Trinity Shrimp

I really wish I had taken a picture of this, it was positively delightful. But I don't have a picture so you'll have to use your imagination. And if I try to draw it, it'll just look ridiculous.

The other night I had a craving for something gumbo-like. I love the flavor palette in gumbos - a little spicy, thick sauce, shrimp flavors - but I wanted it in half the time with half the ingredients. (Gumbo is involved but SO worth it. I will have to post my take on it sometime).

So - I had my basics nailed down. I wanted:

Shrimp

Gumbo/creole flavors

Some rice

And maybe some veggies (so I feel better about myself)

I decided to make a gumbo gravy sauce with shrimp, served over rice with sauteed green beans on the side. Sounds good, right?! Yes!

Let me tell you what makes this gravy different from other gravies:

everything.

Really though, most gravies start with a MIREPOIX - onion, carrots & celery. Creole cooking starts with a variation on this called the TRINITY - onion, celery & green bell pepper. THIS is why their flavor profile is so distinct - it starts at the very base of their cooking. The bell pepper adds the slightest hint of heat and creates a very subtle difference from other sauces.

I knew I wanted a thicker gravy so I figured that once I sweated out my trinity veggies, I'd add flour to them to create a vegetable roux.

Initially I was going to deglaze my trinity vegetables with some wine but went a totally different direction and used BEER! (Major guy pleaser ingredient) THIS also helps thicken the sauce because of the carbonation!

I will provide the sections of the recipe separately because I don't like to confuse the ingredients...

Trinity Shrimp

TRINITY VEGGIES:

Olive Oil

3/4 of Green Bell Pepper, medium chop

2 stalks of Celery, medium chop

1 small Onion, medium chop

(these get really soft in the sauce so don't worry about size)

Flour - as needed

1 beer can ( I used Bud Light)

32 oz. Low Sodium Chicken Stock

Some generic "Creole" or "New Orleans" seasoning mixture

1/2 lb. peeled and de-veined medium Shrimp

Warm pan, drizzle in enough olive oil to coat the bottom.

Place bell pepper, celery & onion in pan. Let cook through until they change color (the pepper will lighten and the onion will become translucent).

Season with a pinch of salt.

Once cooked through, sprinkle enough flour on the veggies to soak up any moisture. This will be your ROUX. Let the flour cook through for a minute.

Pour entire beer can into pan, crank up the flame to medium-high. You want the beer to bubble and reduce by about half.

Once reduced, add chicken stock and bring to a high-bubbling simmer. This will cause the chicken stock to also reduce - getting us to that thicker consistency = yummy.

We'll wait to put in the shrimp until we are almost ready to serve. Shrimp only take a few minutes to cook through and they aren't so much fun when they're overcooked.

Note: The great thing about simmering/reducing sauces is that it can take as long as you want. If you want the food faster, crank up that heat and get that moisture outta there! If you still have a lot to do, put it on a low simmer so it can take forever (or as long as you need).

KEEP tasting your sauce as it cooks.

Is it bland or not as good as you thought?

Add more salt.

When in doubt - add a pinch of salt. Then taste. You'll be surprised.

OH, and add as much of that creole seasoning as you want. Like I said before, just keep tasting the sauce until it's what your hungry heart desires!

RICE

Let's make this easy, ok? I make my rice in the oven because I get too nervous to make it any other way. It's the pilaf method and I highly recommend it.

PRE-HEAT your oven to 375 - don't ask why, just do it.

IN A POT:

1 C Medium Grain Rice

1.2794 C Water (I like to add just a smidge more than a cup because I can).

Bring these two confusing and complicated items to a boil on the stovetop. Once you see that boil, put a lid on it and stick her in the oven. SET YOUR TIMER (this is crucial) for 17 MINUTES. Close that oven door and let the rice and water work their magic.

At 17 minutes, briskly remove your pot from the oven and set it on a heat-proof countertop (this pot will be very hot). WAIT 2 MINUTES, then remove the lid and fluff your beautifully cooked rice. It's very exciting.

The beans should be cooked last and closest to serving time. If your sauce is where you want it, let's move forward with your shrimp and the green beans. Go ahead and drop your beautiful and clean shrimp into your sauce and proceed with the...

GREEN BEANS

(These were an afterthought so they're very basic)

Olive Oil

A large handful of green beans

Salt

That creole seasoning from before

Get your pan HOT HOT HOT - like - hotter than you've gotten it before. We are going to SAUTE these suckers - so it's gonna be fast and furious. Ready? Ok. Coat the bottom of your pan with olive oil and keep getting the pan hot. Once you're CERTAIN that your oil is piping hot, drop your beans into the pan. They're gonna crack and sizzle and it's gonna be really scary at first - but DON'T WORRY! This is what you want to hear! Let them sit in that heat long enough to brown. Toss them or move them around so they get evenly cooked. Once you see even color on all sides, sprinkle some salt and seasoning on them. Turn the heat down, breathe a sigh of relief and get ready to serve your meal!

We're almost done here -

Check your sauce one more time. It should have a gravy consistency. Got enough salt? Not sure - add more.

Are you shrimp pink and firm? Good!

Green beans hot and bothered, I mean, cooked? Good!

Rice is still fine because it just is!

Place a mound of rice on the plate. Ladle the sauce and shrimp over the rice. Place the beans on the side and CHOW DOWN.

Thanks and enjoy your food a la harte!

Note: This is my first posted recipe so I hope this makes sense. Please let me know anywhere that might need clarification!

an intermezzo

For anyone who has read this blog - yes, all 6 of you - you know that I went to culinary school this year. It was an amazing learning experience and I can hardly believe I actually went through with it. I spent about 7 months is practical classes at the Le Cordon Bleu in Hollywood and then had an internship at a restaurant for almost 2 months. It was fast, it was dirty and it was delicious. I think I cooked more than some people have in their entire lives.

I started culinary school because I had a vision - a vision that included a restaurant, a menu that I created and a social scene to rival the hottest spots in town. (Fluffy dreams like this are usually the reason anybody starts on any kind of journey). It wasn't until I started staging (pronounced stahj-ing - culinary lingo for FREE LABOR) and then working at an actual restaurant that my dreams and future came into focus.

I will not mention names because this is written word and it is up for everyone to see. (I've seen "The Social Network," ok?) The restaurant I worked at was in Hollywood and was the first job I was ever fired from. I basically got let go because some stupid salad dressings I made were...

"HORRIBLE." (direct quote from head chef)

What do you say to that?!

"Well, maybe your recipes are horrible!"

"Maybe your sous chef can't speak English so he can't tell me I'm doing it wrong!"

"Of course they're horrible, I hate it here!"

"That's because I peed in them."

None of those responses came to mind as I sat in the chef's office so I looked at him blankly - on the verge of tears - and apologized. I proceeded to suggest that he fire me because, deep down, I hated that place with a passion.

It's my thought that if you feel like you want to throw up and cry on your way into work every morning - and you're not pregnant or hungover - it's time to look for a new employer. So I finished out the day by making his stupid barbecue sauce, his stupid french fries, his stupid chicken wings, cleaning his stupid dishes (notice a theme here?) and cried tears of joy as I left.

Maybe it was a sense of entitlement but I felt that no one as educated as I am should be treated or talked to that way. Or MAYBE I was right. (Did I mention that I never got a lunch break or food? Yeah - in a restaurant. Seems like telling a fish he can't have a glass of water, right?)

Luckily I went on to do my official school restaurant internship at THE BEST restaurant with THE BEST kitchen crew. I will proudly state that RUSTIC CANYON (in Santa Monica on Wilshire) was an amazing restaurant experience. Probably the best food I have ever tasted and I learned more in my two months with them than I did in my seven months at school - which is strange.

It was during my time at Rustic Canyon that I quickly started to realize the restaurant business just wasn't for me. I saw the head chef coming in for twelve hour days, six to seven days a week. No holidays, no days off...no fun. Some people may be able to handle that kind of schedule but I am not one of those people. So I put in my time for my internship, sweated day in and day out, chopped, diced, sliced and counted down the days. I also declined the 2-day-a-week-at-minimum-wage job they offered me and went back on the digital media job trail.

Now I am working at post-production company in Los Angeles, happy as a clam. (Although I'm not a major clam-lover, per se).

Who knows how this culinary education will play into my life? It may seem like it didn't fit in with my theatre degree and my digital media degree, but I am happy to be putting the latter to use. I think the hardest part out of all of this are the student loans! (Google lawsuits against Le Cordon Bleu for more information on that!)

However, I do put the culinary degree to use on daily basis - when I cook for myself and loved ones! And, let me say, it is a much more pleasant way to enjoy the entire cooking and eating experience. There is no one constantly rushing you around (nothing can be done fast enough in the restaurant business). You don't have to sweat like a mule (there is no such thing as A/C in kitchens, only FIRE). And you get to enjoy the final product of whatever it is you're working on (prepping 100 tomatoes is only the first step out of many for a final product).

I have decided to transform the focus of this blog from my culinary school journey to my daily cooking experiences...and perhaps through in an anecdote or musical selection when I feel necessary. :) The beauty is that some recipes are masterpieces and some are filled with mediocrity! (I will try to only share the really good ones).

Cheers and here's to eating your food a la harte...

A Visual Update

Yes, I am aware that it has been FOREVER since I updated this blog.
My most sincere apologies. I am aware that people's lives revolve around this blog and I truly understand just how devastating this is.

To appease the masses, I've decided to share some of my favorite visual masterpieces that showcase my culinary experiences over the past few months!

--Intro to Garde Manger--

Don't be hatin' on my pastries

For your entertainment -

me in my school uniform.

Dazzling, isn't it? :)

It kinda looks like I'm wearing a parachute.

.......

The finale of Intro to Pastry...

NEW YORK CHEESECAKE

Your typical cheesecake recipe - creamy and speckled with tiny flecks of lemon zest, leaving a light twinge of summer on the tongue.

BLUEBERRY PIE

Your favorite - with a handmade crust and beautiful blueberry filling, made from scratch.

MERINGUE NOISETTES

Hazelnut meringue cookies sandwiched around a coffee buttercream...melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Would be delightful if paired with coffee and Baileys.

ECLAAAIIRRRRSSSS (Eclairs)

Those beautiful little ovals of bliss. Gorgeous puffy pastry surrounding a vanilla pastry cream, the dipped in chocolate. Perfect when popped in the freezer and taken out for a quick snack.

CREAM PUFFS

Similar to the eclair because they utilize the same dough, aka as a Pate a Choux. Inside these tasty little pastry sandwiches is hand-whipped vanilla cream along with strawberries. Soooo good!

MY sad LEMON MERINGUE TART

Yes, it's sad. Because it's meringue didn't get whipped enough. So the "peaks" were more like blankets and didn't look as spectacular as they should've when torched. Alas - it tasted AMAZING. With the handmade sugar crust and lemon curd, ya really couldn't go wrong.

PEAR FRANGIPANE

Or, what I like to call, Mollusk Pie (because it has a creepy looking mollusk face). The pears are poached in red wine, sugar, cinnamon and other spices. The cream surrounding it is a rich rum concoction of sweetness. Extremely rich and unlike anything I've ever had.

COOKIES

MORE COOKIES

Sugar cookies, Linzer cookies, Chocolate Chip and Palmiers

My presentation for daily grading. Guess who totally got an 'A'?!

Aaaand drum roll, please! The FINAL presentation! In a matter of hours, I had to make a lemon meringue tart, Linzer cookies AND Cream Puffs! No pressure. While my tart STILL had issues because of my meringue - big thanks to the other students who dropped yolks in the egg whites. (We keep a collective bin of egg whites and we had some real pistols who don't know how to remove a yolk from the white. THANKS for crushing my meringue!) Overall, I got an 'A' in the class and, thanks to all my leftovers, made MANY friends in the process.

Up next...meat fabrication. :( No bueno.

Eat until you're happy

BAKING!

Aren't you excited?! Have you ever made bread from scratch before?

Neither have I!

(By the way, putting this all in perspective, I can't believe I get to wake up every morning and make things like baguettes, sourdough loaves and pastries and get "stressed" about it. It almost seems silly! But I love it).

My first week of class I brought home a ridiculous amount of bread. I mean, I love bread just as much as the next person. But my parents and I could not keep up! You can only eat so many sandwiches. So we ended up sharing some of that beautiful bread with other members of my family. (So far we haven't been very good about sharing anything). :)

We made baguettes, whole wheat dinner roll, sourdough and sourdough rye bread. And then I made the baguettes and rolls AGAIN for testing! YIKESSOMUCHBREAD!

Then we moved on to really sugary, really buttery breads - i.e. the good stuff.

--Brioche--

That lovely, golden - and phallic - looking bread is called Brioche. The phallic looking shape is called "a tete," which means "with head" in French.

Yeah, it just keeps getting more and more suggestive.

BUT it actually is supposed to represent a solder hiding in the trenches. So get your filthy minds out of the gutter and feel bad about yourself for thinking that "tete" looks like "tit". These breads were made to honor soldiers, not anatomy!

The loaf sitting behind it was a magical cinnamon sugar brioche loaf. It had beautiful swirls of cinnamon-y goodness and made AMAZING French toast!

PIZZA DAY :/

Not my finest moment. Clearly my pizzas are awkward and small. I had a mini-nervous breakdown while rolling out my pizza dough.

We make most of our doughs in advance - that way we have time to make sure everything can get baked off in the oven. So I believe we made our pizza dough on a Friday and came back after the weekend to roll it out and bake it.

Now, okay - I could have sworn that we were supposed to put olive oil around the dough to keep it moist over the weekend. However, mine were a little too moist. They kept sticking to the table and my rolling pin and my hands and just about everything they got near. So the dough wasn't stretching out to a decent pizza shape and the more I kept trying to stretch them, the more they ripped and fell apart.

After tears had welled up in my eyes because my stupid PIZZA DOUGH wasn't working for me, I stopped and thought - pardon my language - "F*ck it, this is just stupid pizza dough anyway. They're gonna be small and that's the end of that."

I rolled out my gnome-like pizza doughs, decorated them, baked them perfectly and presented them. After all my worries and woes, the teacher said, "Well aren't they cute little pizzas?"

. . .

As if the size didn't matter all along! I exhaled a huge sigh of relief and dug into my version of a meat lover's pizza. And it was excellent.

Danishes

One of my favorite days. They were gorgeous and amazing. Ya can't get danishes like this at Starbucks. These were sinfully delicious. (Oh, and that's a Brie en croute in the upper right corner. Brie wrapped in puff pastry and baked in the oven. mmmMMMMmmmmm).

Fruit Tart

Probably one of the most beautiful and presentational pieces we have made yet. (The resolution isn't that great here because I used my iPhone to take the picture. My old camera died because it got drowned in vegetable oil.)

As I was saying - one of the most presentational pieces we've made yet. Which is why it was SO awesome when I DROPPED my tart as soon as I got home.

I suppose this wasn't the WORST thing that could happen. It had been graded, I had taken some so-so pics on my phone and, when I dropped it, it still remained in the tupperware and didn't hit the ground.

HOWEVER, I tantrumed like no child has tantrumed before.

I couldn't believe that my first real piece of art had just suffered a 9.0 earthquake and would never be the same again. Plus I was tired, hungry and hot - never a good combination.

In order to recover from this terrible fate, I did what any level-headed 25-year-old would do:

throw your keys across the room, slam your knife kit into the nearest chair, rip off your chef coat, undo your hair, kick off your shoes, toss your glasses and start crying...and then slowly pick up your shattered tart and eat it. And I ate and ate that tart until I calmed down and felt better.

Looking back now, I wish I had taken a before and after picture of The Great Tart Disaster. But that would have meant having a sense of humor about things - which CLEARLY was not happening.

So let's remember the tart the way it was...happy and all in one piece...

Food so good you stop eating all the other crap you thought was good

Herb Gnocchi with Asparagus and Hotel Butter

Hungarian Goulash with Spaetzle

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Lamb Chops with Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes & Spinach

Chicken Roulade with Pommes Vapeur

Coq au Vin!

Shrimp & Chicken Sausage Gumbo

Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Fingerling Potatoes & Beets

Sauteed Salmon with Ratatouille & Creamy Lentils

Grilled Pork Chop with Braised Red Cabbage & Pommes Dauphinoise

----------------------------

These are samplings of the beautiful traditional French food I have made in class. I think my favorites have been the handmade Gnocchi, the Goulash and the Coq au Vin.

You haven't had Gnocchi until you've had it made from scratch, browned in butter and covered in more butter. It was music to my mouth! We made the Gnocchi from scratch with fresh potatoes and herbs - beautiful. Then we par-cooked them until they held together nicely. THEN...we sauteed them in butter until they were browned and crispy on the outside and MELT IN YOUR MOUTH on the inside. Then we added sauteed asparagus and covered the whole dish with hotel or compound butter - BUTTER combined with lemon zest, shallots and herbs. YUM, GORGEOUS, AMAZING.

The Goulash - brilliant. Cheap chuck braised until it's beautiful. Brown it in some paprika then set it in the oven and forget it. That is, until you eat it and realize you have eaten beauty.

And the Coq au Vin.
Need I say more?
Chicken braised until it falls off the bone, in a gorgeous brown sauce. Garnished with blanched pearl onions, bacon pieces and sauteed mushrooms. Forget Koo Koo Roo, El Pollo Loco and whatever excessively-voweled-name-chicken-place you can think of...THIS is how you eat chicken. With BUTTER, FAT, SALT and GORGEOUSNESS.

Sadly, my time in this lovely class is up. My final - which is the bottom picture that has the heart ramekin - was to make Vegetable Pasta Soup for starter, Sauteed Salmon with Ratatouille & Creamy Lentils (pictured) for an appetizer and Grilled Pork Chop with Braised Red Cabbage & Pommes Dauphinoise (pictured) for the main course. Can you imagine that being YOUR final exam? Strangely enough, it was extremely stressful. But it was TONS of fun to pull off.

Now I'm starting my BAKING journey in culinary school. Tune in, sign on, tweet, toot or read about my next blog where I talk about the joys of...

YEAST.

(Yeah, I know, it's actually not that exciting).

Mount with butter

On to the proteins!

I have moved past my first intro culinary course into my...wait for it...SECOND intro culinary course. Movin' at the speed of light here, people!

Actually, literally, it feels like the speed of light. A month ago I was learning how to heat a pan hot enough to saute a vegetable. Now I'm learning how to roast, pan-fry, grill and poach meats PLUS make sauces for them PLUS make side dishes to go with them. And we make multiple versions of these meats in one day. In less than two hours. My head is spinning. Constantly.

One of my favorite things - every time we finish a sauce, we are to "mount" it with butter. As if we didn't already have enough fat in or dishes, we finish sauces off with butter to give them texture and shine. Gotta love it.

Wanna see pictures?? Okay!!


DUCK!

Okay, stop ducking. I mean, I COOKED duck! I don't even know if I've eaten duck before, but I cooked it! And it was positively delicious. Pictured above, you see Sauteed Duck Breast with Dried Cherry Pan Sauce along with Rosemary Roasted Potatoes. Is your mouth watering yet? It should be.

For this, you saute your duck breast in its own luscious fat until it's cooked medium rare (duck is a red meat). Use that duck fat to make a beautiful red wine and dried cherry sauce. Meanwhile, roast some red bliss potatoes in the oven and coat with rosemary and desired spices. Piece of cake, right?



BEEF!

Yup, beef tenderloin, my friends. The beauty of meat. Lovingly coated with olive oil, salt and pepper and grilled to perfection. Alongside it, a twice baked potato. One bake: in the oven and whole. Scoop everything out of the potato and combine with sour cream, regular cream, cheese and salt & pepper. Place back in potato skin. Two bake: top with cheese and bacon and place her in the oven. Twice baked and twice as delicious!



Another twice baked potato! And some Marinated & Grilled Flank Steak. (I cut them the wrong way which is why they look like pruney meat lady fingers). But it tasted delicious.



The beautiful thing about the class I'm in now: we make amazing things. Behold, fish and chips. (Homemade tartar sauce not pictured). Yeah, we made tartar sauce from scratch. NOT an easy task. Mainly because tartar sauce has a mayonnaise base...and we MADE our mayonnaise. Mine didn't come out totally perfect. But how many mayonnaises have you made today??

This next dish is not for the faint of heart. Or for anyone who dislikes seafood...



Trout Almondine. The prettiest of the pretty fish. Look, she's mugging for you! This lovely fish is covered in brown butter sauce with almonds. Underneath the fish is braised chard and pommes parisienne (potato balls). Can't say it was one of my favorites...but technique-wise, good to learn.

**Just to give you an idea of how crazy these classes can be**

One day we had to make Chicken Marsala, Crispy Snapper, Grilled Salmon, Grilled Vegetables & Lentils. In two hours. I nearly lost my mind. AAAAND we had to have them in between certain times.

From 9:15-9:30 we had to turn in our chicken marsala. Great. Good. I got straight to work on it because it was first up. So there I am diligently working away on my chicken to get it turned in by 9:15. So I turn it in at 9:15 and realize I haven't done ANYTHING to further my other dishes. I manically start pan-frying my striped bass and COMPLETELY burn the poor thing. Once I saw that sad, charred bass sitting there, I just lost hope for everything else I was doing. The bass was due between 9:30 and 9:45 and there was just no hope for it or its cream sauce. Our salmon and lentils were due from 9:45 and 10:00 (yes, in the A.M. We get there early). My salmon was undercooked and my spirit was crushed.

I was so pissed that day that I swore the food would no longer be the boss of me. The next day, I took down the duck, beef tenderloin AND flank steak all within two hours. TAKE THAT!!

It is awesome to be working with meats and learning all of these neat techniques. So far I haven't blown myself up or cut a finger off. Knock on wood. Now on to more complicated French cookery!

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Hundred Potatoes

I have cooked so many carbs in the past 2 weeks, Atkins just threw up all over himself.

I definitely got used to my new schedule this week. It goes something like this:
Go to bed too late.
Get up too early.
Do far too much during the day.
Keep doing too much.
Repeat.

But it's FUN!

I wouldn't be getting up at 5am everyday if I didn't totally love this. Wouldn't you get up that early if you knew there was tons of food involved?

This was a week of sauces and potatoes. So many potatoes. Potatoes all over my fridge and tupperware.

The sauces weren't outrageously exciting because they are considered "mother sauces." That means that, except for Hollandaise, they are unseasoned, leaving them numbingly bland but promising as far as their possibilities go! We learned how to make Bechamel, Veloute, Espagnole, Tomato & Hollandaise sauce. The joy of ROUX also fell into our lesson plans. As if we weren't already on a healthy balance of starch and carb - we put flour and butter together to make roux magic!

Sauces aside, we learned almost every gorgeous variation the spud can handle. From cooking it in oil, butter, cheese, more butter, some cream, and maybe some more butter - I know how to cook a potato!


Here's my POMMES ANNA that I moronically burned my first go. Not as easy as it looks (and hopefully it DOESN'T look easy). You have to cut and layer these potatoes a certain way, douse them in butter and seasoning and then hit them with a HIGH flame to brown the bottom of the pan. But if there isn't enough butter, they BURNNNN! Like MINE! Lesson learned. During our exam today I do believe I did those POMMES ANNA justice.


This is POMMES DAUPHINOISE. A beautiful dish where potatoes, gruyere cheese, cream and garlic can live together in subtle harmony. Similar to scalloped potatoes, this dish is ooey gooey layers of potatoes and gruyere cheese soaked in cream. Ridiculously good.


And the terror - RISOTTO. Oh yes, we all love risotto. And wouldn't you think it would be easy to make? It's like pasta, but smaller! But no my friend, it is not easy to make. At least not the traditional French way. Those damn French want you to stand over a HIGH FLAME (over the flamethrower stove) and stir your friggin' risotto for AT LEAST 17 minutes. Meaning, you do not walk away from that risotto until it is DONE. So far I've only lost 2 top layers of skin to this dish. The first two times I made this dish in class, the risotto just totally collapsed on me. You have to constantly add chicken stock to it so it will stay "au sec" or almost dry. And if the starches don't release from the Arborio rice, you're screwed and end up with chicken stocked weird grains of rice. For the exam today, I spoke sweet, sweet words to my risotto and it came around. Thank god.

Next week it's on to FRESH PASTA! And hopefully items that aren't all brown themed! (See above pictures).

Face en Flambe

I have survived. I have actually made it through the first week of culinary school.
Which was MUCH, MUCH more work than I could have ever thought. I got clued in to just how much work this would be when they handed us the syllabus on the first day. Not only is the workload IN class ridiculous, but there's also a workload OUTSIDE of class that is insane.
But don't get too worried. I mean, my homework consists of bringing potatoes home and chopping them up into identical miniature squares and rectangles. And reading recipes. And thinking about food. Gosh, it's really tough.

The first few weeks of school are going to be going over the basics of cooking. So I haven't made an upside-down duck cake or a chocolate volcano fountain - yet. We started with Ratatouille, Braised Leeks, Glazed Carrots, Pommes Puree (mashed potatoes), Risotto and Pilaf.

While these things MAY sound relatively easy...they're not. They aren't necessarily out of this world difficult, but it isn't like following a Rachael Ray recipe.

Our chef (the teacher) demonstrates what we're going to cook that day. Of course, he makes it seems effortless to put together three dishes at a time. And, taking notes, it all seems completely do-able.

Until he releases us into production time. And we have to grab every piece of equipment we need. And chop up all the ingredients. And work with the industrial stoves that don't just let off a little heat, they're certified flame-throwers. Not to mention the sanitation requirements. If you so much as think about coughing, you gotta wash your hands up to your elbows. It's like we're the surgeons of the kitchen.

My Ratatouille was just okay. I used too much oil. I didn't sautee the vegetables correctly.
I almost blew my face off while making the leeks. I had started to brown the bottoms of the leeks and made the huge mistake of walking away. When I came back to the pan, I had no idea just how hot that thing was. So when I added my chicken stock...
BLAM-O! Huge flame came up in front of my face. Nothing like a good mini-stroke to get ya goin.
My carrots were miserably overcooked.
So much for thinking I was a multi-tasker.

The starches were a little bit easier. I did, however, burn my Risotto in class. So I took it upon myself to make it at home today. Carefully baby-sitting what is one of the most-botched recipes in the kitchen. And it worked!

Next week we move on to sauces. Not super exciting as far as end product goes, but I'm sure we'll eventually use these sauces on things that are REALLY mouth-watering.

Big 7 Month Journey

As if I haven't had enough education, I have decided to take on culinary school. Le Cordon Bleu in Hollywood, to be exact.

Totally out of left field, I know. I have a bachelor's in theatre under my belt as well as an associate's in digital media. But those weren't enough. (Not to mention I didn't like working with any of the people in those fields). So I've moved on to something I love very much - FOOD!

I start my 7-month course this Monday, January 4th. I honestly have no idea what to expect. I go to class Monday through Friday from 6am to 11am. DEFINITELY not my cup of tea. But this way I can go to school and keep my job at the Fashion Institute.

I will have a diploma in culinary arts by the time we reach August 2010 - crazy, huh? Then you can expect to either see me on the Food Network or opening my own restaurant. Or cooking for the President. (I'm not gonna waste my time dreaming small, obviously).

I go to the orientation tomorrow morning where I will pick up my awesome knife set and my SNAZZY chef outfit. (I will probably have to post a picture of just how NOT snazzy the outfit is).

Thanks to the movie "Julie & Julia" I felt inspired to blog about my journey. I hope you'll enjoy the great food - via internet - that I'm about to cook up!