Culinary Agoge

As part of documenting the morning pastry class (day 1, day 2) that I took at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, I took some video of some of the demonstrations. Enjoy.

How to Fill A Bear Claw

How to Roll a Croissant

How to Roll Brioche

How to Roll and Cut Elephant Ears (Palmiers)

I left the first day of Morning Pastry Class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts really excited to return. Despite the class starting at 6:00 and being scheduled for around 3 or 4 hours, I didn’t leave until around 11pm. Adding to that, I had to drive out to my parents’ house to sleep for three hours before getting up to drive some family that was visiting to the airport and then go from there to my apartment and then back out to an early morning investor meeting for my company. Needless to say I was exhausted after the whirlwind of activity, but it was worth it. There was so much to learn and do in the class and it was a lot of fun. If there was one thing that I observed above all else, it was that people just don’t follow directions. It was very funny to have to see Chef Gomes save us from our selves. I wondered how our end products would turn out.

Rolling out croissant dough

It was amazing to see how Chef Gomes worked with and transformed the dough.

Le Croissant

These guys get real big once they have proofed!

Laying out the croissants

The ends of the croissants were brought together on the sheet pan.

Filling chocolate croissants

My classmates and I may have eaten some of the chocolate bars out of the box instead of putting them into the croissant dough. I’m expecting the bill any day now.

Filling bear claws with jam

The bear claws are harder to get right than they look.

Oh the shapes we made

We made stars with the dough and filled them with pastry cream and apricots.

Proofed Croissants

The croissants got much bigger when they proofed!

Scoring chocolate croissants

Using a razor blade, the chocolate croissants were scored for added texture.

Croissants baking in the oven

The smell of butter and waiting for these suckers to bake was torture.

Fresh baked croissants

If waiting for the croissants to bake wasn’t bad enough, we had to wait for them to cool down. Some over eager students were willing to burn their mouths to sample the goods. I may have been one of them.

The bounty

Things were just getting started with the first batch.

Croissants with pastry cream

The picture says it all. These did not last.

Croissants with a sprinkling of sugar

Whoever was on dusting duty was quite generous with the powdered sugar.

Palmiers (Elephant Ears)

If pounds of butter were not enough to cause serious health problems and weight gain, these elephant ears were like putting the final nail in the coffin. These were pretty much all butter and sugar.

Cinnamon Buns

Sadly I may never order cinnamon buns from a bakery again knowing that they will never be as good as these were.

Brioche

If I had to guess, the brioche was the most healthy item on the menu.

The pictures tell the story better than I ever could. I left the class with two boxes filled with the most delicious pastry items I have ever had the fortune of eating. Breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week, I was happy.

I can see this class being an annual tradition.

In October I was fortunate to take a two day morning pastry class with Master Pastry Chef / Pastry Program Director Delphin Gomes at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Without a doubt this was one of the best classes I have ever taken. Even though I took the class last fall, I took many pictures of the amazing pastry we made. I can almost taste the butter now as I write. The best part of the class was the fact that there were not written recipes. The focus of the class was on the method, and not the recipe. We were given clear instructions and sage advice at the beginning of the class which included basic ratios of ingredients and the instructions for combining them, where if done properly and as was the case almost properly, would result in pastry never experienced by the students this side of the Atlantic. The pictures in this post and the pictures and videos in the posts to follow speak for themselves.

Making Pastry Cream

You’ve never had better pastry cream.

Proofing Croissant Dough

The Chef and his assistant had created some dough prior to the start of our class so we could start working right away.

Smashing a pound of butter!

After a long day at work, there’s nothing better than being able to smack a block of butter with a rolling pin to get your frustrations out. The noise level of the class was insane. I’m guessing this activity would not be welcomed by my neighbors and would result in immediate forfeiture of at least half of my croissants.

Rolling out the croissant dough

Any frustrations assuaged by the flattening of the butter quickly returned when the croissant dough had to be rolled out into a straight and event rectangle. The Chef had to intervene…often.

The first day was primarily one of setup. We had to wait a whole week to return for the second and final day where we could make our croissants, puff pastry and brioche.

Culinary Wisdom: According to Chef Gomes, a good croissant takes two days to make. If yours didn’t take two days to make, you aren’t eating a good croissant. Joking aside, the reason for this is directly related to the proofing times required and the flavor production resulting from them. Throughout the proofing, the dough had to be folded (turned) several times to create the layers of butter and air required for an amazing croissant.

I’ve been meaning to write this post forever. It’s my 100th. Life gets in the way, but the timing is perfect. I’ve left my job at Jumptap to start my own company, Media Armor. On top of that, I’ll be taking the second part of the Back to Basics series at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. This is a time for new beginnings which parallel’s Julia’s experience as chronicled in the book, My Life in France, based on her journal entries. The challenge of writing a post about her and the book is daunting. Books have been written about her. By no means could I ever do her justice, so I won’t profess to. In fact it is probably more appropriate to be simple, like her cooking and to talk about how I connected with her and her writing.

Of course I’d seen Julia and Julia. This book reflects the half of the movie that was about Julia, and my opinion the more interesting half. My exposure to Julia Child is rooted in my childhood like many. I remember watching her cooking shows with my grandmother when I was young. We loved watching Julia. Her passion, simplicity and comfort in the kitchen where inspiring. I had no idea what to expect while reading this book.

It goes without saying that this was an amazing read. Her desire and courage to take on new challenges made me want to learn more. She easily conveyed that she was like anyone else to her fans which helped make her so likable. Best of all as she learned throughout her life, she understood that her passion beyond food was teaching others, and this she excelled at, changing the food industry forever. Her stories, humor and openness were welcomed.

Maybe because she was older, or maybe because I was much younger and couldn’t understand…Julia was much more “raw” and progressive than I ever could have imagined. Tall, slightly awkward, loud, and fearless, she approached her life in France and cooking with conviction and fearlessness. Her life’s story came alive with each and every page turn. Most striking was her honesty about life, her relationships and lessons. While I read this I couldn’t help but think back to Jaques Pépin’s own autobiography The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen which I read and wrote about previously. It is no wonder why they became such close friends in life.

This book doesn’t portray a woman seeking glory, recognition or vanity. She is humble, appreciative and genuine. To fully appreciate it, another read is necessary so as to absorb the detail and experiences that she painstakingly recounts. Since I started this blog I have definitely become more comfortable with cooking. Hell, I even won a work cooking competition. I now challenge myself with new recipes and ingredients and feel free to experiment. As I embark on my own new life with respect to work, I’m encouraged by Julia to go after what I want in life, to take risks, and embrace the unknown and unexpected. Life is sweeter.

French Vanilla Ice Cream

Having a stand mixer is great not only for the work it saves you but but also for the great attachments you can get. Single use appliances and cookware take up too much space, and where possible I like to purchase items with a lot of versatility. I recently purchased an ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid mixer and have been looking forward to using it, but my main focus has been the Cooking Through Ratio series. My recent experience making Angel Food Cake left me with several egg yolks that I didn’t want to discard. As luck would have it, I had just made a dessert involving crème anglaise in a French cooking class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Making crème anglaise was a lot easier than I anticipated and was an easy way for me to use up the remaining egg yolks while also allowing me to use my new ice cream maker attachment.

Just about every kitchen appliance you can buy comes with a recipe or two to get you going. The ice cream maker came with a recipe for French Vanilla ice cream. A quick glance at the recipe and knowledge of crème anglaise made an obvious connection. This French ice cream was really nothing more than frozen crème anglaise. Last night I started just before dinner making the ice cream.

As instructed by the recipe, I scalded some half and half cream in a medium sauce pot on the stove top.

Ice Cream: Scalded Cream

The heated cream was set aside as I got the sugar and eggs ready. In the mixing bowl I combined the yolks and sugar, ribboning them together using the whisk attachment.

Ice Cream: Sugar and Egg Yolks

Once the yolks and sugar were combined, I slowly added the heated cream and combined them.

Ice Cream: Cream, Sugar and Egg Yolks

The cream, sugar and egg mixture were poured into the sauce pot to heat up again over medium heat. The recipe called for heating this until small bubbles formed around the edges of the pot, being careful not to boil the mixture. During the French cooking class, Elise the chef instructor cautioned my mother and me to not exceed a temperature of 180 degrees F or the eggs would start to curdle. I got out my digital thermometer and observed the temperature rise steadily as I mixed stirred. 180 degrees were reached, but no bubbles had formed. I wondered if the heat measurement was a result of the ambient heat coming from the stove and not the mixture itself. I made the decision to let it cook longer. The heat rose more and more to about 190 degrees and  instead of seeing bubbles, tiny lumps started to appear. I was 10 seconds away from a pot of sweet scrambled eggs as right after the lumps started to appear, it started to boil. This was not the steady rise that I was waiting for. I had missed the mark.

Ice Cream: Heated Cream, Sugar and Egg Yolk Mix

Immediately the pot was pulled off the heat and the remaining cold cream was added. I put the liquid back into the mixing bowl and stirred on a low setting to cool it down a bit and combine the cold cream throughout.

Ice Cream: Cooling with Added Cream

I didn’t notice any more lumps forming. I further cooled down my original pot and transferred the liquid back into it and mixed in vanilla and a bit of salt hoping to bring the temperature down even more.

Ice Cream: Stirred Cream and Flavoring

The recipe called for cooling the mixture in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours. Thinking twice before covering the pot and putting it on a glass shelf, I poured it into a glass bowl and then placed it in the fridge for cooling overnight. Elise also mentioned that the cooling down of the crème anglaise allowed it to thicken. This seemed like a good thing for ice cream.

Tonight was the easy part. All that was required was pouring the mixture into the mixing bowl to let it churn for 20 minutes. I used a strainer to prevent any scrambled egg bits from entering the mixing bowl. 20 minutes later it was thickened and ready to go. After that I packed up two pint containers and let them freeze for a couple of hours.

Ice Cream: Packed and Frozen

Despite the mishap, the ice cream came out really great. Even after a couple of hours it was still a bit soft, but the flavor was perfect. Another waist expander has been conceived.

Last Christmas I bought my mother a gift certificate for a couples cooking class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Material gifts don’t carry the same weight that they used to, but experiential gifts, memories, those are priceless. After some thought and consideration, the natural choice was a French cooking class because of her love of French food.

Life seems to get in the way of things like this. We planned ahead and enrolled in a class for the spring, although unfortunately the instructor fell ill and was unable to make our class. Due to some scheduling mis-communication and changes we missed a class during the summer and finally were able to take the class tonight. Needless to say, the anticipation had been growing over time.

My mother had been sick a bit over a month ago and as a result has mysteriously lost her sense of taste and smell for most things. Obviously this is a terrible thing especially for someone who loves food and cooking so much. Of course it was also a terrible thing which would affect her enjoyment of this evening’s class.

I drove out to my parents’ house to pick mom up. We drove in together and easily found parking. The rain let up just as we were walking toward the school which was nice as cooking in soaked clothes doesn’t spell F.U.N. We arrived on time, signed in, made name tags and took a seat. We happened to be in the same kitchen as the first Back to Basics class I took in the spring. Our chef instructor was named Elise, and I recognized her face from the previous times at the school as well as the web site.

With everyone signed in we briefly went over the recipes for tonight’s meal. There were quite a few options to choose from, but enough for each “couple” to work on one. Our first choice was to work on the Roti de Porc Aux Pruneaux (Roast Pork with Prunes), but someone else’s hand was raise before ours to snatch that one up. We settled on the dessert, Chocolate and Prune Marquis with Armagnac and Crème Anglaise, our second choice. Elise went over kitchen safety, emphasized the goal of having fun while feeling free to experiment and cook to personal preference and taste and we all set out to begin our preparations.

Mom and I started with finely chopping the prunes and apricots. With a glance over she was impressed with my knife skills. Score! We also weighed out the chocolate and chopped that up.

Chopped Prunes, Apricots and Chocolate

Mom created melted the chocolate and butter over a double boiler and once read we mixed in the apricots and prunes and set that to cool in the walk-in refrigerator. While our chocolate ganache was cooling we whipped up some heavy creme in the stand mixer to mix and fold into the chocolate before placing it in the loaf pan for further cooling.

As our chocolate cooled in the walk-in we worked on the crème anglaise. I had never made this before, and was eager to try my hand at it. Being the basis for desserts like crème brûlée and ice cream, this was a valuable lesson to learn. It was fascinating to whisk the sugar with egg yolks together and watch them transform from a solid mass into a light, fluffy almost creamy mixture. Neither of us had worked with a whole vanilla bean before, only extracts so this was also a fun opportunity to work with an ingredient in its raw form.  We scalded the milk with the bean in it and then set it aside to steep for 10 minutes so that the milk could absorb more of the vanilla flavor.  Once ready, I poured the milk into the egg yolk and sugar mixture as my mom whisked it all together. We left the vanilla bean in for more flavor as we returned the pot to the stove. Elise helped us by using a thermometer to ensure that the crème did not exceed 180 degrees F so that the eggs would not curdle.

Once ready we set our crème to cool and thicken in an ice bath. It was dinner time. As it turned out, all the cooking had completed around the same time. The food was plated and set on a table for serving buffet style.

Dinner is Served

The dinner itself was really good, and with the cooking behind us, the our table started to open up, engage in conversation and share experiences. With dinner over it was “show time”. We were not the only ones who had made the dessert. Another couple at our table had also made the same thing.

Chocolate and Prune Marquis

We each portioned out 6 slices onto small plates. To our dismay, the crème anglaise that my mother and I had made had not thickened. We tried to figure out why and after careful review of the recipe learned that I had not added the half-and-half to the milk. It was listed as an ingredient, but a typo in the recipe which did not call out its use lead to me leaving it out. This mistake could have been avoided with proper mise en place as the cream would have been staring me right in the face asking to be used and resulting in a question for Elise about when it should be added.

We we able to use the crème anglaise that the other couple had made and served out the desserts. They all received rave reviews and thumbs up. Conversation was kept to a minimum for maximum focus and enjoyment. This was truly a rich and decadent dessert.

Chocolate and Prune Marquis with Armagnac and Crème Anglaise

Tonight was a reminder that not everything can be perfect, but even with imperfection enjoyment can be had. I wish mom had been able to taste and enjoy the food more, but to me that was secondary to the time spent together and the fun we had. We’ll both remember this night for years to come. We also have the recipes we were able to take home and will be able to re-create and experiment with the other dishes we did not work on.

It was amazing to see how a group of strangers of varying experience could work separately and yet together, sharing counter space, tools, and stove tops to produce a truly enjoyable meal. This of course can be attributed to careful thought and planning on behalf of the school and the Chef Instructor Elise, our patient and knowledgeable leader in the kitchen. I can’t wait for my next class hopefully with mom by my side.

As easy as 3-2-1; that’s how making pie dough goes when you forget about how difficult everyone says making it is and you focus on the ratio and method. I had one remaining disc from yesterday’s pie dough making to use and today seemed like a great day to use it. I have a work activity tomorrow that my team is sponsoring so in addition to using my remaining disc I also decided to create another batch, but this time of pâte sucrée or dough with the addition of sugar to make both a French Apple Tart and French Peach Tart.

Using the first disc, I created chocolate tarts which consisted of molded dough and chocolate ganache I made by using 2 parts chocolate and 1 part heavy cream (Ruhlman’s book has a ratio for this in the coming chapters so it will be interesting to compare my results). These proved to be harder to make than I anticipated. To create the “cups” for the chocolate, I rolled out the disc and then cut it into squares. Each square was then pinched together with corners touching and molded into a cup. In order to get this done, I split the disc into three equal sections and stored each “batch” in the refrigerator as I worked on the next.

Each time I pulled the tray out for the new cups, I noticed that the previous ones had hardened up in their cup form and were cool to the touch. A good sign.

Pie Dough: Tart Cups

My one mistake with these was to not firm up the last batch of cups in the fridge before I put them into the preheated oven at 325 degrees F. When I took them out after 15 minutes, the ones that were not cooled had flattened out, losing the desired cup shape. Others puffed up with steam, perhaps as a result of me not docking the bakes with a fork. This did not deter me as the final taste would not be affected.

As the cups were baking, I worked on the ganache, bringing 4 ounces of heavy cream to a simmer and then pouring it over a measured 8 ounces of bittersweet chocolate pieces. After the warm cream had melted most of the chocolate, I used the mixer to combine the too into what can be described as pure chocolate decadence.

Using a spoon, the ganache was placed into the successful and not-so-successful cups alike and allowed to cool.

Pie Dough: Chocolate Ganache Tarts

I clearly had made too much of the chocolate ganache which can hardly be viewed as a bad thing unless one is considering diet. Thoughts like this make me wonder how the average amount of weight gained at culinary school can only be 10 pounds as indicated by Chef Roberta during the info session at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. My pants waistlines will have to be my mindful helpers in my desire not to gain weight as I learn the culinary arts.

With one batch of pie dough under my belt, the second batch of dough was a breeze to make in the stand mixer. I poured my ingredients in and in no time had my dough ready to rest and cool in the refrigerator.

Pie Dough: Mixing in my KitchenAid

As the dough cooled, I cut 3 apples and 3 peaches into slices and set them aside. I then rolled out the dough into two rectangles, a task not easy to do when the dough is cold. The peach and apple slices were placed on top as well as a half cup of sugar on top of each and squares of butter and set to bake for 30 minutes. This dough seemed to cook much faster than previous doughs I have made before and actually burned a bit to my disappointment. I wasn’t about to through everything out after all the time I had spent, especially with the rolling and shaping of the dough, and hoped that people wouldn’t mind tomorrow. As the tarts baked, I heated up a cup and a half of apricot jelly with 2tbs of spiced rum and poured this over the tarts as soon as they were pulled out of the oven and left everything to cool.

Pie Dough: Apple Tart

Pie Dough: Peach Tart

With any luck, everything will taste as amazing as it looks. I’ll have to admit, I did taste the chocolate tarts to ensure that they were suitable for consumption. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Cooked Pasta

Continuing my my series, Cooking Through Ratio, I have moved on to the next topic under Doughs and Batters which brings me to pasta.  Pasta usually comes in a box doesn’t it? Most of the pasta Americans are used to eating certainly does. The first time I had eaten handmade pasta was in the Back to Basics sauce class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. It turned out great, although we used the a pasta cutting attachment, something I didn’t have which made me a bit nervous.

Pasta dough as it turns out is quite simple. 3 parts flour and 2 parts egg. Less variables are a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that there is less to think about and less to get wrong (perhaps this naive to think, experience will tell). The curse is that there is less to hide behind. Too much egg and my pasta probably would come out sticky. Too much flour and it would be dry and floury tasting and would not hold together. Reading over the basic ratio and instructions left me with these questions in mind. I also noted, that while the ratio was given, no indicators of “doneness” were provide nor was appropriate cooking time. Nevertheless, I charged forward with my dough.

According to the book, a large egg weighs about 2 ounces. I assumed that this was without the shell, and validated with my scaled. I used 2 eggs beaten lightly and then weighed out 6 ounces flour, all purpose this time and got to work. The flour was placed in a bowl as suggested for easy mixing and clean-up. I created a well in the flour and dumped the egg in the center and then combined it with the fork I used to beat the eggs. At this point, I became very aware experience is what determines success or failure. Unlike the bread dough I made previously, this dough required intimate tactile knowledge to know if enough flour had been incorporated. Experience through trial and error will have to be my teacher here especially since I don’t know anyone who makes their own dough. Once I incorporated all of the flour the egg would naturally absorb, I formed the dough into a disk and let it rest for 20 minutes as instructed.

While the dough was resting, I brought a heavily seasoned pot of water to a healthy boil. I had heard that freshly made pasta takes less time to cook than dry store bought pasta, so I figured less than 10 minutes would have to be my guide. Once the pasta had rested sufficiently, I rolled it out on wax paper then rolled it up and cut it ala the chiffonade method. Despite absorbing just about all of the weighed flour in the bowl, the I did experience problems with the dough sticking to the wax paper and rolling pin as I rolled it out even as I added more flour to the paper and dough.

Uncooked Pasta

I unraveled the dough and dumped it into the pot in what would become a cloudy mass of dough and boiling water. The water boiled on as I gently stirred the pasta with a wooden spoon to separate the strands. This stuff was not as easy to work with by any means; it was totally different than working with box pasta.

After about 5 minutes, the pasta was very limp and clumpy. I figured it would finish cooking through carry-over heat and dumped it out of the pot to strain in a colander. Not only did it look slimy, it was to the touch. It appeared that the outer coating of flour clumped up on the pasta immediately after I put it into the pot.

I plated the pasta and in a moment of purity I decided to only season it with salt and pepper so as to get an understanding of what it tastes like sans sauce. The taste overall was very good, different that what I was used to for sure, but that was to be expected.

Cooked Pasta Seasoned

This experience taught me that the method and experience are just as important as the ratio, and perhaps even more and the obvious knowledge that I did not make the best pasta in the world, I am left feeling accomplished by attempting something that so few people ever do. This ratio will require some more practice for sure.

NECI, Main Street Grill & Bar

This weekend I took an extended three day weekend trip with my family to Vermont. We haven’t had the opportunity to take our usual week or longer family trip this year so going up north to visit Burlington, Vermont and the surrounding towns looked like a fun way to kick back and relax before summer’s end.

Forty years ago, my mother came from Honduras to study on an academic scholarship to Vermont College, located in Montpelier. While a student, she met my father a professor at Norwich University and the rest as they say is history. My sister and I of course are evidence of that.

Since we were going to be passing by Montpelier on our way up to Burlington I thought it would be fun to combine a visit to the New England Culinary Institute, also known as NECI for short, while also visiting what was the campus of her college which no longer exists, and how now become part of NECI and other institutions such as the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Both of my parents were eager to visit the small town to relive old memories and retell old stories that are part of our family’s history. While touring the Institute we could also eat at the school run restaurant in town and the one on Church Street in Burlington. She was really excited by this and so I called the number on the NECI web site to get information about tours, the school and the restaurant and also to do some research to see if her dorm was still there.

When I called the number I asked the woman on the phone about tours. She politely informed me that there weren’t tours of the school available and that it would best to seek out students on campus to talk to them about their experience. This didn’t seem right to me. What kind of sales pitch was this? I didn’t want to spend a lot of our vacation time on a treasure hunt for buildings and students. She also was unfamiliar with the specific dorm I was looking for, which as it turns out was part of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, 100 yards from the New England Culinary Institute admission building. I began to wonder where the call center for the toll free number I had called was located. The school wasn’t that big was it? She also corrected me when I mentioned my intention of wanting to eat at the Institute’s restaurant in Burlington. Apparently that had closed down a couple of years ago too, but she was eager to point out the truly fabulous food at the Main Street Bar & Grill, the restaurant run by the Institute and its students. The loss of their flagship restaurant was not a good sign especially in the fast growing city.

Saturday we arrived and within a few minutes of driving around we found my mother’s old dorm and her room. That was easy. We walked around campus and viewed some of the buildings owned by NECI while also viewing some of the buildings that belonged to other institutions. My mother was excited and happy and we were all getting hungry. It was time to eat.

Mom's College Dorm

We made the short drive down the hill to the Main Street Bar & Grill. We had been here before many years before to eat and had a pleasurable experience although on that trip we didn’t actually drive around Montpelier as we had this time.

After a short wait for an outside patio seat we sat down and ordered our meal. Our waiter, Joshua, a student was friendly and welcoming and overall did a great job especially given the fact that he was a culinary student and only serving as part of the curriculum rotation. This is pretty much where my praise ends. Overall everyone felt that the food was pretty good but really under-seasoned. I had flashbacks to the basics cooking class I took at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts where Chef Angie told us that new cooks generally are afraid of using too much salt and usually under-season their food. Was this day one of the rotation I wondered? The dressing on my salad lacked taste as did the other components of my dishes. The dessert was in fact the best part of the meal which is fortunate because it is the last impression a restaurant gets to make on a customer, but also unfortunate as my aspirations involve the culinary program and not the baking and pastry program.

Appetizer: Asparagus, Salmon & Poached Egg Salad

Main Dish: Gnocchi

Dessert: Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Plating was another thing I noted. While we were only eating lunch, I was expecting more for presentation. My appetizer and main dish appeared as two distinct dishes while the dessert was already melted and lacked color. While not at the heart of culinary training, this is something that is important to me; a well plated dish evokes emotion and clues you into what you are about to taste. As far as showing off technique and skill, this just wasn’t doing it for me.

I asked our server about touring the facilities. He kindly informed us that we could walk to the back of the restaurant and through the back door to view classrooms and the rest of the facility. Once we were back there I was let down again, looking at the small drab classrooms. They just didn’t look inviting, and in contrast to the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts they were completely removed from the cooking setting entirely. While having an on site restaurant is a plus for any culinary school the complete separation from the classroom and kitchen didn’t feel appropriate. I also wondered where the rest of the school was. Was that the wrong question to be asking? Was this all there was?

After finishing our meal, we left to walk down the street and get a sense of the town. My parents walked and noted how much things had changed and how the area had grown and modernized. I saw a town only slightly more populated than where I grew up, a stark contrast from living in Boston, a world class city with neighborhoods and numerous cultural culinary influences and establishments. We visited the student run baker, La Brioche and sampled some of their baked goods and pastries. Delicious. Another home run for the baking and pastry program.

NECI, La Brioche

The New England Culinary Institute was the school were famed Alton Brown matriculated. I had high expectations of what the school had to offer after reading it’s web site contents and given the aptitude and success Alton Brown has attained. I left the school feeling disappointed and yet I don’t think my high expectations were misplaced especially since I have fond memories of eating at NECI restaurants in the past. I wonder what had changed, but left clearly feeling that if I did decide to pursue culinary school, this place wasn’t for me.

I may not have seen all of the buildings, fancy kitchens and labs the school had to offer, but as a someone interested in the school it just seems like I could have gotten more out of my visit with a little friendly guidance and key points of differentiation to focus on. I know when I have guests I do my best to make them feel welcomed and answer all of the questions they have. A school where I could potentially spend a large amount of my hard earned money would do well to have a similar philosophy.

Taste of Cambridge

Last night I attended the Taste of Cambridge food festival in Harvard Square. The event hosted at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge benefited two local children’s charities. It was my first food festival and certainly exceeded my expectations. I planned on attending with my friend Anthony, whom I had met in the Back to Basics cooking class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. We were both really excited about the event and were slightly disappointed when it was postponed a week from last Thursday because of the weather. The warm summer evening last night more than made up for it as we enjoyed the event immensely.

Through the sea of people we traveled from station to station, plastic plate and beverage in hand, sampling food from restaurants from all over Cambridge. The atmosphere was electric with restaurants featuring their best and most innovative creations for people to try. I ran into my friends Jerome and Stephanie Picca, owners of Small Plates Restaurant in Harvard Square who were sampling a delicious gazpacho. I also ran into other friends I had not seen for a while; it seemed like everyone was there and having a great time enjoying and talking about food.

There were people from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts as well as Le Cordon Bleu, the culinary school that is in the same building as my gym. I secretly envied them all in their chef whites and checkered pants. My thoughts wandered to applying to culinary school and thinking about if that’s what I really want to do and if it makes sense at this point in my life. I wondered if I would ever feature creations of my own someday at such an event as I walked around observing and sampling food to no end, breaking any semblance of the diet I try to maintain in exchange for culinary experience. The food was so good.

In between stations, we discussed making coffee, the differences between blade and burr grinders, stand mixer models, recreational cooking classes  and thoughts of applying to culinary school, true signs of culinary enthusiasts.

This was my first food festival, but it certainly won’t be my last as an  attendee and perhaps even some day as a participant.