Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 6

Making note
"You have great notes, (student No. 1). Let me see your notes, (student No. 2). Oh, you were sleeping that day."
-- Chef John Meidinger (right) tells students to rely on their notes as part of reviewing for final exams.

Game over; face the music
"Stop playing with your food and just bring it up here."
-- Chef Tony Marano showing his eagerness to taste and judge the gazpacho and mayonnaise dishes that students were hovering over for too long during the skills test final exam.

Modesty is the best policy
"The changing room on the second floor is empty."
-- Executive Chef Michael Weller's hint to students he saw in various states of undress at their lockers in a public space in the third-floor hallway of the Academy.

Punctuality or power?
"The chef is never late."
-- Chef John Meidinger's response to a student who said, "You're late," when Chef walked into the 1 p.m. class at 1:02 p.m. to administer the final exam.

More than a dash of wisdom
"Here's a hint: I've never rejected a dish for having too much salt in it."
-- Chef Tony Marano (left) as he watched students stressing over salting their gazpacho and mayonnaise dishes for the skills test final exam.

90 questions till first term ends at culinary school

One more exam, the all-important ServSafe certification test, is on the docket at the California Culinary Academy for the culinary arts certificate group that began six weeks ago.

The test will be 90 questions all about food and restaurant safety and sanitation. Passage, with a minimum score of 75%, gives the student a five-year certification by the National Restaurant Association. It's considered an important entry point for those seeking work in the restaurant business as cooks and chefs.

Chef John Meidinger will administer the test, giving us one hour and 10 minutes. The results will be posted on the ServSafe Web site in about two weeks.

Today, Chef John gave us the final exam for hisSafety & Sanitation class, and Chef Tony Marano oversaw a skills test requiring us to make mayonnaise and gazpacho by hand. Both of mine turned out well, and  Chef Tony gave me high marks.

More important, I felt comfortable with how both dishes came together, and I completed the tasks in well under the one-hour time allotment.

Can't wait to complete the safety and sanitation certification. Then onto daily cooking in Les Cuissons Francaise in Culinary Foundations II class starting next Monday.

Being 'top chef' means never having to do dishes

What they don't show you on Top Chef or Iron Chef but that we're learning at the California Culinary Academy:

* Cooking is messy, and someone has to clean. At culinary school, we clean in orderly fashion and in accordance with accepted safety and sanitation practices. As Chef John Meidinger told us in Safety & Sanitation class: "This isn't romantic, is it? You're not going to see this on the Food Network. But you will spend 3% of your revenue cleaning everything in your restaurant."

* All those rich, flavorful sauces take time, lots of time, to make. When a chef opens a container of stock on television, he/she is bypassing the long, hard work it takes to make the stock. Additionally, using off-the-shelf stocks probably introduces a lot more sodium to cooking than should be there.

* Back to sanitation: Saying scant attention is paid to it on the cooking shows would be unfair. But it does tend to get nudged aside regularly. A couple of examples: Double-dipping by chefs when they are tasting something; on Top Chef, head judge Tom Colicchio likes to drop in on the competitors at the height of food preparation. He often ends those brief visits with a handshake, and the chef goes right back to the food, not washing his/her hands.

* Good cooking doesn't always take a lot of time, but some of it does. The condensed amount of time on the shows -- a one-hour time limit for Iron Chef and generally no more than two hours to prep and cook a meal on Top Chef -- makes a number of cooking techniques unrealistic, or it telescopes the work involved so that the viewer isn't getting the true picture.

* There's a good bit of humility and modesty among chefs. At least that's so with the chefs at the Academy. The arrogance, bravado and strutting one sees among contestants on Top Chef and Iron Chef must be for entertainment value; they add nothing to the sauce.

(Photo credit: www.tenhundfeld.org)

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 5

Turning up the fire
"It needs some heat."
-- Culinary student Alfie Regadio, grabbing the container of cayenne pepper for the gazpacho we had just made in Culinary Foundations I class.

But not too much
 "Don't turn it into salsa."
-- Culinary Foundations I Chef Tony Marano admonishing us not to add too much cayenne to the gazpacho.

Panic! It's MSG!
"For years, we saw signs in restaurants, 'No MSG.' My God, it was like saying 'no heroin.' MSG is a naturally occurring substance. Some doctor in New Hampshire started the FDA on the way to banning it. Of course, now it's no longer banned but is listed as a possible allergen."
-- Chef John Meidinger (left) on what he called a misdirected ban on monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer in seaweed and other edibles used in many Asian restaurants.

Table for one, please
"The president of the United States ate half of my strawberry cake. That was Bill Clinton. It was during that time when the president was dining alone."
-- Food scientist Shirley Corriher (right), discussing her experience when she was invited to cook and bake at the White House.

Molotov cocktail, anyone?
 "You don't want to pour the brandy in when the pot is on the burner. The fumes are volatile, and they will cause a heat backup that will turn the bottle into a rocket."
-- Chef Tony Marano, showing us in impressive fashion how to flame the brandy for a shrimp bisque.

Ballad of the dark creatures of the kitchen

The dark creatures of the restaurant kitchen -- VERMIN! -- are necessary to learn about but certainly no fun.

Unless one is privileged to be in Chef John Meidinger's Safety & Sanitation class at the California Culinary Academy. Chef John took guitar in hand on Tuesday, picked out "the only three or four chords I know," and sang the ballad of "Integrated Pest Management." Most memorable lyrics:

      Close the doors,
      Clean the floors.
      When the mice get in,
      They make a lot of love.

The epic poetry of 'le braiser'

   (Note: The final essay assignment for Culinary Foundations I class at the California Culinary Academy was to describe either the soups at a local restaurant or one of the seven techniques of French cooking. I focused on le braiser. This is my essay.)
 
   To analyze poetry is to demystify it by removing the romance and the magic. The same applies to the romance and the magic of the culinary art. For at its best, it is poetry.

   If that is so, the epic poem of Les Cuissons Francaise is braiser, or braising.

   Braising is the Beowulf, the Odyssey, the Bhagavata Purana of the culinary techniques because of what it does for an average -- or worse -- piece of meat or poultry. The deep, complex flavors it coaxes from every ingredient are nonpareil in all other techniques.

   Additionally, it demonstrates the height of skillfulness in the chef because of its very complexity. The slow, deliberate, low-temperature approach requires the chef’s full concentration, patience and timing. It also requires a bold, visceral, artistic knowledge that extends well beyond simply following the recipe or the directions.

   "This technique separates the chefs from the cooks," California Culinary Academy Chef Instructor John Meidinger says.

   He may just as well say that braising separates the epic poets from the writers of rhyme.

   Braising brings a tender, submissive romance to the toughest piece of beef. And it uses the toughness itself to create a magical potion of sauce, elevated to untold heights of flavor in the skillful hands of the chef poet.

   Just as Beowulf himself was attended to by “the ring-adorned queen, of excellent heart, (who) bore the mead-cup … ”, the poetic chef brings the romance and the magic of le braiser to the table as the finest offering of Le Cuisson Francaise.

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 4

Obey your thirst
"A beer can hat would be convenient: It keeps your hair back AND allows you to hydrate."
-- Culinary student Fontaine McFadden's fix for restaurant sanitation standards that stop cooks from keeping open drinking water containers at their stations.

Any leeway?
"Never."
-- Chef Tony Marano to a student asking when one would use meat tenderizer in a restaurant kitchen.

Rose by any other name
"My mom called it squab, but we knew it was pigeon."
-- Culinary student Alfie Regadio on gourmet cooking in his boyhood home.

Tasty? No, but square and flat
"What kind of cheese? American processed? Not even a rodent wants that cheese."
-- Chef John Meidinger discussing what in a school lunch menu has potential for causing food-borne illness.

Where chicken comes from
"This grew up in a box and never knew its mother."
-- Chef Tony Marano responding to a student who asked facetiously if the bird he was preparing for roasting was "free range".

Gather 'round for REAL cooking: braising, that is

Chef Tony Marano's Culinary Foundations I students took a deep dive today into the world of long, slow, low-temperature cooking that is braiser, or braising. For my money it is the best of the French techniques because of what it can do for an average -- or worse -- piece of meat and for the deep, complex flavors it coaxes from every ingredient.

As Chef John Meidinger said to us as we headed to the braising lesson: "This technique separates the chefs from the cooks."

It was the finale of a full week of cooking demonstrations by Chef Tony, with our willing participation, on the seven techniques of classic French cooking.

Paprika chicken (left) and chicken fricassée (right) were the dishes of the day, one a brûn, that is cooked brown and with a brown sauce, and one a blanc, that is cooked white and with a white sauce.

The paprika chicken was browned in oil, followed by the browning of onion and bell pepper, with a little brown stock and flour for thickening, before going into the oven for a one-hour braising at a simmer. It was finished with a sauce made from the stock, a dollop of sour cream and tomato.

The fricassée was seared in butter at low heat to avoid browning, with a chicken stock and flour for thickening, then into the oven for the braising at a simmer. It was finished with a white sauce thickened with a liaison -- egg yolks and cream -- and in the sauce a "point" of nutmeg, salt, pepper and tarragon.

The tastes were most distinct and most sensational, the highlight of a strong week of cooking.

We left the class abuzz with the possibilities, including plans being made for weekend meals. Mine will be braised short ribs in a brown sauce with fennel, over garlic mashed potatoes.

(Top photo: The Culinary Foundations I students gathered 'round the stove top as Chef Tny (second from left, in tall chef's hat) teaches)

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 3

Creationism argument
"It's magic; that's the only explanation."
-- Chef Tony Marano (at left in photo) on how sauces are made.

Stirring the pot
"After reading in the book, it was nice to be hands on and put our skills to the test. ... It was so fun."
Culinary student Rob Park (second from left in photo) who stepped to the stove and stirred up a mean espagnole sauce.

The romance of high cuisine
"Let's say I'm going to make fig and duck prosciutto as an amuse bouche. Oh, it's going to be beautiful! Oh, ho, ho! And all that crap."
-- Chef John Meidinger, with a flourish of hands, head thrown back, inflection of mock excitement in his voice.

Salt: a 4-letter word
"I need salt. Whoa! Not that much! S---! Maybe I can salvage it."
-- Culinary student Candide, accidentally dumping several tablespoons of salt into his hand-whipped mayonnaise, which needed no more than 1 teaspoon. He salvaged it.

What would Shakespeare say?
"Oh, God. Don't get a lawyer involved. (Pause.) Unless you have to."
-- Chef John Meidinger, responding to a student who asked if that was the best way for a restaurateur to get a "variance" from the health department for special food treatments.

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 2

What's free about free range?
"We (chefs) sit in our haughty-taughty whites, saying we want free-range this, free-range that. But we're not willing to pay what free-range this and that costs."
-- Chef John Meidinger on how improved conditions for chickens would mean birds with less chance of carrying food-borne illnesses into restaurants, but at a price.

Cut out parsley seeds
"What do you mean get the seeds out of the parsley? Those are tomatoes."
 -- Culinary arts student John Briggs in the midst of the mad scramble to complete 10 precision knife cuts on pieces of produce in 30 minutes.

Measuring happiness
"Be mindful that there are 2 tablespoons in a fluid ounce, and you should live a happy life."
   -- Chef Tony Marano, zeroing in on a key measurement among a confusing array of numbers, for a group of math-challenged culinary students.

Why we have 2 hands
"You should learn to use your hand to measure (in the kitchen). Why? Because all the time you have your hand with you. You aren't going to carry a measuring stick into the kitchen."
   -- Chef Gilles Penot, visiting from Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa,Canada, discussing how to measure precision produce cuts.

Don't call Guinness Book
"What's your record? Seven? You won't break that today."
   St. Francis Hospital Physician's Assistant Krista DeWys as she sewed five stitches into my left thumb after I sliced it at the first knuckle with a paring knife when practicing my cutting skills.

Sure-fire diet? Study restaurant safety and sanitation

It was Day 2 or Day 3 of culinary school when I paused in my reading for Safety and Sanitation class to wonder if I would ever eat in a restaurant again.

It seemed that between chemical cleaners and clostridium, botulism and bacillus cereus, E.coli and employee carelessness, one's chances of getting sick from what I have learned to refer to as food-borne pathogens are pretty high.

In actuality, they aren't very high. And that's the point -- and result -- of the California Culinary Academy, other culinary schools, the food-service industry and governmental agencies emphasizing safety and sanitation.

It is the first class that culinary students take. It includes not only all the lessons but the requirement for passage of the ServSafe examination to be certified as a food industry worker.

Safety and Sanitation instructor Chef John Meidinger is straightforward about the need for what I call strategic cleanliness in the workplace: "You kill bacteria two ways: heat and chemicals. I don't want to put my meat in a chlorine marinade, so I will use heat to kill bacteria; that's called cooking."

Everyone has a story to tell about some restaurant mishap or carelessness -- mine is finding a hunk of wire embedded in ahi tuna at a high-end Tucson restaurant. But considering that we Americans spend more eating out these days than we do on groceries to eat at home, and only a miniscule number become ill, the industry does a darn good job of keeping it clean.

This class is an eye opener, yet at the same time provides positive motivation to me to contribute to the culture of cleanliness.