Day 4:

Week 2 begins with an introduction to nutrition.  I guess we learned some key points, obviously you’re not going to become a nutritionist in an afternoon.  nothing to life changing here for me, eat plants you’ll be fine.

Herb Identification. Rosemary, thyme, basil, cilantro, parsley, tarragon, oregano…

Cheese ID. I love cheese, and by the end of this tasting class I thought I was going to barf. Fresh, to hard grating cheeses were discussed.  We got into cheese making as well, super interesting.  It’s motivating me to make more ricotta soon.  My favorite cheese sampled was the morbier.  An interesting cheese.  Two layers, the bottom half is from milk was was milked in the morning and the top half was milked at the end of the day.  Two distinct tastes separated by a layer of ash.  Very nutty, produced in the south east alps.

Knife drills, medium dice.

Day 5:

Sanitation and herb test (95%).  I totally spaced out for some reason and screwed up a question on botulism.  I’m so upset, as a home canner it’s something I know quite a bit about.

Culinary Math.  Sounds like a joke, but if you know how many teaspoons are in a gallon converting that recipe to serve 50 more people will be a breeze.  Volume, weight & yield.

Knife drills.

Day 6:

Chiffonade knife cut.

Chiffonade cabbage after cabbage.  So much cabbage wasted.  I could have made 50 pounds of kraut from all the cabbage the class cut.  I think culinary schools should think about composting all these veggies.

We learned how to properly select an oil for cooking.  Learned about smoke points, I never knew olive oil had such a low smoke point.  We actually set a frying pan with OO on fire, cool.

Vinegar first.  Learning to stabilize a simple emulsion.  Stream that oil in, WHISK WHISK WHISK!  We made a simple emulsified dressing. Oil, vinegar, mustard, minced shallot and SALT.

Day 7:

The military has infiltrated your kitchen.  A little bit of history on the Brigade de cuisine.

Knife drills.

Cooking with fats.  To sum up I ate 6 eggs, don’t ask why.  We got to hit the stoves and mess around with different oils and make scrambled eggs.  Clarified butter, worcestershire sauce and tabasco make decent scrambled eggs.

Day 8:

Knife drills

Fish and seafood fabrication.  Let’s see on the table today flounder & stripped bass.  I can now break down (even better than before) a whole fish.  We fillet the bass a bit differently than I was use to, no problem.  I was bombing through flounder like there was no tomorrow.  Apparently I’m really good at fabricating flat fish.  I’m really looking forward to seeking out a whole fish this summer on the Cape or Maine.

We also made a very simple fish stock with our bones and mire poix.