We'll taste them once they've pickled a few days...stay tuned.

A Salad Buffet

My class's salad spread on Day 2, including garden pasta salad, Ceasar, Cobb, and shrimp-artichoke-orzo salad

So far, I'm a huge fan of Garde Manger. I'm only two days in, but it's really kind of nice to--literally--get away from the heat for three weeks. However, it would be misleading to say that we don't use ovens and burners at all in this class. We have used them for components of cold dishes--like bacon for the Cobb salad that we made today--but we're no longer hovering over them for four hours each day.

I have two chefs in this class, and my referring to them by initials in this blog now poses a problem: they're both Chef B.'s. There's the American Chef B. and the French Chef B.--the first real French chef I've had so far at Le Cordon Bleu. I love his accent and he's absolutely hilarious, always commenting about the eating habits of Americans, but never in a snooty way. "Don't go home and eat some Hot Pocket," he said as we left on the first day. "Go home and buy a whole chicken! Practice! Practice!"

On Day 1, we started out with vinaigrettes. I made a really yummy basil vinaigrette that I wished I could bottle and take home. Then, we experimented with infused oils. You see them on restaurant menus all the time--chive oil, garlic oil, chili oil--and I never realized how ridiculously easy they are to make. I heated up some oil and added basil and lemon zest, then pureed and strained it. The result was a vivid green lemon-basil oil!

My lemon-basil oil infusing

Today, we moved on to salads, using some of our vinaigrettes from yesterday to dress them and also learning some new dressings. We learned how to make a classic Ceasar, the most popular salad in America. I had a huge Ceasar salad phase around sixth grade when it was the only thing I would order in restaurants, but since then I haven't been so into them--quite possibly due to the insane amount of Ceasar salad that I consumed during that period. This from-scratch version gave me a new appreciation for an old friend. Our anchovy-spiked, garlicky dressing had great flavor--just a light coating was perfect on crisp leaves of romaine. We also made our own garlic croutons with leftover bread from the Baking & Pastry class across the hall.

I was responsible for the pasta salad for my group. The "Garden Pasta Salad" recipe we were to follow called for half a dozen different vegetables, giving me a great opportunity to brush up on my knife skills, which I've kind of neglected since Skills 1. The chefs told us that all of the vegetables should be cut to about the same size. I thought small dice would work nicely with the bow-tie pasta. I blanched my haricot vert, carrots, zucchini, tomato, and red pepper, then diced everything up. It looked like colorful confetti. Then I chopped some black olives to roughly the same size and minced a bunch of basil. All of this, plus the pasta of course, was tossed with the basil vinaigrette that I made yesterday. It turned out really tasty and refreshing and colorful--a breath of fresh air from all the butter and sauces and meat from Skills 2.

Pasta salad up close

Sauce Fest

Over the holiday weekend in Las Vegas, my family didn't do much gambling, but we certainly did a lot of eating. As I perused the menus of some of the country's most famous chefs, it was pretty exciting to spot several sauces that I now know how to make. Before culinary school, I didn't have even a vague idea of the ingredients in a Soubise or Mornay or Chasseur sauce. I found myself wondering what I used to do when I saw those terms on a menu...I probably asked the server to describe the unfamiliar sauce. On Sunday at brunch, I was able to inform my sister that the Mornay poured over her decadent croque madame at Thomas Keller's Bouchon was a Bechamel sauce derivative with gruyere and parmesan cheeses, and proudly added that I'd made it just the week before.

It was very fitting that I returned to school--still very full--on Monday morning to take my sauce practical. We had two hours to prepare two sauces assigned by the chefs, with no recipes. They could be any of the mother sauces or derivatives that we've learned in Skills 2. That's about 20 sauces total--a lot of recipes for me to study on the plane ride home. Fortunately, it was a pretty long trip back to Atlanta.

I was assigned Tomato sauce and Supreme sauce. Sure, I've made tomato sauce many times at home, but this is classical Tomato sauce. The kind made with diced salt pork. Still, it's a pretty straightforward sauce: render the salt pork, then cook finely diced carrots and onions in its fat. Add whole canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and a sachet. Bring to a boil, then cut to a simmer for at least an hour and a half.

My only problem was that I got it started too late. We only had two hours total, and first I had to gather and prep all of my mise en place for both sauces. Then, for some reason, I started my Supreme first instead of getting the Tomato sauce on right away so it could have simmered longer.

For the Supreme, I had to first make its mother sauce, a chicken Veloute. This begins with a blond roux, so I clarified some butter and added flour to it until I had the perfect peanut-buttery roux texture. It should look pretty much exactly like creamy PB--but don't be fooled. It tastes like starchy butter.

Once the roux cooked for a few minutes, I whisked it into hot chicken stock. For Supreme, you add heavy cream and lemon juice to the basic chicken Veloute, then monter au beurre, then season with salt and white pepper (so pepper flakes don't show up in the light-colored sauce). This one turned out perfect except that the chefs said that I added a little too much white pepper.

Today was our last day of Skills 2, which involved a final written test and a thorough deep-cleaning of the kitchen. Taking apart and scrubbing the stoves and washing every pot and pan= fun times! Tomorrow I'm on to Intro to Garde Manger. This is a classical term for cold foods: we'll be learning to make everything from salads to pates and terrines. I even spied some tasty-looking sushi on a few students' plates as I passed the current Garde Manger class presenting food for their practical. Sushi fiend that I am, I'm pretty psyched.

Rack of Lamb, Zucchini, Arborio Rice

The first part of our Skills 2 practical took place this morning before everyone took off for Thanksgiving. We were given a mystery basket with a protein, starch, and vegetable, and had two hours to serve a complete plate to the chefs, cooking each item using any of the techniques we've learned in class. My basket included the ingredients of the plate above, in raw form: a rack of lamb, a zucchini, and a bag of arborio rice.

When Chef D. gave me the rack of lamb, she laughed. Yesterday, our groups worked with lamb for the first time and the chefs gave a quick demo on how to French a rack--i.e. make it look all pretty with clean bones sticking up. I asked her nervously if we'd have to break down the racks ourselves if we got lamb in the mystery basket, just picturing the hacked-up lamb I'd present if I was unlucky enough to be assigned it. All of the other possible proteins were items I'm much more comfortable working with: chicken, salmon, shrimp, veal, even pork--I'd pound that out and sauté it just like chicken or veal.

I've never cooked lamb before in my life (though I do like to eat it) and Chef's expert lamb-fabricating demo only intimidated me more. She said that there would be whole, untrimmed racks in the mystery baskets, but that we'd be able to get help from the chefs on cleaning them up. Besides that, there are no questions or recipes allowed during the practical. After that discussion, I should have known she'd give me the lamb!

Beforehand, the chefs stressed that this test was not about wowing them with elaborate dishes. They wanted us to keep it simple and show that we understood basic cooking techniques. However, we were allowed to use anything in the kitchen in addition to the items in our mystery basket (except, of course, another protein).

I decided to grill my zucchini, simply tossing it in olive oil and seasoning with salt, pepper, and herbs. For the arborio, there was pretty much one choice: risotto. This was something else I'd never made before starting culinary school, and another group member made it on the day we learned the technique in class, so I'd really only seen it demoed. The other night, I decided to make some risotto at home to practice, just in case it ended up in my basket. Good decision!

At home, I made a big pot of risotto following the recipe from class, then added cut-up sautéed asparagus and pulled chicken to make it a more complete meal. Anyone who follows this blog knows how much I love one-pot meals! For the practical, I went with straightforward parmesan risotto. My at-home version was healthier--I didn't finish with heavy cream and butter at the end--but I knew better than to leave these out on the test! Chefs looove butter.

As for the lamb...after Chef gave me a few pointers on trimming the rack, I got it to the point where it looked pretty decent. I seared it in a little bit of oil to brown on both sides and let it rest. Then, into the oven to roast. This is the part that worried me. I'd hoped for a protein that I could sauté, because it's a quick cooking method and you can pretty much tell if the food is done just by looking. With the ovens at school, people are constantly opening and closing them to check on/put in/take out their food and letting heat escape, so timing is never precise. You have to take temperature to check for doneness, and I just don't trust the little thermometers in our kit, no matter how many times I calibrate mine.

Lamb is supposed to be about 140 degrees for medium rare, and I took mine out when it had finally reached this temp. However, after letting it rest, it wasn't as rosy pink as I wanted when I cut the rack into two chops. I knew this wouldn't get past the chefs. Sure enough, in their evaluation of my dish, they noted that the lamb was a little overcooked. Still, they said it was tender and had good flavor. Sweet! To go with it, I made a port wine reduction with shallots, a sprig of rosemary, black peppercorns, and a couple of cloves. This is the easiest sauce ever: just throw all of this in a small pot, turn on the heat and let it reduce. Take it off the heat, swirl in some butter and you're done--and the chefs thought it was great.

I was too rushed to snap a picture of my plate before it went out to the chefs (I almost wrote judges...I am watching way too much Top Chef!) but I was able to get this shot after they'd tasted. They didn't eat much from each plate, since they had to grade about 20, so I just moved the picked-over food out of view! I tried the second chop and although I too like my lamb more rare, I thought it tasted quite delicious. Probably in part because I was so relieved and proud of myself for surviving my first mystery basket with no disasters.

Unfortunately, I won't be at home cooking Thanksgiving dinner for my family tomorrow--hopefully next year, Mom! I'm off to Las Vegas for our unconventional Thanksgiving celebration in honor of my Grandma Lila's 75th birthday. It'll be kind of nice to have a break from the kitchen and to take advantage of one of Vegas's biggest draws, at least for me: the restaurants. We've got a star-studded lineup of meals planned, with visits to the Vegas outposts of Mario Batali, Wolfgang Puck, and Thomas Keller.

It seems that every celebrity chef has tapped into the Vegas scene--but more importantly, a couple have also set up shop here in Atlanta! Last week, I had the awesome opportunity to interview Jean-Georges Vongerichten for Atlanta Magazine. And I've got another cool one coming up, so stay tuned.

When I interview chefs now, I think of the aspiring chefs in my class. There are a few really talented kids who I know I'll have to watch out for as I continue with my food writing career. Who knows...one of my classmates could be up there with those guys one day.

Soup Day, Egg Day, Fry Day

I'm loving these themed days in our Skills 2 kitchen. Focusing on one cooking technique for the full five hours--lecture, demo, then production--helps you really start to get it.

It's getting cold here in Atlanta, especially at 6:30 am, when I crank up the heat in my car on the way to school. So, soup day on Wednesday was much anticipated. Our group had to turn out four different soups, and again I made the one I was craving the most: white bean soup.

Naturally, the recipe started with bacon, which I rendered in the soup pot. I then added onions, leeks, and garlic and sweated them in the fat from the bacon, along with the crispy bits. Then, in went the white beans (soaked overnight), a bay leaf, a few sprigs of thyme, and chicken stock. Now all I had to do was let it simmer until the beans were tender and (after removing the bay leaf and thyme sprigs) puree the whole pot with an immersion blender, which may just be my favorite kitchen tool ever. It's a stick blender that purees things right in the pot. I am dying to get one so I no longer have to transfer soups from the pot to the blender at home (alright, fine, I've only done this once, when I made tortilla soup...but I now plan on making many more soups after everything I learned on soup day!)

White Bean soup simmering

I am a huge fan of white beans, but I have to say, the bacon stole the show here. Just a couple of slices rendered in the pot really provided the foundation for this soup, infusing the whole pot with a great smoky flavor. The texture was awesome, just thick enough. It would be really pretty with a small garnish of crispy bacon bits on top.

The four soups that my group presented (clockwise from front): Potage Garbure (a hearty beef-and-potato soup), White Bean, Broccoli and Cheddar, and Consomme

Thursday morning, we arrived ready to make breakfast--lots and lots of it. Chef D. demoed how to cook eggs in every which way: scrambled, sunny side up, over easy, over medium, poached, American omelet, French omelet. Apparently, Americans like their eggs way overcooked. And since Le Cordon Bleu is a French program and we are learning French classical cuisine, we would be doing things the French way. That means NO color on the eggs, whatsoever. I personally favor a little golden brown on my omelets, but I got over it. The proper way to scramble eggs is also a lot creamier than most of us are used to. A French omelet is basically soft-scrambled eggs, folded into a football-ish shape.

We had to present each egg technique to the chefs as we made them, which was kind of fun-slash-chaotic. Sticking with the egg theme, we then worked on emulsion sauces. Emulsion= a uniform mixture of two unmixable liquids, like oil and vinegar. Egg yolks act as the emulsifier, binding the two together. We split into pairs and made Hollandaise, which we then turned into Bearnaise (adding a tarragon/white wine/black peppercorn reduction), and then turned that into Choron (adding a bit of tomato paste). Finally, I had to bite the bullet--I made Mayonnaise. And I didn't even get nauseous as I was beating vigorously for what seemed like an hour. AND it turned out well in both texture and taste--or so said Chef D., I still thought it tasted gross. But making homemade mayo is definitely a workout! I'm not lying when I say that my whisking arm hurt the next day.

The second Friday of Skills 2 is always Fry Day. In short, we loaded up the deep fryers with oil, as well as some pans for pan-frying. Then we fried everything in the walk-in coolers: chicken, veal, catfish, french fries, assorted vegetables. I took on the vegetables, which I breaded using standard breading procedure. First, dredge in seasoned flour. Second, dip in egg wash. Third, cover with bread crumbs (I used Japanese panko). I had a great time frying my mushrooms, asparagus, and eggplant and zucchini slices to a beautiful golden brown. I think I mastered the "official cooking method of the South."

My beautiful, no-longer-healthy vegetables

The buffet of fried goodness which we invited other classes to come and enjoy

Sauté Day (and my love of Pesto)

Before I get into my day of sautéing in Skills 2, I have to mention my newfound appreciation of pesto. I'm Italian at heart--I studied abroad there twice and minored in the language in college--and here in Atlanta I've rediscovered my love of this pungent, herby sauce.

A couple of weeks ago, I discovered an adorable Italian gourmet shop called Bella Cucina in the Highlands, near our apartment. Like all of my favorite food stores, it boasts a generous array of samples. I hit the buffet of pestos, dabbing a bit of each onto the provided crostini, and immediately became obsessed with the artichoke lemon variety. I couldn't leave without buying a jar, which Zack and I enjoyed over whole-wheat rotini that evening. It inspired me to write this post over on Atlanta Magazine's blog.

Then, a few days later, pesto turned up on our list of production recipes at school. We rolled out our own fresh pasta that day and a classic basil-and-pine-nut pesto would be the sauce to accompany it. Already on a bit of a pesto kick, I immediately volunteered to make the pesto for my group. Probably due to the awesome quality of the fresh basil we used, it turned out fabulous. I'd like to think it was my skill at throwing all of the ingredients into a Robot Coupe (kitchen lingo for food processor--it's the brand that professional kitchens use).

I smuggled some of my awesome pesto home and we ate it last night when Andrea, The Kansan, and Dieter came over for dinner. I made a huge batch of that whole-wheat rotini (see, I learned something in Nutrition class!) and added chunks of chicken breast that I had sautéed, coating all of it with the pesto. It was a great and fufilling meal made with my current sauce of choice.

Alright, that's enough about pesto. Today was sauté day at school, and it may have been my favorite day yet. Sautéing is just such a fun cooking technique--it's quick, usually only dirties up one pan, and involves sizzling heat and tossing food in the air with a quick motion of the pan (I won't pretend that I've mastered this one...we're supposed to practice by throwing some ice around in a sauté pan at home).

There were a few recipes on our production list--veal marsala, chicken breast with dried cherries, and sauteéd shrimp with lemon sauce. When it comes time to volunteer, I always gravitate towards the recipe that I'd most want to eat if I saw it on a restaurant menu. So, I picked the shrimp. All of these recipes were pretty simple, intending to help us to practice the art of sauté.

My mise en place involved blanching tomatoes and dicing them concasse, mincing garlic, chopping chives, zesting and juicing a couple of lemons, and peeling and deveining shrimp. Then came the cooking process, which takes literally a minute and a half for this recipe. That's why it's so important to have all of your mise en place ready to go--when you're sautéing, there's no time to run off and grab something that you forgot.

I made several batches of this shrimp dish, improving each time. Starting with a really hot pan with a little bit of oil, I put down four shrimp at a time, letting them sizzle for about 30 seconds on each side. Then, off the heat, I hit the pan with some white wine, lemon juice, and a little bit of white wine vinegar to start my pan sauce. Once that reduced, I'd monter au beurre (of course!) and add my tomato concasse. Plate it and garnish with a sprinkle of chives and lemon zest, and voilà. My group-mate Joel took this lovely photo of the finished product:

Eating Raw

As you all know, I've been learning how to make all kinds of rich French stuff in culinary school. So it was a nice change of pace to talk to Riccardo Ullio, who owns a handful of restaurants down here in Atlanta, about the new all-raw menu that he's implementing at his Latin-influenced spot, Beleza. Remember the episode of Sex and the City when Samantha meets Smith Jared for the first time and he's a waiter at that raw food restaurant? Well, Ullio is bringing that concept to Atlanta--except that his food sounds a whole lot more delicious than all the wheatgrass we saw in that episode. I'm pretty eager to try it...but Zack can't comprehend why someone would want to run a restaurant where nothing is cooked. In any event, here's my post about Beleza on Atlanta Magazine's blog.

Sauce and More Sauce

Chef V. tasting from a buffet of sauces. Yummy.

Whew. The past three days of school have been a different experience entirely. On Monday morning, after the obligatory first day info session from the chefs, we were split into small groups and basically told to grab some bones from the walk-in cooler and make stock. Not just one stock: we had to produce a pot each of veal stock, chicken stock, fish stock, and vegetable stock. Needless to say, we were running around the kitchen clueless. I had certainly never made stock before in my life, and it soon became clear that most of my classmates hadn't either. It was a lesson in working as a team and figuring things out as we went, and amazingly, we produced all four simmering stockpots in time.

We've been working on sauces for the past two days following Day 1's chaotic stock-making, settling into what will be routine for the next three weeks. First thing, Chef D. and Chef V. give demos of all of the food that we're required to produce by 10:30 am. Yesterday, we started with two of the mother sauces: Bechamel (basic white sauce) and Espagnole (really unappetizing-looking brown sauce).

We then worked on derivatives of Bechamel--I made the Mornay for my group, which amps up the simple milk-and-roux Bechamel with gruyere and parmesan cheeses. While the mother sauces are rarely used anymore in modern cooking, restaurants constantly use their derivatives or "small sauces"--in fact, in my recent interview with James Beard award-winning Washington chef R.J. Cooper, he mentioned that he makes his awesome macaroni and cheese at Vidalia with Mornay. I was very proud when Chef V. praised my Mornay and gave our group a 5 out of 5 on it!

Today, we made demi-glace, which is half veal stock and half Espagnole, reduced by half. It's certainly a term I've seen on countless restaurant menus but never before knew its components. Our demi became the base for three new sauces. This time I made the Chasseur sauce, also sometimes called a Hunter sauce. I sauteed mushrooms and onions, added white wine and reduced it, then added diced tomatoes and some of our flavorful demi-glace.

Even though I'm learning a ton about saucework, I doubt I'd ever make these at home simply because they are pretty unhealthy (not to mention time-intensive). Most classical sauces are thickened with roux (equal parts flour and fat, usually clarified butter--remember?) and finished by "monter au beurre"--stirring in chunks of butter for richness and shine. Even the classical tomato sauce--another mother sauce that we made today--begins with diced salt pork. It does make a really flavorful roux--I loved the tomato sauce variation that I made for my group with tomato concasse, onions, garlic and parsley, called a Portuguese sauce. Sounds light and vegetarian, but that's just not how it works in classical French cookery. Surprise, surprise: delicious restaurant food = usually not so good for you.

I'm definitely honing my palate and learning a lot about flavor profiles--a term that chefs throw around a lot. Before culinary school, I'd only heard it (incessantly) on Top Chef--which premieres tonight! When our chefs demo a sauce, we taste it and talk about the flavors we should look for in our own versions. For example, Soubise, a variation of Bechamel made with sweated onions, should have a sweet taste but no pronounced onion flavor. We got called out for not sweating our onions long enough--we thought it tasted good, but giving the onions more time to sweat would have completely cooked out their raw onion flavor and drawn out more sweetness.

Now I'm off to watch Top Chef and then to bed...up early tomorrow for a third day of sauces. I'm sure I'll have a new appreciation for the "cheftestants" on the show, which I've watched religiously for the past four seasons. But now I've been quizzed on herbs and spices (albeit with my eyes open). I've frantically rushed to finish my sauces before the 10:30 buzzer when chefs armed with tasting spoons would arrive to taste and grade them. Sure, Top Chef's crazy Quickfire Challenges often allow something like five minutes to make an entree solely from food out of vending machines, but two hours for six sauces is Quickfire enough for me!

Aspiring To Be My Sister

Today is my friend Andrea's birthday--Happy Birthday, Andrea! Sadly, she has to spend most of her birthday studying for a test that all of the law kids have to take on Saturday, so I wanted to drop by her apartment with something yummy. I went decidedly non-gourmet and made what I most love on my own birthday (and any other occasion, really): Funfetti cupcakes! Yup, the Pillsbury mix. For some reason, even though it's just white cake with sprinkles in it, it just makes me happy and feels so birthday-ish.

In an effort to spruce up my Funfetti a little bit, I decided to experiment with the pastry bags in my culinary school tool kit instead of just slapping the frosting on with a butter knife like I usually do. I've never piped frosting before, but I've seen my little sister Hilary do it many times with beautiful results. She was a studio art major in college and is now applying her skills to baked goods as a decorator at Just Cakes in our hometown of Bethesda. Over the summer, she made these lovely cupcakes for my friends' wedding (coincidentally, the bride--who you see in the background--is another friend named Andrea):



I picked out a large round tip from the dozens of choices in my kit and (messily) spooned the purchased Funfetti frosting into my pastry bag. I tried to make marshmallowy-looking swirls of frosting to mimic Hilary's pretty little caps shown above. I definitely need some practice, but all in all, they turned out pretty well. A few of the caps were a little small because I ran out of frosting - piping uses WAY more frosting than simply spreading it on top of the cakes. I was able to hide some imperfections with a generous dusting of sprinkles. Ta-da!



Now I'm really looking forward to perfecting my piping skills in our Intro to Baking & Pastry class, a few rotations down the road.

p.s. Zack would like to point out that he helped to make these cupcakes for Andrea. He served as the all-important taster.

Georgia Cheese!

Today I have to write a report on E. coli for my Food Science class--FUN! One more week and my class will move to Skills 2, where we'll be cooking every day. I heard that on the first day you have to make all of the mother sauces, which totally freaked me out. Still, I can't wait.

In the meantime, here's my latest post for Atlanta Magazine's Bites & Flights blog. I picked up a bunch of these cheeses at the Buckhead Whole Foods and brought them home for a tasting. If you live in the Atlanta area and have not been to the Buckhead Whole Foods, you MUST go! It is huge and awesome, a million steps up from the cramped one in the Emory area near our apartment. There's a sprawling prepared foods section, tons of fantastic produce, a huge selection of beer and wine, and, most importantly, plenty of samples. It's nearly as great as the flagship store in Austin, which may be my favorite place on Earth. My mom and I went back three times during a three-day Texas trip a couple of years ago.

Of course, this mega-Whole Foods is the only one in the area that carries the local cheeses I was writing about. The manager at the Briarcliff store did tell me that they are hoping to stock them soon, however. Thank you to Zack and Andrea for being superb cheese-tasters!

What I've Eaten This Week

It's been a while since I last posted, and of course, I have a couple of excuses. First, I'm in Food Science now and while the subject matter is often interesting, writing about it in detail would likely bore you to tears. Second, we've been out of town - just got back from a long weekend of eating like crazy with Zack's family in Louisiana!

Here's Zack and his dad, Wally, with the seafood tower that kicked off our three-hour Friday lunch at Luke, John Besh's casual brasserie in downtown New Orleans. In the forefront are the flutes of champagne with fresh peach puree that Zack's mom, Candy, and I thoroughly enjoyed:



My Louisiana redfish amandine with unbelievably fresh jumbo lump crabmeat was also outstanding, and a reminder of how much I love the food in this city:



Luke also served the sweetest, freshest asparagus I have ever tasted. We had already mostly devoured them by the time I realized that I needed to document them with a photo:



These super-crispy french fries were pretty fabulous, too:



Here's Zack's sandwich board, with half of the "cochon de lait" pressed pork sandwich and half of the highly-regarded Luke burger. I stole bites of each:



A few of Candy's girlfriends were also enjoying a leisurely lunch at Luke that afternoon. Here's their spread of desserts, which prompted us to order the wonderful brioche bread pudding with pecans even though we were beyond stuffed:



Once we finished this feast, I chatted for a few minutes with chef Philip Lopez and told him how much we loved everything. He's John Besh's second-in-command at Luke and runs the kitchen day-to-day since Besh has several other restaurants to attend to (August, Besh Steak, La Provence):



We eventually did leave the restaurant and took a few hours to catch our breath before our next meal. Over the next few days, we ate at a steakhouse in Baton Rouge, tailgated with Bloody Marys and the best chicken tenders ever from the Louisiana chain Cane's, went out for authentic Mexican, and breakfasted on buttery grits, biscuits, and pancakes at a true small-town dive in Bogalusa.

It was a blast, but when we returned home to Atlanta, I was definitely ready for healthy-eating mode. Last night, I marinated and grilled chicken breast and lots and lots of veggies:



It was a meal that the authors of my nutrition textbook would be proud of, and very flavorful to boot. More on week 2 of Food Science and (hopefully) more healthy home cooking to come...

Food Science and Homemade Soup

Yesterday my class of 20 (we've had a few drop-outs) moved into our second three-week block: Food Science. The first two weeks cover nutrition and our final week will focus on sanitation and food safety. We're away from the stoves and into a typical college classroom, and our teacher is Mr. W., who wears a shirt and tie instead of whites. Though he's not a chef, he has a degree in hospitality and a career background in foodservice on the management side. He's funny and laid back and so far, he's making this class a lot less painfully boring than it could be.

These first two days have been pretty basic overviews of the food pyramid, the body's metabolic process, dietary preferences and restrictions of certain populations, etc. It was particularly amusing when Mr. W. spent about 20 minutes explaining the Jewish dietary laws to a thoroughly confused class. It was one of only a handful of times in my life when I actually felt like part of a minority--thank you, Montgomery County and Penn. Here in Atlanta, I was the only person in class who knew that milk and meat together and all shellfish are not kosher. Nevermind that I LOVE shellfish and have never kept kosher a day in my life. But my classmates were very interested and eager to learn the reasons behind all this, and thankfully Mr. W. was very knowledgeable on the subject--much more so than yours truly.

I really do miss the kitchen. Being in a classroom is kind of fun because I really feel like I'm back in school again, but I know that will get old fast. Last night I decided to get out the knife set and make some dinner for a few friends. It's finally starting to get a little chilly here(sad!), so Zack and I were both craving soup. I wanted to make a hearty one that could be a one-pot meal.

I settled upon chicken tortilla soup after finding a delicious-sounding recipe for one. Tortilla soup is one of Zack's favorites--he's particularly fond of the one at Houston's, a reliable chain that we've visited in numerous cities. Personally, though, I think my soup turned out even better, and it was certainly much healthier.

Once again, I kept drawing upon what I had learned from Chef M. and Chef L. as I was cooking. I really used the recipe as a starting point. I didn't make stock, but I used all chicken broth instead of chicken broth plus water as the recipe had called for. My chefs had stressed that adding more stock is always better than diluting the flavors with water. I also wanted a thicker soup than the broth-based one the recipe called for. Instead of making a roux or slurry, I pureed the tomatoes, zucchini, onions, and some tortilla strips in my new blender after they had softened in the soup pot. This gave the soup the great, hearty consistency I was after. We topped the bowls with various condiments, like chopped avocado, shredded cheese, scallions, cilantro, and the rest of the tortilla strips that I had baked in the oven. It's definitely a soup I'll make again and keep improving upon. Here's a picture of our friend Wagner's lovely bowl:



One batch of my improvised recipe made plenty of soup for five of us, plus leftovers. Tonight I stretched out the remainder by adding a can of black beans. In my opinion, this made it even better. Here's my tortilla soup, round 2:

Final Exams

I think I've already mentioned that since leaving college over two years ago, I've really missed taking tests. Yes, I'm somewhat of a huge nerd. The dork in me was pretty excited about the final two days of Skills 1. On Thursday, we had a two-part ID test: the first part was oils, vinegars, herbs, and spices; the second was 50 slides of various pieces of kitchen equipment, knives, and other small wares. Then on Friday, we took our final written test on all of the material we've covered and then got two hours for our graded knife practical.

I felt pretty confident about the ID test--the last couple of times we've practiced going through the spices, herbs, etc., I only missed one or two. Most of the kitchen equipment was familiar to me from the start, partially because just before moving I had written a big article for the Washingtonian about restaurant kitchens. Chefs I interviewed told me all about their favorite pieces of equipment, many of which I had never heard of--like a tilting skillet and a combi oven. Chef M. and Chef L. then pointed out all of these gadgets on our tour of the student-run restaurant's kitchen.

The written test wasn't scary either--I'd read all the chapters, and this is the kind of test I'm used to. The knife practical, however, was uncharted territory. We'd been practicing with time constraints, but for the test we'd have to do 10 cuts with only two carrots, one potato, half an onion, one tomato, and a bit of spinach (for chiffonade). Two hours is a ton of time, but if you mess something up, you may not have enough product left to re-do it.

As I practiced in class earlier in the week, I got my juliennes and batonnets down pat. My dice (bruniose and small dice) looked good, but they took me forever, especially when the chefs asked for a full souffle cup of brunoise (1/8 by 1/8 by 1/8 inch). That's a lot of tiny dice.

Onion ciseler is the one knife cut I actually do at home often, so I felt pretty good about that. Tomato concasse is really easy, too, but it does take some extra time to blanch and peel the tomato. Chiffonade is also pretty straightforward, I just had to make sure that my strips of spinach were thin enough (they should be about julienne width, 1/8 of an inch).

Tournes, of course, were still the problem. Mine had been getting better every day, but those seven sides were never perfectly smooth nor perfectly even. I knew that I wouldn't be earning a 10 on them on the test--each knife cut is worth 10 points--but just hoped that I wouldn't screw them up too badly. We had to make four from one potato.

In the end, I finished up with time to spare, no cutting injuries, and pretty decent tournes. Chef L. gave me an 8 out of 10 on them--not bad. Most of my other cuts earned 9s and even a few 10s. Here's a shot of the finished product that I presented to the chefs, plus the three knives I used (tourne, Santoku, and paring):



I can't even imagine what those cuts would have looked like if you had asked me to do them three weeks ago. I learned a ton in Skills 1, and I'm really going to miss it. On Monday we start Food Science, a classroom course, so my knives will stay at home for 3 weeks. I think I'll have to buy some whole carrots to dice and julienne and potatoes to tourne at home, just to avoid going through withdrawal.

Home Cookin'

Last week, we spent a couple of days learning about sauces. First, the chefs demoed how to make stock - a fundamental building block of many made-from-scratch sauces. A great stock is a really unappetizing-looking pot of simmering bones, mirepoix (chopped carrots, celery, and onions), and spices or flavorings. Many sauces are simply made from stock thickened with roux, plus other flavorings. So, next we learned how to make roux (Zack was very excited to hear this--people from New Orleans truly appreciate a good roux). It's a mixture of equal parts clarified butter and flour.

With those two building blocks behind us, Chef M. and Chef L. showed us how to make the mother sauces, of which there are five: bechamel, veloute, brown sauce or espagnole, tomato, and hollandaise. We learned that tomato sauce can be made with or without stock and with or without roux. Since roux isn't exactly low-cal, many cooks thicken soups and sauces without it these days, using a cornstarch slurry or even pureed vegetables instead. At home last night, I decided to use my culinary school skills and make a simple tomato sauce from scratch--sans roux and sans stock, since I didn't really have any beef bones lying around.

I followed Chef M.'s advice and used canned tomatoes--he stressed that canned tomatoes are MUCH better than out-of-season fresh tomatoes, and the sweet ones from summer are already gone. I decided to make a turkey meat sauce with ground turkey and some Italian turkey sausage. My first step, of course, was preparing my mise en place. I chopped an onion cisle (a small onion dice, one of our knife cuts!), minced several cloves of garlic, chopped some fresh thyme, and um, opened a big can of crushed tomatoes. I then cooked my ground turkey and browned a few sausages, setting them aside while I started the sauce.

I first cooked down the onions and garlic in a little bit of olive oil, then added the crushed tomatoes, some tomato puree, ground turkey, and white wine to round out the flavor. I let that simmer for a few minutes and sliced the turkey sausage, then added it to the sauce with the fresh thyme and some red pepper flakes. After letting it simmer and come together (about 20 minutes), I seasoned it with sea salt and black pepper. Chef M. told us that iodized table salt is only good for salting your driveway when it snows, so I've switched pretty much completely over to sea salt.

After boiling some water for pasta, dinner was done. So easy! And so much tastier than opening up a jar of pre-made sauce (even the good stuff like Rao's) and adding some ground meat. I think our dinner guests liked it too. Here they are enjoying hummus and veggies before dinner:



Today we learned how to tress and fabricate a chicken. I think my next home cooking challenge will be to buy a whole raw chicken and cut it up into 8 pieces myself. Then I'll marinate the pieces and grill or saute them. I normally head for the boneless skinless breasts, but I'm feeling adventurous. Stay tuned.

Product ID and Ted Allen

Our class has settled into a bit of a routine. Every morning, we start out with a lecture on a chapter from our Professional Cooking book, then move into product ID, then watch the chefs run a demo, and finish up with an hour or so of practicing knife skills before we clean up and head out. Product ID is actually one of my favorite aspects of Skills 1 and I realized that I haven't discussed it much here.

Each day, the chefs put out about 50 numbered samples of herbs (fresh and dried), spices (whole and ground), oils, and vinegars. We work our way around the room and try to identify each sample before going over them as a class. It reminds me of that Top Chef challenge where they have to identify foods and spices blindfolded, except for the fact that we can see everything and still can't figure some out. Some samples are easily identifiable by just looking, like star anise or white sesame seeds. Others are tougher. Dried oregano and dried marjoram are pretty darn similar in shape, color, and aroma. And dried savory? I'd never even heard of that before. Our chefs have given us some great little tips to help ID certain products. Did you know that ground coriander smells just like Froot Loops? Give it a whiff and you won't believe its resemblance to that good old sugary cereal. How random!

I've been improving each day and now there are only a few problematic ones that I just can't nail down for sure. Sherry vinegar and malt vinegar? To me, they look, smell, and taste EXACTLY the same. I usually guess and have a 50% chance of being correct, but I think I'm finally getting a little bit more acidity with the Sherry when I break out the tasting spoons. The more neutral-flavored oils--like grapeseed oil--are also hard to put your finger on.

We usually discuss as we identify the samples and help each other out, but on our last day of class (this Friday, already!), we'll be tested on a selection of 50. I know that Sherry vinegar and malt vinegar will be two of them. My goal for this week is to get those two down.

* * *

This weekend I went to the Taste of Atlanta festival and interviewed Ted Allen for Atlanta mag's blog--he's the goofy, witty judge from Top Chef and Iron Chef America who made his TV debut years ago on Queer Eye. Turns out, he's a former journalist and got his start in food writing at Chicago magazine, so we had lots to talk about. He was awesome and funny and now I'm really disappointed that he won't be judging Top Chef next season (he's got a new show on the Food Network called Food Detectives and his contract won't allow him to work with another network). I've seen Food Detectives a couple times and couldn't really get into it...but now that we're friends, I'll have to give it another shot. My interview will be up online shortly, but for now, here's a photo of me and Ted:

After Lots of Weekend Eating, Back to the Cutting Board

Note: This post was started on Monday and picked up today because the internet at my home office has been out of commission. So, put yourself in a Monday frame of mind as I reflect on the weekend.

We had a great weekend, full of Atlanta restaurant scouting. It started on Thursday night (even though I still have 7 am class on Friday, Zack has no class so we kicked off the weekend on Thursday night, college-style). We went with the Kansan to a New Orleans-themed place called Parish Foods & Goods. The Kansan is always up for trying anything and he's quickly becoming one of my favorite dining companions. Zack loves the Cajun and Creole flavors he grew up with, but I'm always hesitant to take him to sample these cuisines outside of the Big Easy since his standards are so high. Parish is a stylish, low-lit spot in a two-level restored pipe factory. Upstairs is the dining room, done up with exposed brick walls, gilded chalkboard menus, and enormous chandeliers. Downstairs is the kitchen, plus a really cool little market and cafe that were closed at dinnertime (I caught a glimpse since the bathroom is down there). I can't wait to visit sometime during the day to browse the quirky housewares or sit on the patio with a cup of coffee. Highlights of our dinner included the fantastic ciabatta-like bread that came tucked in a paper sleeve; my "sunflower" salad of thinly-sliced beets topped with baby corn, roasted sunflower seeds and sunflower sprouts in a light corn vinaigrette; a dark, rich sausage-and-andouille gumbo; and a pan of Louisiana-style barbecue shrimp in a rich Worcestershire-spiked sauce. More of that bread was definitely necessary for dipping. The negatives? Insanely slow service, a just so-so muffaletta, and a hefty slice of crawfish cheesecake that we had high hopes for but left us disappointed. Still, despite the quibbles, we really liked the place and will be back to try their much-in-demand shrimp burger. It had already sold out by the time we sat down around 8.

Friday night I went to ONE Midtown Kitchen, which coincidentally is owned by the same restaurant group as Parish. Atlanta is full of restaurant groups--I haven't come across a place yet that doesn't have at least one or two sister spots somewhere else in the city. ONE was the debut restaurant of this group, called Concentrics, and a few years ago the kitchen was helmed by none other than Top Chef's Richard Blais, Atlanta's golden boy. It's in a swanky restored warehouse (as are so many of the city's good restaurants). My friend Melissa, an Atlanta native who now lives in DC, was in town for the weekend and this is her favorite restaurant. We sat out on the back enclosed patio with her family and sipped the dangerously smooth ONE Martinis while passing around appetizers. The highlight was a three-inch thick slice of sourdough bread oozing with goat cheese and topped with truffled mushrooms. We balanced out its richness with a delicious tartare of red snapper with chile and lime. My grouper in a fragrant and vivid green onion broth was also light and tasty.

Finally, on Saturday night, we visited one of Atlanta's most esteemed Italian restaurants with the Kansan and his lady friend, "S-word." Sotto Sotto is an intimate space in Inman Park, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite neighborhoods (Parish is located here, as is Zuma, our sushi bar of choice). The perfect tagliatelle al funghi brought me back to my study abroad days in Florence and Rome, especially with the Italian wine that we happily shared. Zack and I also shared an awesome fish dish called "acqua pazza"--halibut served in a spicy tomato sauce with capers over a slice of rustic bread that soaked up all of the juices beautifully.

We took Sunday off from dining, except for a quick trip to an ice cream shop that I was checking out for Atlanta magazine's blog. Then it was back to school bright and early Monday morning. We've been adding a new knife cut every day and I have found my nemesis: the tourne. They're little football-shaped vegetables that must have seven equal sides. They even require their own little knife, a curved paring knife called (what else?) a tourne knife. I'm having much more fun with the lozenge and paysanne cuts, which we fashioned into these adorable little flowers:



We've had a couple more cooking demos and opportunities to taste. One day, Chef M. showed us two ways to cook a New York strip steak: grilling and searing. Yesterday, Chef L. made us lunch: seared salmon with spicy crab salad, saffron rice, and carrot mashed potatoes. He used all of our not-so-perfect julienne and batonnet carrots to make the mash, so we did participate (a little bit) in the creation of this picture-worthy plate:



Today, we were served lunch at school again after practicing tomato concasse (diced tomatoes that have been removed of their pulp and seeds) and more tournes. Chef M. went with Mexican food in order to use our many pounds of tomato concasse in a fresh salsa. He roasted chicken pieces in a chile-infused marinade and served it in burritos with two kinds of beans, fresh guacamole, chili-and-cilantro-flecked rice, and our contribution: the salsa. The flavors were bright and bold--one of the best burritos I've ever had.

Tonight begins the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the day of repentance. I'll be taking a brief hiatus from my food-focused schedule, because after an early dinner tonight, we fast until tomorrow evening in observation of the holiday. Then it's back to the cutting board on Friday to finish out my second week of Skills 1.

First Cut

I've spent the past two mornings cutting pounds of carrots--now we're doing fine julienne (1/16 by 1/16 by 2 inches) as well as julienne (1/8 by 1/8 by 2) and batonnet (1/4 by 1/4 by 2)--without a single minor injury. Others in my class have already broken out the first aid kit for band-aids and the blue "finger cots" that are required to cover them--they're also referred to as "finger condoms", so you can get an idea of what they look like.

Then I made turkey chili for dinner at home with my friend Andrea. Excited to break out my new knives, I began chopping an onion (the only chopping at all necessary for this recipe, by the way) with my favorite knife in my suitcase of tools, the Japanese Santoku. It's a little smaller and lighter than the traditional chef's knife. Sure enough, I'm slicing and dicing the onion and feel a little nick on the tip of my middle finger, and then I'm bleeding on the cutting board. Ahh, overconfidence! I guess I wasn't focused on keeping my fingertips back as instructed by my teachers and by Dan, my first knife skills instructor. Fortunately, it was just a tiny cut and after a quick band-aid application I got back to the chili, which turned out delicious.

Today in class the chefs demoed a classic breakfast dish: eggs Benedict. They chose this because it involved a lot of smaller lessons: how to make hollandaise, poach eggs, blanch and shock asparagus. After they demonstrated and produced two perfect plates, we went up in groups to poach eggs ourselves. I was wrong about not cooking at all in this class--exciting! After poaching our eggs and giving some already-blanched asparagus a quick saute, we were allowed to assemble our own Benedicts to eat. Too bad hollandaise is one of the only foods I really, truly can't stand (it's in that mayo family). Remembering what Chef M. told us the other day--that of course there are a few foods he hates, but he still knows how they should and should not taste--I tasted their example of a good hollandaise and could appreciate its perfect texture and flavor. But one bite was enough.

After that, it was back to the cutting boards and huge bins of carrots. After my home onion injury, I'll be sure to keep my fingertips back tomorrow...

Back to School

My chef's jacket (on a hanger, not ready yet for that full-uniform shot...)

I've finished Day 3 of my year of culinary school. It already feels like I've been there for weeks. I'm getting used to putting on all of the pieces of my uniform each morning--checkered pants, black shoes, chef's jacket, hat, cravat, name tag, ID lanyard, thermometer in pocket. Sounds like a lot to deal with, but I've never had to wear a uniform before (at my high school, pretty much anything but a bikini top was fair game) and it's kind of refreshing to wake up each morning and not have to think about picking out clothes--especially when it's 5:30 a.m.

School starts at 7 and that means we're in our seats and ready for lineup, where our uniforms are inspected. Professionalism is a HUGE deal here and an impeccable uniform goes hand in hand with that. But my instructors--Chef M. and Chef L.--have been pretty lax so far. Apparently, once we get settled they'll start nit-picking about things like too-long fingernails or too-short socks (they have to be over the ankle, the kind of socks I hate...looks like I'll be buying new socks this weekend).

My first class is Skills 1. 40-some new students started with me on Monday; we were then split into two classes. The other half of the group started with Food Science, and after three weeks, we'll flip. They went down the hall to their classroom and we stayed put in the large demonstration kitchen where our short orientation was held. I was excited to start out in a kitchen. In Skills 1, we won't actually cook anything, but we'll (endlessly) practice our knife skills, learn our way around the kitchen, and work on identifying spices, oils, and vinegars by sight, smell, and taste. The instructors, however, will cook demos that we'll get to taste--we've already had two so far. Plus a sample of scrumptious bread pudding that a baking and pastry class made.

I'm already a little sad that we'll only be with Chef M. and Chef L. for three weeks. Chef M. was introduced by the head of the school as an ex-Navy officer, which made me scared. But he's super-nice and really funny. And Chef L. is a young Asian guy, an ex-engineering major who is shorter than I am (!) and always smiling. My classmates range from a guy who graduated high school in June to a woman who works at a cool restaurant in Decatur at night and has a five-year-old. It's a good group.

Today we had a quiz on chapters 1 and 2 in our pro chef book, which covered basic history of modern restaurant cooking (Careme, Escoffier, the brigade system...) and a brief overview of food safety (bacteria, fire hazards...). I haven't taken a quiz or a test in a while and, not going to lie, I was excited. And I made my first A :)

Then we took a tour of the student-run restaurant, Lumiere. It's got a huge open kitchen and a very legit-looking dining room and bar. That's where I'll spend the last six weeks of the program. But there's a lot to get through before I'll be ready to actually cook for paying customers. Sure enough, we returned to our classroom and cut carrots--julienne and batonnet--for an hour.

Early Eats in Atlanta

Once I start school at Le Cordon Bleu next week, posts here will be MUCH more regular, promise. But since my last post, I've been knee-deep in packing up (my DC apartment) and unpacking and setting up (our new Atlanta apartment). Fortunately, for the sake of my sanity, we've managed to squeeze in some Atlanta food scouting.

While our superstar moving helpers--Zack's mom and my mom--were in town, we took them to Home, a cute restaurant in a renovated cottage. Home gained fast fame in the city when Top Chef runner-up Richard Blais took over as its chef, but a chat with our waiter revealed that Blais had parted ways with the place a week before we dined there. Still, "snacks" like deviled eggs topped with duck confit and falling-off-the-bone lamb ribs were a lot of fun, and we spied (and tasted) Blais's touches of molecular gastronomy throughout the menu. My scallops with "broccoli and cheddar" came atop a custard-like broccoli puree with a dollop of intensely-flavored cheddar cheese foam. Sure, everybody hates on foam (thanks to Top Chef's evil Marcel) but it really was delicious.

Scallops at Home (not my home - maybe once I master some culinary skills!)

Holeman & Finch was another spot I'd been yearning to try ever since it was named Best New Restaurant of the Year by Atlanta Magazine along with a mouth-watering short review. I'm doing some writing and blogging for Atlanta Mag, so I met with their terrific dining editor this week. We spent lots of time talking food (obviously) and she continued to sing the praises of H&F. Naturally, when I got home from the meeting, I declared that we had to go there that night for dinner.

Zack, his friend "the Kansan", and I headed over dressed casually in jeans and flip flops, since H&F calls itself a "public house" and a casual younger brother to the owners' fine dining spot across the street, Restaurant Eugene. The rest of the crowd was dolled up for a night out and the place had a decidedly swanky vibe that Thursday night, but the service couldn't have been friendlier nor the food more down-to-earth. We shared lots of small plates, including a heaping pile of fried oysters with fried pickles (yum!), pimento cheese with house-made saltines, pork belly with grits, and griddled hen of the woods mushrooms with polenta served in a tiny skillet. Then, around 10, our waiter told us about the off-the-menu burger. Apparently they start serving them at 10 pm every night and run out in minutes. How could we say no to sharing one? We were glad we didn't resist when we bit into the double-patty sandwich, amazingly juicy and draped with melty cheese and those outstanding house-made pickles.

Holeman & Finch's off-the-menu burger

Yesterday I went to Le Cordon Bleu to meet with the director and was fitted for my uniform. Yup, I'll be wearing a chef's jacket and houndstooth-check pants every morning. Pretty cute! Maybe I'll post a picture of myself in full culinary school garb for your amusement. Nonetheless, my visit made me even more excited about the first day of school on Monday. Full report to come...

Proof I'm Not a Food Snob

Here's where a few of my awesome former interns and I went for a snack yesterday after an extended happy hour. This Mickey D's is located two blocks away from the apartment I've lived in for the past two years, and last night was my first time inside. I have to say, that oreo McFlurry was deeelicious. Not as good as a DQ blizzard, though.

Pre-Orientation

Before I get into my pre-orientation to culinary school—a very fun and informative knife skills lesson that took place last night—I'll provide a little orientation for you, readers of this blog.

My name's Sara and I'm a 24-year-old writer from Washington, DC. After college in Philadelphia, I moved back to my hometown for an assistant editor job at the Washingtonian magazine. I've now been here two years, supervising the editorial internship program and writing (mostly about food) for the magazine and its website—but next week will be my last. I'm heading down South, to Atlanta, where I've enrolled in a year-long culinary school program at a branch of Le Cordon Bleu. At this point, I have no intention of becoming a chef. I'm just hoping to learn a lot and gain some solid culinary knowledge that will come in handy as I continue to pursue a career in food writing.

Why Atlanta? Seems like a pretty random place to choose for this culinary adventure, no? Well, besides the fact that I'm about 99 times happier when it's not cold outside, my boyfriend Zack lives there and just started his last year of law school. We've been flying back and forth between Atlanta and DC for the past two years—not fun. Zack is a fellow food-lover—pretty much has to be, as he's from New Orleans—so we're looking forward to sharing lots of food adventures (and cooking experiments!) in the coming year.

This blog will chronicle my experience at Le Cordon Bleu as well as other foodie discoveries in Atlanta. I leave in two weeks, but my first post takes place here in DC. I hope you'll continue to read and give me feedback in the comments—anyone who follows my posts for the Washingtonian's Best Bites blog knows, I love comments!

Last thing: the title of this blog. If you've never worked in a restaurant kitchen, you might be curious as to the meaning of mise en place. I've never worked in a restaurant kitchen either--part of the reason why going to culinary school and doing a restaurant externship is so alluring to me--but I became familiar with the term after devouring books such as Kitchen Confidential, The Making of a Chef, and Heat. For a true definition, here's what trusty old Wikipedia has to say:

"Mise en place" (pronounced [miz ɑ̃n plas], literally "put in place") is a French phrase defined by the Culinary Institute of America as "everything in place", as in set up. It is used in U.S. kitchens to refer to the ingredients, such as cuts of meat, relishes, sauces, par-cooked items, spices, freshly chopped vegetables, and other components that a cook requires for the menu items that they expect to prepare during their shift.

Mise en place is a fundamental and vitally important part of restaurant cooking that most diners aren't aware of. I know I'll be prepping a lot of it in culinary school. When my friend and fellow food-obsessed co-worker Katie--who you'll read about later--suggested it as a name for my blog, I thought it couldn't be more appropriate.

Finally . . . on to pre-orientation.

* * *

When I started college at the University of Pennsylvania back in 2002, we had the option to sign up for a pre-orientation program—a chance to get to know some fellow students and feel a little more at ease when real orientation began on campus. Though I'm not necessarily "outdoorsy," I signed up for a hiking/camping trip. I do like being active, and an older cousin told me it was a blast—plus, it sounded a lot cooler than the other options, such as a "leadership retreat" that I later found out Zack had participated in! Anyway, after an awesome three days in the wilderness, I had lots of new friends and sure enough, felt barely any anxiety as I moved into my dorm room for freshman orientation.

Before I start the next phase of my education, I hoped for a little pre-orientation to help me avoid showing up at Le Cordon Bleu on Day 1 with my knives, totally and completely clueless. Fortunately, I found some people willing to help. My friend at work, Katie (who's going to be filling my shoes in a couple of weeks!), dates Dan, who's the sous-chef at a fine-dining restaurant in DC that I can't normally afford. Being the nice guy that he is, Dan offered to give me a knife skills tutorial which was held last night in Katie's kitchen.

Super culinary couple Dan and Katie

I enjoy cooking, but have never taken any sort of professional cooking class. My current specialties are ridiculously simple: my mom's turkey chili (I've been told it's as good as the real thing!); seared scallops; garlicky roasted brussels sprouts with olive oil and balsamic; my "famous" (thanks, Becky!) oatmeal loaded with fruit, nuts, and my not-so-secret ingredient: a teaspoon of vanilla pudding mix. I hold a knife the way it has always felt comfortable to me—certainly not the right way. I chop slowly and my cuts are by no means uniform. These habits will hopefully be rectified in a year of culinary school.

After Knife Skills 101 with Dan, I feel like I'm already well on my way. I stopped at Whole Foods on my way over and picked up some produce: onions, potatoes, and a green pepper (for a salad that Dan would serve us after the lesson.) He had printed out a cheat sheet for me with diagrams of all of the important cuts I'd eventually need to know: brunoise (1/8 inch dice), small dice (1/4 inch), medium dice (1/2 inch), large dice (3/4 inch), fine julienne (1-2 inch matchsticks 1/16 inch in diameter), julienne (1/8 inch diameter), etc.

Dan stressed keeping your work station clean as you go--good thing I'm already pretty obsessive about that in the kitchen, as past roommates can attest. He showed me his three-bucket system for prepping your mise en place, placing three containers on his cutting board: one for the whole potatoes/whatever we'd be working with, one for scraps, and one for the finished product.

He showed me how to work the knife while holding the vegetable steady with my right hand in a claw shape (I'm left-handed). At first it felt unnatural to guide the knife with my knuckle against the blade and the tips of my fingers back, as he instructed, but after hacking away at a couple of potatoes, I settled into it and could see my cuts improving. I moved onto onions and then a cucumber for Dan's salad. Chopping can be kind of addictive!

Setup for prepping produce

3-bucket system: whole, waste, and finished product

Potato Brunoise (this looks too good to be my attempt - I'm guessing it's Dan's)

At its core, college is about making good friends and having fun (and, um, education). Pre-orientation helped me get off on the right foot. Culinary school, for me at least, is about truly understanding the fundamentals of cooking. Thanks to Dan's pre-orientation, I'm no longer nervous that I'll chop off a finger on the first day.

Wilbur's leg, which Dan roasted and we feasted on after the lesson. Yum!

Delicious panzanella salad- made with red onion sliced and diced by yours truly!

Spicy pickled salad

Mmm...buttery peach cobbler.
Everyone should take knife skills lessons from Dan. Look how well he feeds his students!