chefJo

Fancy Food back on the West Coast In January 2012

2011-11-13T15:49:00.000-08:00

The awe-inspiring Fancy Food Show is once again upon us--the sample-your-way-to-oblivion opportunity for specialty food buyers to see what's new and wonderful among the thousands of purveyors who display in San Francisco every winter. Last year, I reviewed a few favorites; not an easy task because of the multitude of outstanding products and the curse of only having one stomach. Oh, to be a cow! I look forward to showcasing a few more in February 2012!

Pumpkin City

2011-11-12T16:55:00.000-08:00

Lovely catered dinner for a party of six ended with this Apple/Pumpkin Butter tart covered with lightly cooked sliced and spiced apples. Menu included Lamb with figs in red wine sauce, carrot-squash puree and garlic-sauteed kale and chard.

Fancy Food Show Reviews: Meat!: Foie Gras from Happy Ducks?

2011-02-09T18:25:00.000-08:00

The Winter Fancy Food Show, held January in San Francisco CA, is the showplace for more than 3000 exhibitors of food products from all over the world.

Yup, people still eat foie gras, the liver traditionally taken from geese or ducks. The product has gotten a nasty reputation due to violent force-feeding and cruel livestock methods. One purveyor who’s bucking the trend and won multiple awards including the James Beard Foundation Award for Excellence is Hudson Valley Foie Gras, in Ferndale, New York. They hand-feed their cage-free poultry and invite any and all to come see their humane methods. All of the duck is used in various other products including salami, prosciutto, duck leg confit, whole duck, etc. This is one product you can indulge in, guilt-free. www.hudsonvalleyfoiegras.com

Fancy Food Show Reviews: Meat!: Gold Medal Bacon

2011-02-08T18:22:00.000-08:00

I was dragged to this booth by my catering buddy Jim Standfield with the admonition, “Wait til you taste this bacon!”. I had the opportunity to chew down a few fatty portions elsewhere, but I have to agree: Nueske’s, out of Wittenberg, Wisconsin, has the smoked bacon thing down. A number of top chefs use Nueske’s—let’s hope we see it on store shelves soon. Their specialty is sweet-applewood-smoked meats, including sliced and slab bacon, Canadian Bacon, ham, pheasant, chicken, duck and sausage. I can only speak for the bacon, and I say, “more, please.” www.nueskemeats.com

Fancy Food Show Reviews: Sauces and Condiments: All-American Peanut Butter

2011-02-07T18:22:00.000-08:00

Fancy Food Show Reviews: Sauces and Condiments: All-American Peanut Butter

The Winter Fancy Food Show, held January in San Francisco CA, is the showplace for more than 3000 exhibitors of food products from all over the world.

I love Cream-Nut Peanut Butter for many reasons: for starters, it’s a third-generation family-owned company with a 100% natural product. They still use Virginia peanuts, sea-salt, and nothing else. How many companies brag that their vintage machinery allows them to slow down the process and focus on the craftsmanship? The Koeze family (it’s pronounced KEY zee) has been around since Sibbele Koeze immigrated to the US in the 1880s and the business remains in the heartland, just outside Grand Rapids, Michigan. They produce organic crunchy and creamy peanut butters, too. Cream-nut’s old-fashioned production techniques and retro labels make it instantly recognizable—oh yes, it tastes great, too. www.creamnut.com

Fancy Food Show Reviews: Sauces and Condiments: A Great Pickle to Be In

2011-01-25T14:09:00.000-08:00

The Winter Fancy Food Show, held January in San Francisco CA, is the showplace for more than 3000 exhibitors of food products from all over the world.

McClure’s makes great pickles! Based outside of Detroit, Michigan, brother Bob and Joe McClure founded the company based on an old family recipe in 2006. These are the best Spicy Pickles and Garlic Pickles I tasted at the show—crisp, deliciously flavored, and all-around tasty. They also sell the brine (so you can pickle your own or make something called a “pickletini”), a bloody Mary mixer and relishes. Even Martha Stewart featured the pickles in "Living" magazine—so you know these are top quality. mcclurespickles.com

Fancy Food Show Reviews: Dairy Faves: Are you From Jersey?

2011-01-24T14:07:00.000-08:00

The Winter Fancy Food Show, held January in San Francisco CA, is the showplace for more than 3000 exhibitors of food products from all over the world.

Bellwether Farms is a family owned dairy located in Sonoma County, CA. Their products have been featured in glossy magazines such as "Fine Cooking", and their reliably tasty cheeses could grace any table. A personal favorite is Carmody, a semi-soft cheese made from the milk of Jersey cows. The sheep milk yogurt, which comes in plain, vanilla, strawberry, blueberry and blackberry flavors is rich but without the gamy flavor some “alternative” dairy yogurts suffer from. This brand is already everywhere, including whole foods. www.bellwetherfarms.com

Fancy Food Show Reviews: Sweet Snacks: Not So Thin

2011-01-23T14:07:00.000-08:00

The Winter Fancy Food Show, held January in San Francisco CA, is the showplace for more than 3000 exhibitors of food products from all over the world.

I know ThinkThin Bars and Bites are positioned as weight-management snacks, but it seems to make more sense to look at them as additional high-calorie snacks/meal substitutes rather than integral to a healthy diet—they are candy bars, after all. The bars, set to enter the Luna Bar/sports bar market, are high protein, low-to-no-sugar, high fiber and gluten free (the latest dietary catch-phrase). I tried the Chunky Peanut Butter flavor (not much peanut flavor) and White Chocolate Chip (pretty good). Though they satisfied an urge for sweets, both flavors betrayed their soy- and whey-protein basis with a dry, bean-y taste, and were loaded with extra vitamins and a few multi-syllabic chemicals. At 230 calories per bar, sadly, I think the only weight that’s being managed is what you’re adding with this bar. On the positive side, they really do fill you up. www.thinkproducts.com

Fancy Food Show Reviews: Sweet Snacks: An Icy Treat to Feel Good About

2011-01-21T22:14:00.000-08:00

The Winter Fancy Food Show, held January in San Francisco CA, is the showplace for more than 3000 exhibitors of food products from all over the world.

Popsicles are one thing, but Power of Fruit frozen bars are in a whole different category. For one thing, they’re made entirely of fruit—no added sugar, corn syrup, preservatives or added artificial flavors. Five flavors—cherryberry, orange tango, all-fruit, tropical and bananaberry—get added sweetness from white grape juice, but aren’t overly sweet. For those watching waistlines, each bar is less than 36 calories and half of one fruit serving. That, and they taste good too—like an orange you’ve kept in the freezer, but much easier to eat. www.poweroffruit.com

Fancy Food Show Reviews/Savory Snacks: Yummy and Dangerous Category

2011-01-20T21:19:00.000-08:00

The Winter Fancy Food Show, held January in San Francisco CA, is the showplace for more than 3000 exhibitors of food products from all over the world.

One of my favorite snacks—and yes, it’s both high fat and high sodium—was Turbana Plantain Chips. Other than zero cholesterol, very few ingredients (no chemicals or preservatives) and no gluten, the only thing to recommend these chips made from deep fried plantains (a type of savory banana) was incredibly addictive flavor and satisfying crunch. I tried the natural, chili, lime and garlic flavors; unregulated access to any of the flavors could lead to increased obesity in America. We'd be smiling as we tried to fit through the door. The serving size is a little over an ounce, which is about 10 small chips. Keep this one as a special reward for those days when you’ve subsisted on salad. Totally delicious and tempting, the chips hail from Colombia. Think of it as a patriotic way to lessen the need to run drugs--or perhaps the cartels are sucking us in to a new, legal market. www.platanicious.com

Fancy Food Show Reviews/Sauces and Condiments: Hot Stuff

2011-01-19T16:43:00.001-08:00

The Winter Fancy Food Show, held January in San Francisco CA, is the showplace for more than 3000 exhibitors of food products from all over the world.

I’m not a barbecuer (barbecue-ette?) but I have to say that Rufus Teague BBQ sauces, particularly the Touch O’ Heat and Blazin’ Hot versions, are smokin’! (Sorry about that). These award-winning sauces originally from Kansas are incredibly flavorful and would probably make and old shoe taste like filet mignon. The company makes meat rubs (didn’t try those) and steak sauces (OK, but not up to the awesome flavor profile of the BBQ sauces). The Honey Sweet BBQ sauce is a little too sweet for my taste (sugar and meat are not natural combinations for me), but for those with a hankering for honeyed haunch, it might just be the ticket. www.rufusteague.com

Reviews from the Fancy Food Show

2011-01-19T16:39:00.000-08:00

Me and a very large jelly bean

The Fancy Food Show is held twice a year--in New York City in Summer and in San Francisco in January. More than 3000 purveyors line the aisles, trying to attract new buyers and expand their markets. Some are already international--like Jelly Belly candies--and others are just starting out. Many are launching new products in a current product line, so there are many familiar names here, including Twinings Tea and Hormel Foods. Most, however, are just jumping into the prepared foods market with innovative new products from herbal vitamin waters to green tea-flavored mints. Some are outstanding, some are merely imitations of products already on the market, and others will fall by the wayside. I look for small purveyors with products that have "legs". Not all my guesses will fly, but after tasting my way through miles of aisles, I've selected a few winners--and almost-rans. You can look for my picks on store shelves; I've included website addresses whenever possible.

The Fancy Food Show Cometh!

2011-01-13T18:44:00.000-08:00

I should be fasting, since the Fancy Food Show, which will take place in

San Francisco Jan. 16-18, is the biggest food orgy since Caligula laid out a spread for his Roman buddies. I've already begun to map out the products that seem most interesting (organic, local, unusual) and will be reporting on them in this space. Since the show takes up the entire Moscone Center exhibit space (we're talking major acreage here), it's sadly impossible to mention everything. I will try, however, to eat my way through at least 20 blogs-worth of exceptional products (out of sampling, say, 100 or so). Stay tuned--there are some amazing products out there, from peanut producers to the finest chocolates you've ever seen.

Going WILD...

2010-11-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

Chanterelle mushrooms

I had the great fun and privilege of prepping for and attending a wild and foraged foods dinner at The Wild Kitchen, a kind of floating food rave in San Francisco with ties to ForageSF. Most of the food served by Chef Jordan was hand-gathered, gleaned (with permission) from people's trees and bushes, plucked (gorgeous giant mushrooms from Mendocino County) and generally wrested from nature. Here's the extraordinary menu:

Trout Crostini with Pickled Nastertium Seed Pods and Gleaned Apples
Wild Clam Tomato Chowder with Wild Nori
Braised Wild Mushrooms, Poached Farm Egg Foraged Watercress and Crispy Potatoes
Marin Sun Farm Beef Carpaccio with Wild Nettle and Mozerella Madelines
Flossa Creamery Goat Cheese with Pickled Gleaned Fruit
Roasted Wild Sardines with Shisito Peppers, Foraged Grapes and Chorizo Lentil Vinaigrette
Wild Boar Poutine (a gravy-style stew) with Parmesean, Gremalata, and Pickled Shallots
Salad of Foraged Nastertium Greens and Flowers, Gleaned Pomegranates and Candied Walnuts with an Orange Sage Vinaigrette
Pumpkin Panna Cotta with Bruleed Gleaned Fig and Wild Fennel Marcapone Cream

Not everything made it to the table as advertised (most clams had to be picked up from a local seller) but the food was undeniably good. The amount of work that goes into the gathering and prepping really makes these dinners unusual. Everyone is seated banquet-style, so meeting your neighbors is part of the fun.

A Sweet Little Birthday Dinner

2010-11-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Eight guests, two of them winemakers: two birthdays to celebrate, and a different wine for every course provided by the hosts. Barbara and John, the wonderful couple who organized this dinner, have been making a variety of fabulous wines for several years. We started off with champagne and sweet-and-spicy mixed nuts, large, bright green Cerignola olives, and mixed wild mushroom crostini.
The next course was an arranged salad of seasonal fruit (pink grapefruit, fuyu persimmon, green Calimyra figs, fuji apples and and unusual Asian pear I found at the farmer's market, all on red-tipped lettuce in a grapefruit/rice vinegar and grapeseed oil emulsion.
Next, the hosts chose some unusual vegetables: Brussells sprouts (braised, then pan-roasted) with brown butter garlic and cashews, and oven roasted gem beets (both red and yellow) with honeyed goat cheese and beet greens with vinegar and black pepper (the host grows and grinds his own). Our starch was tomato-oregano polenta with fresh and cooked heirloom tomato sauce with kalamata olives. The crowning glory was a crown rack of lamb--and it was here that I learned culinary school didn't have all the answers. It had to go back into the oven, as most people prefer rare rather than raw! To finish, a simple chocolate double tart stuffed with Scharfenberger chocolate pieces and covered with fudge sauce and whipped cream. It was so stiff, it was almost like a candy bar/brownine! From all reports, a great time was had by all...

Cooking for a Crowd

2010-10-26T15:55:00.000-07:00

Wow--the assignment from the San Francisco Tourist Club: anywhere from 35 to 50 people for breakfast break, followed by lunch, must include a meat dish, several vegetarian sides, and dessert. Thanks to my able sous chef Anna (and two volunteer server/dishwashers) we were able to produce mini-bagels with bacon and cheddar cheese, cut cantaloupe, coffee and multi-grain cookies for the break, and 15 turkey/beef and charred pepper meatloaves plus 2 gallons of vegetarian mushroom/tomato gravy, garlic-mashed potatoes, French beans with almonds and Caprese salad made with fresh mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes courtesy of the Marin Farmer's Market. And for dessert? Brownies, of course. I love to see people stuff themselves.

Cooking School: Graduation!

2009-12-17T16:06:00.000-08:00

Happy Grads mill about

The one, the only Chef Maureen (on left)!

It had to happen. After several months in a commercial kitchen, I'll never go into another restaurant without admiring the strength, stamina and skill it takes to be a chef. We graduated with the pastry crew, and several of their outstanding wares were featured. There are a lot of memories I'll cherish, and there's one in particular I'll remember: when I went to a restaurant supply shop in Sausalito to pick up an extra chef's jacket (they DO get filthy), I got into conversation with one of the owners--a former chef. When he handed me the package, he said, "Wear it with pride". And I do.

The amazing Smurf cake!

Cooking School: Wild at Wente

2009-12-12T16:29:00.000-08:00

The dining room at Wente

Our chefs demanded a lot from us in the kitchen, and gave us far more. Before graduation, they loaded all of us on a bus and took us out to a very fancy catered dinner at Wente Vineyards in Livermore, the oldest, continuously operated family-owned winery in the US (someone else cooking! Yes!). The vineyards and buildings are gorgeous, and we spent a bit of time in the cellar, sampling the vintages. Good thing none of us was driving.

Cooking School: Fin-ally--Field Trip to the Fish Monger

2009-12-01T15:42:00.000-08:00

Prepping the Malesa for a catch at Costarella Seafood

I missed this field trip the first time around, but was lucky enough to have a private tour courtesy of the owner and his wife. Name a fish, and Costarella Seafoods Inc.--another family-owned purveyor in San Francisco--probably carries it. They catch their own locally, and also act as middlemen for any number of exotics caught outside the area. Chef Maureen, our fearless leader, has been using Costarella for a while, and the whole salmon we carve into steaks for the restaurant is flawless (or at least it is until our inexperienced knife-work sometimes turns it into salmon sculpture).

Cooking School: Field Trip! Meeting Meat...

2009-11-25T15:41:00.000-08:00

Real Meat Guys at Golden Gate Meats, SF

I have never seen anything like it. One of these knives-sharp-as-a-scalpel guys can produce a pork rib crown roast that's a thing of beauty in about two minutes. Golden Gate Meats (which has an outlet at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market) is a family-owned wholesaler of gorgeous flesh. Don't gag, vegetarians! In spite of the tons of muscle that move through the wholesale butchery, it smells fresh as a daisy and gets inspected daily. This place is so organized, and the products such good quality, they've won my heart forever (as long as no one approaches it with a blade in hand).

Cooking School: I AM the soup Nazi

2009-11-20T19:08:00.000-08:00

Oh, how I love this. I am responsible for five soups that will be served in the restaurant, one each day. And I get to pick! I’ve chosen my mom’s borscht (a big hit--thanks, mom), Italian wedding soup (another hit), but chef chose a butternut squash puree (a disaster, as I cooled the squash in ice water and it absorbed too much liquid; Chef bitched about the seasoning, too. Another experience on the learning ladder.), shrimp bisque (a hit) and a simple leek/potato puree (another hit.) I love it when it works, and I love being totally responsible for a dish from start to finish. Here’s the borscht recipe, for restaurant service (24 servings). Cut in half for home service--it freezes well and gets better every day:

Olga’s Autumn Borscht

Portions: 24, portion size 8 fl. oz.

*Best if made one day in advance

2lb boneless lean pork in 1 inch chunks

16 oz onion, large dice

16 oz green cabbage, shredded

1. Brown the pork, onions, and cabbage together in a heavy bottom pot with just enough oil to keep food from sticking.

__________________________________________________________

3.5 qts. beef stock or vegetable stock (for cold soup)

30 oz red beets, peeled, cut into 3/8 inch half-moons

2. Add stock slowly to the pot and add beets. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

30 oz peeled white potatoes, large dice

3. Add potatoes to simmering soup. Simmer for another 15 minutes.Green tops from 5 beets, chiffonade, 1inch length

4. Add to soup, and simmer for an additional 5 minutes or until beets and potatoes are tender.

Rice or cider vinegar or sour cream

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

If serving as a cold soup, stir in one spoonful of rice vinegar or cider vinegar when serving. If served as a hot soup, add a spoonful of sour cream.

Garnish with fresh dill, chopped (dried dill works, too)

Cooking School: Exhaustion Takes a Seat

2009-11-10T19:04:00.000-08:00

Waaah!

Now that we’re about to move into our new stations, the constant pressure is beginning to show. Several people have mentioned that they’re not sure what they’re doing in this class. “I don’t intend to work in a restaurant” is a common refrain. Many of us joined up to learn to cook well, and what we’ve been exposed to is the grundgiest side of the restaurant business: the conflicts among different personalities, the constant greasy clean-up, petty jealousies and continual time pressure—put that together with being relegated to one station at a time, making one thing over and over rather than learning a lot of different techniques—some of my fellow students are headed for the door. I’m not among them. The adrenalin rush of having to put up or shut up within a short period of time (you burned it? Make it again, and quick!), combined with the hurried atmosphere of people rushing about, all bent on making it all come together by 11:30 (when the restaurant opens) is strangely addictive. Plus, I’m actually learning a lot. The textbook is excellent, and just by being in the kitchen, I learn something new every day (no, my knife isn’t dull—it’s easier to cut a bell pepper through the soft inside rather than the tough skin. Duh.) Next: I become one with soup.

Cooking School: Vegetable Stock and the Meaning of Life

2009-10-23T19:03:00.000-07:00

The snake is optional

Stock is the foundation of all formal cooking. Most of us get it in cubes or jars, or in boxes from Trader Joes. Fact is, it’s kind of a pain to make, at least the first few times. After that, you’re seriously addicted. You’ll feel virtuous because you’re not throwing away those perfectly good but tough onion peels, celery bottoms, carrot chunks, tomato ends, parsley stems and other vege items. Not the potatoes, though—they and the squash go hand-in-root to the compost pile, along with anything strongly bitter (I’m talking to YOU, endive and kale) or boldly colored (unless you love beet red—then it’s OK). Mirepoix (that mix of ½ onions, ¼ celery and ¼ carrots) in any amount is the basis for all stocks, whether vegetable, white (usually made from chicken bones, though traditionally from veal bones), or brown stock (definitely veal or beef bones). A vegetable stock is the easiest to make, and super versatile. I realize I’m a renegade, and worse, the daughter of depression-era parents, but I save all my onion, carrot, celery bits plus whatever else I’ve cut up in a quart bag in the freezer until it’s full. Learning that potatoes and their bumpy cousins were responsible for my cloudy stock modified my habits, however. I’m not at all careful about proportions, though I often end up with the right amount of onions because they’re in everything I cook. I used to roast it straight from the freezer, but I’ve found I really don’t need to. I dump the washed bits into water to cover plus a little more, bring it to a boil then turn it down to (oh, these cooking phrases!) a “lazy bubble”—aka a slow simmer with the occasional bubble breaking the surface. Cook uncovered for 45 minutes, and strain. This makes a great basis for soups and sauces. If you, like me, are space-challenged, cook the strained, clear stock down (again at a lazy bubble) until it reduces to the amount you need. As Chef says, “You can always add water”. When you make vegetable stock, you have found the true meaning of life-save the good stuff, make the best use of it, have patience, and the results are versatile and satisfying.

Cooking School: A Crook with No Fingerprints is a Cook

2009-10-10T19:00:00.000-07:00


And it's almost Christmas again!

Remember that scene in The Polar Express (2005) where the waiters come in with hot chocolate and sing the “hot, hot” song? A lot of people sing it in the kitchen, along with “sharps”, “knife”, and “behind you”.

The hottest place in the kitchen—and the most likely to do damage—is on “the line”—the sauté cook, griller, and griddler are all in a row, and all burners on the 25-foot line are on full-blast. It’s Death Valley sculpted in steel, coated with liberal amounts of clarified butter. The line cooks wait for an order to come in, and depending on what it is, can have several orders blazing away at once. It’s a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, and if you lose concentration, a lot of opportunities for 3^rd degree burns. Most of us, if we’ve cooked before at all, have already managed to burn off our fingerprints by reaching for the pan/pot/utensil without thinking. Mystery writers could have a field day with this fact.

There’s also a sandwich station, which supplies the coffee shop; a garde manger station (pronounced “gard manJAY”—oh, you sound so French) for salads and cold appetizers; a prep team, who cut all the vegetables and do some of the other foundation preparation such as side dishes; the student meal team who come up with the eats, a student chef who finds out what the different stations need and makes a list each day, and yours truly—packing veges and herbs, “fabricating” meat, fish and poultry (yes, that’s what it’s called), making the occasional stock, and up to my elbows in soapy, greasy water at least three times a day. I brought in a little red devil rubber duck that sits on the sink dividers—patron saint of the pot sink. Next week, I’ll be student chef—I can’t tell whether I’m moving up or down in the world.

Cooking School: Bitchin’ in the Kitchen

2009-09-29T18:57:00.000-07:00


We line up for the student meal.

The knives truly come out after a few days. We have a few students who insist on instructing others—true fonts of un-requested advice and correction. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You haven’t lived until you’ve been busted by a Kitchen Nazi—I got it (rightfully) for not carrying my knife point down—a dumb move; fortunately I’m ignorant, not stupid. But free advice can be mighty unwelcome: it takes some longer than others to understand that unsolicited advice from someone who knows little more than you do is just plain annoying. The worst part is, sometimes it’s GOOD advice, but you become deaf to it because—well, if these people are in a beginning cooking class, why should you listen to them? Aren’t they there to learn too? Could they secretly be scouts for Iron Chef? How’s my hair?

Most students are hard workers who will pick up any job, no matter how messy—earning the respect and gratitude of others. Others, alas, have earned the sobriquets “Kitchen Barbie” and “debutante” (yes, that CAN be a guy) and their names are included in the phrase “Where’s …?”, always followed by an eye roll and derisive snort. This is the big kitchen Zen lesson, since it’s all about helping each other. There’s no squeaking by in the confines of the big gray room—EVERYBODY notices if you take frequent breaks, disappear, or don’t dive into the gross bits. And there are always gross bits, more than you’d ever suspect.

We’ve begun having student meals prepared by members of our class, which are close to heaven—just a few bucks for some decent-to-great chow and a variety of sinful desserts from the pastry people. Everyone is going to be on that station eventually, so what used to be complaints about “too much salt, not enough thyme” has turned into finding what’s right about the meals—what goes around etc. In this little hive, all the bees have stingers, but we can make some powerful honey, too.

Cooking School: Who's a Chicken?

2009-09-25T18:52:00.000-07:00

Facing his fate with courage and determination

When I went to college, I lived on a farm and killed my own chickens (OK, I didn't wield the ax, but I did the scalding, plucking, gutting etc.) Thanks to Culinary School, I can now break down a chicken (fortunately for me, headless, footless and plucked) into eight parts in a couple minutes. Here’s how:

1. On the chicken’s backside, make a shallow cut with your knife down each side of the backbone.

2. Hold the chicken up by the tail and cut through the ribs on both sides all the way down to the neck following the shallow cuts, taking care not to cut through the breast meat. Keep the backbone for the stockpot.

3. Open the chicken up and take out the firm piece of cartilage that runs inside the breast by making a close cut with the tip of your knife around the V-shaped end and getting your fingers under the upper bony part (you’ll leave the wishbone in). Cut the breast in half by pressing down on the knife where you’ve just removed the cartilage and bone (you’ll split the wishbone in half).

4. Flip each side over and press down with your fingers between the upper thigh and breast—make a clean cut there on both sides.

5. Separate the thigh from the drumstick by feeling for the joint between them, and cut around and through it.

6. On the breast, feel for the wing joint closest to the breast meat, and cut through (the tips are pretty useless, but you can use the larger part of the cut wing for “drummettes”). This configuration—with the bit of wing left on—is called an airline cut.

7. Make a diagonal cut on each breast to separate it into 2 equal pieces: Voila! An 8-piece chicken!

Cooking School: Sharpening up

2009-09-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

We saw a truly informative video about knives. We all have our “kits”, which we carry around in cases, like ominous flutes. The knives are very, very sharp—basic kits include a 10-inch chef’s knife, 8-inch boning knife, 3-inch paring knife and a peeler among other tools. Several of us took turns sharpening on a stone, which involves precise angles combined with a Pilates-like twist of the upper body. This has to be good for the core. I worry for my fingertips.

The kitchen has stations, like an army has divisions. My first assignment is Receiving/Butchering/ Pot Wash. Receiving is a flurry of activity, putting away boxes of produce and icing down fish and meats. Meats go into the walk-in covered with plastic wrap; fish are in a drain/sieve pan in a hotel pan (square/rectangular stainless steel pans of various sizes), covered with plastic wrap, then with ice. They have to be re-iced daily. The exceptions are shellfish such as mussels, which drown, so must be iced under the drain pan. Pot wash is exactly what it sounds like—wet and greasy. Butchering is endlessly interesting, even for a semi-vegetarian like me—I think of it as surgery.

Cooking School: Beware the Danger Zone!

2009-09-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

I’ve been to at least 25 picnics where shiny bluebottle flies squatted on fried chicken left out in the sun for at least 4 hours. Then we’d all take some home, and call in sick the next day. Here’s the skinny on temperatures: the inside of your freezer should be 0 degrees Fahrenheit. The inside of your refrigerator should be less than 40 degrees F—top, bottom and door (all different—I checked). The Danger Zone, where even Jedi knights fear to tread, is between 41 and 135 degrees F. You can keep hot food in a warmer at 140 degrees for two hours, then you have to reheat it up to 165 degrees to kill all the nasties. In fact, no food should be in the Zone for more than a couple hours before icing down to 41 degrees. Wonder why you got turista from that popsicle in Mexico? It’s because heat kills a lot of the bad guys, but cold just slows them down. Of course, there are evil bacteria that nothing can kill, like salmonella, which sounds like a jazz-singing fish, but is undetectable until you get very, very sick. Fortunately, thanks to squeaky clean processing procedures, it’s not the worry it once was.

Cooking School: Clean is the New Clean

2009-09-17T18:42:00.000-07:00

Hanging around a restaurant kitchen has definitely changed my idea of what “clean” means. For all the dull stainless steel, lack of natural light, and drab surroundings, you could pretty much lick the prep tables in here—way better than my usual water-only wipe-down with a semi-moldy scrubber. In fact, when I stand in my home kitchen now I’m continually dashing here and there with a soapy sponge, looking for errant food trails on the cupboards. In the restaurant kitchen, we’re continually washing with detergent and sanitizing with a chemical mix (Ph--the acidity/alkalinity--is tested every time to make sure it’s safe to ingest) or super-hot water (180 degrees). Nobody wants to ingest or spread one of the big bad four, the food-borne disease axis of evil: bacteria, parasites, viruses and mold. Ignorance was bliss. Now I think I have botulism after breakfast. Next: What you CAN control: Time and the Danger Zone.

Cooking School: Our Founder is a Rat

2009-09-15T18:42:00.000-07:00


Our Founder

I blame Walt Disney. People like me who have been in white-collar jobs for years are studying restaurant procedure. That’s a switch—all these BAs and MBAs moving into low-paying, sweat-inducing work. We were swayed by the clever Remy in “Ratatouille”. That rat knew his oregano from his anise.

Click here to see the video for Ratatouille, the movie

We share the kitchen with the “Pastry People”, a class easily as large as ours. Our chef-teachers are always out-shouting each other.

Everyone in my class is—shall we say—unique? One new friend is very talented, very young, and has a tendency to think she knows more than the teacher (I knew everything when I was that age, too. I’m so much more ignorant now). Most of us are still wandering around in a daze, calling plaintively “Chef? Chef?”. The guys in class are a hoot—the biggest ones are the most gentle, like Great Danes. Most of my classmates are making an effort to meet each other and get along—a shy quick introduction while stacking stainless steel hotel pans or shuffling into the dish room—a mild name for the steamy windowless home of two gigantic rumbling kitchenware- and tool-washing apparatuses. When I’m in there, I like to think of it as a tropical vacation. On the equator. In the middle of Monsoon.

Cooking School: My Class: Assorted Nuts and Vegetables

2009-09-13T18:22:00.000-07:00

My class—it’s mostly people roughly in their 20s-30s. I say roughly because I’ve already seen a few edges. The class, consisting of about 18 people, is a real microcosm of the City: Caucasian girls and guys of various ethnic backgrounds, a lone Hispanic, Black men, and Asian women. Several students struggle with English. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to get along in a country where you barely speak the language while attempting to learn a complicated set of skills; this would be me at the Cordon Bleu in Paris. They’re doing better than I would. My grandmother spoke Ukrainian and Polish—when she came to America, she decided that two languages were enough, and never learned English, preferring to let her daughters do the talking.

It’s hard to tell who the ex-cons are. I’m not going to ask. Everyone is broke, which is comforting.

Mirapoix--the base of bases

We're going to start cooking soon. Look for the perfect fond (French for "foundation") in the near future. It's stock, of course, made from scratch. I don't have to tell you that most commercial stock (those little cubes, jars etc.) are almost entirely made of salt. The real stuff always starts with mirapoix, a fancy name for the vegetables in the picture above...

Thus far I’ve learned that pretty nearly every type of food can make you very, very sick and many kitchen machines are out to get you. Those really big machines are scary--the steam kettle (which is jacketed with a steam chamber to raise the temperature around the entire kettle) is the size of a hot tub. Remember to wash your hands 15 seconds with soap (sing “Happy Birthday” to yourself twice).

Cooking School: Cooking with Cons & Prose: I Swap the Pen for a Pan

2009-09-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

Who’s sautéing your weenie? After working as a professional writer for the last decade, I’ve enrolled at a Culinary Academy that teaches the Cordon Bleu method in a nearby city—the catch is, this is at a local college, and the chef/teacher warned me I may be with “the sort of people you may not be used to—people just out of jail, and so forth.”

This is our textbook (it weighs eight pounds, yikes!), uniforms, and knives are pretty pricey, but I already feel professional. Whatever that means.

I haven’t commuted in years, and this course required me to be downtown at 9AM (actually BEFORE that, as I’m required to change into my “whites”—cooking uniform—at school for sanitary reasons). I decided to try the ferry first—it’s crowded but fast. In the week I’ve been in school, I’ve already seen a few familiar faces on the boat, including “she who never shuts up.” Apparently, this woman commutes with friends or co-workers, and carries on a lively, very loud conversation every morning. She has a distinctive “New Yawk” accent. Since my brain is barely turning over and I’m trying to read, I’ve considered throwing a wadded-up newspaper at her to try to break her train of thought. However, that train continues, speeding down the rails and crushing all in its path. I may get wet standing outside, but the icy spray is soothing in comparison.