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.