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.

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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: