Jacques Week

The Discovery channel may have "shark week," but we, at the BU Culinary Arts Program, have Jacques week. Ok, Monday was a holiday, so we didn't have a full week. Nonetheless, we spent three pretty intensive days working with Jacques Pépin and Jean-Claude Szurdak, who have been friends and culinary cohorts for over 50 years.

Tuesday morning began with Jacques demonstrating to us how to de-bone an entire chicken while leaving the meat entirely intact. When done, you are left with a whole boneless chicken (the tip of the leg bones are left in for effect) which is ready to be stuffed, rolled, tied and roasted. After the chicken is roasted, you cut it across the body to produce beautiful medallions of boneless, stuffed chicken. It was cool.

Then it was into the kitchen and our turn to perform the same trick--and it is something akin to a magic trick. Everyone had the opportunity to de-bone at least one chicken. Needless to say, Jacques made it look a lot easier than it really is. Because the process requires making very precise cuts which need to be done the exact right order, I think everyone had at least one moment (if not more) of staring at a partially de-boned chicken trying to figure out what to do next. Fortunately, Jacques and Jean-Claude floated around showing us all what we were doing wrong. It was massively fun and, in the end, all of the two dozen or so chickens were successfully de-boned.

Jean-Claude gathered up all of the left over bones to make two stocks: one white and one brown. The brown stock became the base for a demi-glace sauce for the chicken, while the white stock became a base for a soup.

Meanwhile, Jacques gathered the livers and the soft fat from the inside of the breast to make a paté. The fat and the livers were cooked in duck fat (lots of duck fat) then pureed, strained and seasoned. The final product was completely decedent, but unbelievably good.

Both Tuesday and Wednesday culminated with Jacques doing a demonstration for 70 people of "Complete Techniques with Jacques Pépin." Each person attending got a sampling of food prepared by Jacques and Jean-Claude with our assistance. One thing about preparing food for 140 people, there are invariably some repetitive tasks that need to be performed: bread needs to be sliced, grapefruits need to be sectioned, carrots need to be peeled, etc. But this is how we learn. As a chef, you cannot really be proficient at something until you have done it so many times that it becomes second nature to you. The gap between Jacques' skill at boning a chicken and our skill at the same task is vast. But then he has done it so many times that he may literally not even think about what he is doing while he is doing it.

And this is where the classic techniques come into play. They are time-tested techniques that once mastered allow a chef to move efficiently but effectively through the kitchen. But, good technique is about the expression of skill versus the expression of talent.

Raw talent is undeniable, but good technique can be learned.

Think about it this way. Alex Rodriguez is the best hitter in baseball, this is in part because he has more natural talent than most if not all other baseball players. But, Alex probably hits hundreds, if not thousands, baseballs a day. This allows him to hone his skill, his technique. His talent is augmented by the continual development of his skill.

If you de-boned a dozen chickens every day for a month, you would get pretty good at it. The fact is, good cooking is in part a result of the familiarity that comes from repetition.

Anyway...

Jacques and Jean-Claude are both part of a dying breed of chefs who prepare traditional French cuisine with a stress on using classic techniques. You could say that they are "old School." In this age of globalization, cultural exchange and culinary fusion, it is admirable to see to someone who has essentially been preparing the same food in the same way for over fifty years. Classic, indeed.

The week ended with a $500 a plate sit-down dinner. The menu was created by Jacques, literally. Not only did he choose the dishes on the menu, but he illustrated the menu itself. (You can see my signed version at the left.)

The menu included:

Passed Hors D'oeuvre of:
Oysters Rockefeller
Clam Fritters with Tapenade
Smoked Trout with Scrambled Eggs

Dinner:
Potage Parmentier
Crispy Sweetbreads
Roasted Squab with pea and lettuce stew
Salade Santé with cheese and caramelized cashews
Chocolate tartlets with raspberry Sorbet and candied grapefruit peel.

Frankly, there is nothing on this menu that is startlingly original. But really, that is not the point. This meal, and really all of Jacques food, is about classic dishes prepared correctly. It is fun to eat food that titillates the mind, but really, it all comes down to whether it tastes good or not. This food tasted good.

Pastry, Pastry, Pastry

Three days of pastry: sugar, flour, butter, chocolate. Repeat.

The week started off with a continuation of last week's tour of foods of the world, with a stop in India (which I will come back to). But the bulk of the week was spent on pastry.

On Tuesday we made cookies and bars with Janine Sciarappa, who is, herself, a graduate of this very program. During the morning we explored the core ingredients of baking (e.g. floour, sugar, eggs, leavening agents, etc.) and what each contributes to the process (e.g. structure, moisture, flavor, leavening, etc.) It was a brief, but very interesting introduction to the basic elements of baking. For example, you might think sugar only serves to bring sweetness to the table, but in reality it can also contribute to structure and be a catalyst for creaming ingredients (e.g. eggs) and for leavening (e.g. yeast).

We made quite the assortment of macaroons, short bread cookies, graham crackers (yum!) key lime bars, and brownies. The highlight of the day for me, though, was the Chipotle brownies. Holy carp, were they good: spicy, smoky, sweet and chocolaty.

Next was two days of working with Cindy Salvato. Unfortunately I was not able to attend class on Wednesday. But, on Thursday we delved into the dark, delicious world of chocolate. In addition to learning all about the types and properties of chocolate, we spent Thursday morning performing a chocolate tasting. We tasted twelve different chocolates, evaluating each for appearance (color, shine, etc.), flavor (bitter, sour milk, spicy, sweet, etc.) and texture (hard, smooth, crumbly, waxy, etc.) It was quite interesting to compare the differences between the brands and to see just how much variance there really was. The range of textures (from waxy to smooth) and flavors (from sweet to bitter) was really eye opening. If you have the chance, I recommend doing a chocolate tasting, in addition to being enlightening, it is also fun.

In the afternoon, we took what we learned about chocolate into the kitchen and made all things cocoa. Among other things, we made molten chocolate cake and truffles.

Molten Chocolate Cake

Man are truffles a pain-in-the-behind to make. Not to mention, very messy. The most important trick was to try to keep the chocolate on the truffles:

Catherine's Chocolate Hand

Ok, now back to Monday. We started the week by working with chef Thomas John of Mantra restaurant in Boston. The menu was: Parantha (flat bread) with a spicy potato filling, Tandoori chicken, shrimp curry with coconut and lemon rice with peanuts.

Being that I love Indian food, this was an enjoyable day for me. I think if I was forced to eat only one type of cuisine for the rest of my life, it would likely be Indian. I just love the range and richness of flavors. Besides, I am a spice-head (both in the sense of spicy flavors and heat) and so I could feed my need in this regard. Anyway...

Even though I had not heard much about Mantra prior to this day, working with chef John was a real pleasure and the food was really good. One of the most interesting parts of the day was listening to chef John reinforce how much the style of cooking and the ingredients change between the various regions and religions of India. In reality, the food we think of as being "Indian food" is really the cuisine of only one region of India. It would be as if the rest of the world thought of southern food or TexMex as "American" food. These are certainly part of the American culinary landscape, but to us they are considered as regional cuisines rather than a national cuisine.

Tip o' the week: The next time you make brownies, add 3/4 of a teaspoon of Chipotle powder.

World Food Week

If I had to pin point a theme for this week's classes, it would have to be something like: food from around the world. Some might say that we explored national cuisines, but that wouldn't be totally accurate since some of the foods we explored did not belong to any particular nation. Besides, there are some who argue that the notion of "national cuisines" is a false one and that there are no national cuisines, only regional ones. I'm not sure I totally agree with this, but that is for another time.

On Monday we were visited by Ana Sortun from Oleana restaurant in Cambridge. I had heard really good things about Oleana, so I was excited to work with her. Ana describes her food as Mediterranean. In the current culinary vernacular, Mediterranean has come be short-hand for style of diet influenced by the ingredients common to some countries of the Western Mediterranean: mainly Spain, Italy, Greece, and southern France. But, the Mediterranean is vast and there are quiet a few cuisines that are not a part of this profile: for example, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, etc...

Witness this map:


So, for Ana Mediterranean food extends beyond olive oil, fish and legumes. It is also the flavors and spice profiles of some of these other cuisines. As Ana explains it, what she likes about these cuisines, is that the flavors come not from piling on the fat (butter) but from the particular and aromatic herbs and spices. The result is food that is pleasing to the tongue but does not leave one with an unpleasant feeling afterward. What was most fun, was that we worked with ingredients and spices that we don't normally work with: Aleppo Chiles, Sumac, Dried Mint, Kofte Spice, etc.

The dishes we made were really good and were, indeed, very flavorful without being too filling. I am even more excited about trying Oleana now. Ana taught us a very cool trick to mash garlic. Essentially, you "chop" the garlic clove using the back of your chef's knife, towards the handle which results in mashing the clove instead of chopping it. It is a little difficult to master, but a good trick to know.

In almost direct contrast to Monday, on Tuesday we worked with lots of meat and lots of fat. This day we did Alsatian food with chef Jamie Bissonette from KO Prime .

Among other things, we made two of my all-time favorites: Wiener Schnitzel with Spaetzle and Choucroute. As with Ana on Monday, I was really looking forward to working with Jamie because of the food I ate when he was still at Eastern Standard (one of my Boston favs). Most notable in this regard was the charcruterie which makes sense since Jamie is building a reputation for working with offal.

Jamie and his sous chef were very hands-on when it came to instructing us, and they were both very serious about their craft. It made for an intense but very instructive day. Must of my day was spent working on the Alsatian Apple Beignets (aka apple fritters).

On Thursday we worked with Carlos Rodriguez (left) of Orinoco. Once again (and maybe this was the real theme of the week), Orinoco is a restaurant I have heard good things about and is somewhere I really wanted to go to. But we got it even better than that, Carlos came to work with us! Carlos refers to his food as Nuevo Latino, which is a melding of various Central and South American cuisines (most notably Cuban, Peruvian and, in Carlos' case, Venezuelan). You might be tempted to call it "fusion" but Carlos would be quick to correct you. What's the difference? Bear with me here a minute. With fusion, it's more about influence and taking dishes that are not traditional to a particular cuisine (say Cuban) and giving them a twist based on that cuisine. For example, you might put Chipotle powder in brownies (which is REALLY good, by the way) and say that they are classic brownies with a Central American twist. With Nuevo Latino on the other hand, ingredients from different cuisines are combined in a dish. So, you might have pork prepared in a manner traditional to Cuban cuisine which is then stuffed into an arepa.

Once again, somehow, I was on dessert duty which is ironic since I don't particularly care for dessert. In fact, it is not unusual for Aileen and I to go out for dinner and not even order dessert. In this case though, it turned out to be not such a bad thing. I worked on a chocolate Torta Fluida which is essentially an undercooked chocolate cake. Eating it was like eating a rich hot chocolate in a semi-cake form. It was cake you had to eat with a spoon, it was really incredible.

I should mention what we did on Wednesday, even if it did not fit the "theme" of the week. In the midst of all of this world cuisine, we worked on pastries. Specifically, we worked with puff pastry. We made Mille-feuille (aka Napoleons) and Tart Tatin. Doing a twist on the classic Tart Tatin (which is made with apples), I made a banana Tart Tatin, which, if I do say so myself, was really quite yummy. See for yourself:

Banana Tart Tatin


To end the week in fine fashion, Lilly (who is in the program with me), Jason (her SO), Aileen and I went to Orinoco for dinner on Friday night. It was excellent and highly recommended.

It's been quiet around here.

I have some catching up to do. I decided to move to a weekly format from here on out. Trying to post daily was getting too hard.

Morimoto & Me

What do Morimoto and I have in common? We are in this picture together:


And that's about it.

Prior to today, I have cooked sushi a couple of times. It turned pretty well. At least I enjoyed it. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure I probably did most things wrong, like how I sliced the fish, for example.

Today we had the opportunity to work with one of the original Iron Chefs himself, Masaharu Morimoto. Morimoto has a new book and he did a demo at BU in the evening of recipes from the book.

I think the day started with people in the class feeling a little bit anxious, wondering what chef Masaharu was going to be like and how it would be working with one of the new breed of celebrity chefs. This was augmented a bit by the entourage of people who arrived with chef Masaharu (assistant chefs, promotional people and even some press).

But, I think chef Masaharu put people at ease pretty quickly. He was calm and demonstrated a quick sense of humor, despite the fact that English is not his primary language. (I always think humor is one of the more difficult things to translate across cultures and languages. And yet, laughing together is one of the quickest ways for people to bond.)

We quickly got to work, as there was quite a bit of prep work to be done for the evening's demonstration. We started with chef Masaharu demonstrating how to slice fish for sushi. I think most of us were in awe of his skills and technique. I know I was.

First off, I had knife envy. It is no secret that I have something of a knife fetish, I admit it. I also tend to prefer Japanese knives for their feel: they're balanced differently and they tend to be lighter than German or French knives. Chef Masaharu had a beautiful Japanese Yanagi-ba knife with handles made from deer antlers. This style of knife is unique to Japanese knives and features a very long and thin, but very sturdy blade. Additionally, unlike European style knives, the blade is only beveled on one side (or at least one side is beveled considerably more than the other). This knife if ideal for making precise and clean slices of fish for sushi and sashimi.

Second, to state the obvious, his technique was masterful. Each slice of the knife blade was as precise as the previous one and each slice of fish was precisely the same size and thickness as the previous one. This seems simple, but let me tell it is not. Moreover, the slices of fish were extremely thin. To produce this not only requires the correct technique but also requires a very sharp knife. If either of these things is lacking, you end up hacking the fish rather then slicing it. This is bad.

When it became our turn, I struggled with slicing the fish. After a couple of hacks, one of chef Masaharu's assistant chefs demonstrated the technique for me again. Seeing him do it while describing it made me realize why I was having such a hard time getting the technique down. It was almost exactly opposite of how I am used to slicing food. Let me explain.

Say I want to slice a carrot or a chicken breast. I will lay the tip end of the knife on the far right side of the item with the tip titled down towards the cutting board, and then push the knife forward and down, away from my body, to slice through the food. Additionally, my off hand will serve to hold the item in place while I slice off the end. Or put another way, my off hand is holding the item being sliced rather than the piece of food I just sliced off. The slices of food "come out" to the right on the other side of the knife from my off hand.

When slicing fish for sushi, the technique is almost completely reversed.

First, to slice the fish you lay the butt end of the knife on the fillet with the tip of the knife tilted up and away from you. You then pull the knife towards you and down, in a sort of semi-circular motion. In this way, the tip of the knife is the last part of the knife to pass through the food. Second, rather than using your off hand to hold the fish fillet as you slice pieces off of it, you use it to secure the newly formed slice of fish. So, instead of slices of fish coming off of the knife to the right (as with the carrot), they come off of the knife to left, into your off hand (presuming you are right handed).

Once I realized this, my slices did improve. But, quite frankly, I still wasn't very good at it. Somehow it felt unnatural to me, even though I could clearly see that this method produces beautiful pieces of sashimi. This is definitely an area that I can work on and improve.

I have to say, there are certain foods which I will happily pay another person to prepare for me, Sushi is one of those foods.

As I mentioned above, the day ended with chef Masaharu doing a demonstration for a group of about 70 or so people. The dishes he made were definitely not your traditional Japanese cuisine. There is no other way to describe what he did in terms other than to say it was "fusion." And, not just any fusion, but in this case, a fusion of Japanese and Italian cuisines. I know, that sounds like an odd pairing, but here is what he made.

First was Daikon Fettucine with a tomato-basil sauce. Here the noodles were not made from a dough, but from stripes of daikon radishes and were sauced with a very traditional Italian tomato sauce.

He also made a crispy tuna sashimi pizza and then finished the demo off with sugared salmon.

All in all, it was a good day and an interesting menu.

Day Ten: Garnish

What we Did: Played With Our Food (Some Would Call It Garnish).

Garnish is all about looks. But, if indeed we do eat with our eyes, then garnish has a roll to play in our world of culinary delights.

Of course, I am not sure that making a zucchini look like a flower makes me more hungry. As Jean-Jacques Paimblanc said, "less is better." That is all I am going to say on that topic.

If my attempts today are an accurate reflection of my skills in the field, I will not being doing much garnishing in the future. I am not sad about this.

In the afternoon we shared four hours with the health inspector. And, well, the less said about this the better.

Quote of the Day: "Think like the vermin!" (On what your approach should be in tackling the problem of pests in the commercial kitchen.)

Day Nine: My Hard Head and Fat

It sucks being sick. It feels like my head is full of cement.

So, since I am home sick I have been catching up on some reading. I am in the process of reading two books: Eat Fat by Richard Klein and Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.

Fascinating stuff, I highly recommend both books.

Each takes on, what can only be described as, the current obsession (both good and bad) with fat in this country. Klein's book is more of a philosophical venture, ruminating on the social and historical meanings of fat.

Taubes' book, on the other hand, takes on the actual science behind the current thinking about fat (dietary and bodily) and its relation to heart disease. Taubes effectively refutes the current (and seemingly irrefutable) thinking that high dietary fat is linked to heart disease and the commonly accepted rise in obesity. It is really eye opening. The fact is that the data is simply not there to support the politically and culturally accepted idea that dietary fat is bad. At least, any reasonable mind looking at the data can only conclude one thing: the evidence, taken in its totality, is inconclusive.

Moreover, he argues that the low fat/high carb diet may be doing more harm than good and may be what is really behind the rise in obesity and diabetes. The real dietary evil? The "the whites." That is, refined carbohydrates such as white sugar, white flour and white rice.

The fact is, as much we would like to think that we are rational beings, we are more likely prone to illogical thought. We all too often simply believe what we want to believe no matter what the data might tell us.

So, the question becomes, if the data is, at best, inconclusive to support the conclusion that dietary fat is directly linked to heart disease and other illnesses such as diabetes, why has this idea taken such a firm hold on our beliefs?

I can only come to one conclusion: we have a deep seeded culturally ingrained need to see fat (in all of its forms including dietary and bodily) as bad. We want to believe that fat is bad, so we make it so. We seem to have a perverse relationship with fat. We love it and we hate it. Fat has become our dietary bête noire and our fall guy. And yet, we love it as well.

Eat fat, indeed.

Day Eight: Stewing & Braising

What we did: Braised and Stewed (but not in our own juices).

Today was the first day we worked with Jean-Jacques Paimblanc and we made four dished designed to teach us about cooking with liquid. They were, Beef Daube, Lamb Curry, Ratatouille, and Braised Endive. The essential difference between stewing and braising is that with a stew, the ingredients are entirely covered with liquid. With a braise, liquid (water, stock, wine) is present, but does not cover the ingredients. In some cases, a braise may only use steam. So, if you cover beef with enough wine and then slowly reduce the liquid to cook the meat and thicken the liquid, you are producing a stew. If, on the the other hand, you brown some endive halves, then add a small bit of liquid to the pan, cover it and then put it in the oven for 30 minutes, you are braising the endive.

Today was humbling for me. We were given the option of adding poached eggs to our ratatouille. Which we did and I was charged with this task. I have poached maybe a 100 eggs in my lifetime. It is definitely something I feel like I can do with sure success. Not this time. Not only did I not put enough vinegar in the poaching water (it helps to keep the whites from dispersing), but without me realizing it, the flame under to pot went out. So, when I went to put the eggs in the water, it was cold and not acidic enough and the result was a cloudy mess. Sigh. I had too start over.

It just goes to show, when it comes to food and cooking, you can't take anything for granted. Maybe this is why I enjoy cooking so much, it is a continual challenge and there is always something new to be learned.

All ended well though, as you can see, and I guess that is what is most important.

Quote of the day: "Cooking is being able to control the fire. Master the fire." - jj paimblanc

Day Seven: Grillin' & Roastin'

What we did: Grilling and Roasting

Today we cooked a lot of meat (as you can see to the left there). The idea behind today's lesson was two-fold. First, we learned about grilling and roasting foods. And second, we had the experience of what it is like to be a line chef in a restaurant.

Our charge was the following:

First, prepare the foods for the grill (cut them, trim them, flatten them, season them and so forth).

Then, we had to grill a steak, a hamburger, a salmon steak and a chicken breast while roasting a piece of flounder and a tomato. Oh, and the hamburger bun needed to be toasted. All of the foods had to be ready at the same time, as if they were ordered by one table.

We have been told again and again that cooking is about managing heat and at no time was this truer than today. Timing and judgment were the order of the day: when do should I start the chicken breast? Is the steak done enough? Should I rotate it or flip it over? Is the flame under the salmon too high? Why is the tomato burning in spots? Etc.

Know your food and know your equipment. Manage the heat!

The best part was, after we were done, we got to eat what we cooked. Mmmm, steak!

Coolest Thing I Learned Today: The system for classifying meat in the US.

The meat we eat in America is graded based on its quality (marbling, tenderness, age, ratio of fat to meat, grain, etc). I think most of us have heard terms like, prime, choice and select. But I'm not sure these terms mean much to most of us. So, here is the breakdown:

Prime is the top of the line. It should be tender and nicely marbled. Only about 2-5% of the meat produced is classified as prime. This means that you and I almost never see prime beef unless we can get it at a top restaurant. Even then, we are going to pay a steep price for it.

Choice is the next classification and constitutes the largest percentage of consumer meat (around 35%). Most of the meat we buy in fancier markets and most of the meat we are served at better restaurants is choice. There is such a thing as "hand-picked" choice which can be just as good prime. But how can this be? Well, it seems that on any given day, only a certain percentage of the meat processes at any one facility can be labeled prime. So, even if seven percent of the meat is of prime quality, only five percent of it gets labeled as such. The rest is labeled as choice. But, a good purveyor of meat will often "hand-pick" the best of the choice and give it to his/her best customers. Be nice to your butcher.

Select is the next classification and is the grade of meat found at most grocery stores and fast food joints.

Standard is the next grade and is mainly used as institutional food (yes this what they are feeding to our prisoners and our kids and grandparents.)

Then comes a grade called Canner which is used in canned meats and the like. Mmmm, Spam.

The final classification is called Cutter, but is not for human consumption, instead we feed it to Fido and Mittens.

Day Six: A Day at the Vineyard

What We Did: Learned About Food Safety and Visited A Vineyard

In the morning we learned about food safety. This is an important topic, but probably not the most scintilating reading for a Blog. At least know this: wash your hands a lot and don't cross contaminate. Oh, and time and temperature are not your friends.

In the afternoon we visited the Turtle Creek Winery in Lincoln, Mass. They are a small winery (most of the work is done by two people) that has only been in the wine business for eight years.

We took a tour of their vineyards and the wine making facility and then we tasted some of their wines. It was actually very interesting to hear them talk about what they have learned and what both their successes and failures have been. Growing wine grapes in the northeastern US is certainly a challenge because of the weather (a short growing season with a harsh winter). But, it sounded like they are pretty passionate about it and enjoy the challenge.

Quote of the day: "To make sense more common." (Stated goal of the food safety session.)

Day Five: Butchering

Today's topic is butchering.

In the morning we visited Kinnealey's Quality Meats. I won't go into too much detail here, but man there was a lot of meat and it was cold (they work in 38 degrees to preserve the meat). In many regards it was comforting, the place was clean and very well regulated.

In the afternoon we did butchering with Charles Grandon, who is the Executive Chef at the Winchester Country Club. We cut up a whole lamb, and we worked with a primal beef rib section and some chickens.

As a devout carnivore, I have worked with a lot of meat in my life, but I have never butchered a whole animal before. I must say it was at once informative, exciting and a little off-putting. But, not enough of the latter to make me stop eating or even working with meat. It was simply a new experience. I tried going vegetarian once in my life after seeing a whole pig on a spit and I lasted all of a week. Nope, I am a meat eater.

The most interesting part of it all for me was seeing just how difficult and complex it is to cut up an animal for consumption. Our juicy little steaks come all neatly prepared and ready to cook, but it takes a lot of work and skill to breakdown and fabricate all of that meat. Moreover, it takes a lot of skill to know where to cut and where not to cut, and what to trim and even if you can see what needs to be trimmed, it doesn't mean that you can easily figure out how to do it. I have a lot more appreciation for the work that butchers do.

So, thanks. Because I don't know what I would do without my Sunday night grilled steak. Which I do even in the dead of winter.

Day Four: Sauces

What we did: Made Sauces (French Classic).

Is it possible to over-stress the importance of sauces to good cuisine? Especially to French cuisine? Probably not. There are whole books that do nothing but discuss the history and importance of the classic French sauces. As Jacques Pépin himself states in his biography, to be considered a great saucier is the highest accolade a chef can receive. Today we made sauces.

In classic French cuisine there are five Grand (or mother) sauces:

1. Demi-glace (a stock that has been thickened through reduction)
2. Velouté (a stock that has been thickened with an agent, usually with a roux)
3. Tomato
   
4. Béchamel (cream based)
5. Hollandaise (butter emulsification)

From these grand sauces, hundreds of other sauces can be made. For example, add tomato paste (and a little butter) to a velouté and you have sauce aurore.

In the contemporary culinary world, you can add the following to the list:

1. Purées or coulis (usually fruit)
   
2. Compound butter (chilled butter to which herbs and other flavorings have been added)
3. Pan sauces

In this day and age, the classic sauces are made less-and-less, with more sauces made from a simple pan reduction. For example, sauté a piece of meat in a pan, remove the meat, add a liquid (wine, stock, etc.) to deglaze the pan (get all of the yummy brown bits from the bottom of the pan). Then add flavorings (salt, herbs, lemon juice, mustard, etc.) and finish it off with a little butter. Unlike the classics, these sauces are made to order.

The importance of a sauce goes beyond adding flavor (or hiding flavor in some cases), it can also serve to add moisture and visual and olfactory appeal to a dish.

Today we made three sauces: A demi-glace (or brown sauce), a Hollandaise sauce, and a Beurre Blanc (a butter emulsification made in the pan).

Single Coolest Thing I Learned: Sauce makes the Chef.

Day Three: Soups

What we did today: Made Soups.

So, what do you do with gallons and gallons of stock? Why, you make gallons and gallons of soup. We made: French onion soup, beef consumée and squash soup. French onion soup, now there is a funny story. But that is for another... What's that? Oh all right, I'll tell it.

At the age of fifteen I decided to cook my first fancy meal. One of the dishes I decided to make was French onion soup. I followed the recipe closely, caramelizing the onions and everything. Problem was that I didn’t make enough, so when I dropped the toasted baguette slices in, they just sopped up all of the liquid. To this day, my dad describes– with too much glee – my first attempt at French Onion soup as “the best tasting croutons he has ever had.” Thanks Dad! Well, at least it tasted good.

So, while this was not my first attempt at French onion soup, it was, at least, more successful than some past attempts. Like most soups, the quality of the broth or the stock used is of tantamount importance. In this case, the stock was really good, so as long as the onions were caramelized enough, the soup was going to be good. And it was, I gobbled up all of my soup. Mmmmmm, melted cheese!

One of the funner things we did today was clarify brown stock to make beef consumée. Basically you mix together chopped veggies (a mix of onions, carrots and celery called a mirepoix) , ground beef, and egg whites which you then add to the stock. As the liquid comes to a simmer, the egg whites congeal to form a sort of filter that floats on top of the stock. As the stock simmers, it passes through the egg whites which acts as a "filter" to captures all of the stuff that makes the stock cloudy. When you are done, you have a beautifully clear consumée.

The Single Most Important Thing I Learned: Don't get too excited when you are clarifying your stock to make consumée. Let the little bugger sit and do its thing. Otherwise you will break it apart, and then it can't do its job.

Day Two: Stocks

What we did: Made Stocks.

Today, we made stocks with John Vyhnanek. Stocks are the foundation of cooking. They are the basis for most, if not all, soups, are necessary for many classic sauces, and generally flavor much of what we eat. A good (or bad) stock can make or break a dish. French food could not exist without stocks (at least not classic French food).

What is a stock? Basically a stock is a flavored liquid made from simmering bones, vegetables and other aromatics (pepper, thyme, parsley, etc.) in water. The type of stock you are making will determine the aromatics and how long you simmer the stock. In general, the thicker and denser the bones, the longer the stock needs to simmer (beef stock takes longer than chicken stock takes longer than fish stock.)

How does a stock differ from a broth? A stock is made from bones and is simmered for an extended period of time. A broth is made from bones and meat and is simmered for as long as it takes to cook the meat.

With a broth, the resultant liquid is used as a base for a soup and the cooked meat is often added back into the broth. So, for example, Vietnamese pho is made from cooking a whole chicken in enough water to cover it, along with other aromatics (blackened onion, garlic, lemongrass, ginger, etc.) When the chicken is cooked, it is removed and the broth is strained and serves as the basis of the soup. The chicken meat has flavored the broth, but can also then be used in the soup.

With a stock, the bones, and any meat that might be on those bones, will be so cooked out after being simmered for 3-6 hours that there will be no flavor left. But that is sort of the point. The idea is to leach the flavor out of the ingredients into the stock and use the stock as a base for other dishes. Simmering the bones for so long also serves to break down the gelatins which produces a thicker liquid.

Today we made three types of stock: brown stock (made from a combination of roasted beef and veal bones) , white or chicken stock and fish stock.

I realized at the end of the day, that somehow my entire contribution to the stock was washing a bunch of chicken bones and cutting some mushrooms. Not sure how this happened, but I need to get more involved.

The Single Coolest Thing I Learned: How to rapidly cool down a hot stock using an ice bath and why it is important to do so (prevents rampant bacterial growth).

Kitchen Term: To do something in the Shoemaker's Way is to do something in your own way or in a manner that is considered to be non-standard.

Day One: Introduction

Today was the first day of what I will be doing for the next four months of my life: participating in the Culinary Arts program at Boston University's Gastronomy program.

I'm pretty excited about being able to do nothing but cook day-in and day-out for over four months. Even more, I am excited about cooking while learning as well.

I did study cooking in Paris for four months, so I think some of what we will be learning will already be comfortable for me. But that was a long time ago (late 80s) and I was a different person then. And, you should never stop learning. Moreover, the people who will be doing the teaching are either great chefs, experts in their field, or both. I am eager to see how they work in the kitchen and how the style of cooking and working may differ from chef to chef.

Today was a simple day: introduction to the course, met the chefs and the other students, went over the schedule, etc.

We did prepare some bones to make brown stock. But that was the extent of the cooking for today. Back at it tomorrow.