Now we're cooking! Roasting, to be precise

Seven are the techniques of Le Cuisine Francais, and today we began learning them intimately -- their names in both English and French, how and why they differ from one another and their special uses in the kitchen, and, most important, how to do them.

"It is important to know all seven cooking techniques," Chef Tony Marano said by way of introducing four days' worth of lessons and demonstrations. "It's what we do. It's what makes us chefs."

It's what will make us chefs, too, was my thought as we all eagerly made notes on the seven techniques:

Rôtir          Roasting
Griller        Grilling
Sauter        Sautéing
Frire          Deep frying
Pocher       Pocher
Braiser       Braising
Pôeler        No direct translation

Chef Tony demonstrated roasting, first with marque en cuisson -- prepare for cooking -- of a whole chicken. He trimmed the wings, removed the wishbone, seasoned and trussed the bird. The trussing technique he showed us is relatively simple and goes a great way toward ensuring evenness in cooking. He then seared it on the stovetop, then put it in a roasting pan -- meaning on a rack and open -- and put it in a preheated oven, for 45 minutes.

Roasting is used primarily for large meats that are somewhat tender, such as chicken, filet mignon and beef tenderloin.

Pôeler was next. Chef described it as a technique similar to roasting, but instead of being in a dry atmosphere, it is in a moist one, with a lid on the roasting pan and an aim to retain as much moisture as possible in the cooking. It is best used for duck and goose, he said.

Here's the best part of the day's lesson: When the chicken was roasted, Chef Tony carved, and we all ate. Moist and delicious!

What's on Wednesday's menu, Chef Tony?

Learning 'le cuisine' the hard way is the only way

The adage that we learn more from mistakes than successes has proven true at the midway point of my first term at the California Culinary Academy.

Five stitches and four blisters later, my knife skills are much improved, I can stir up a roux on my way to making sauces, I now know the fundamentals of restaurant and food-service safety and sanitation, and I can name and relate the uses for a wide array of pots, pans and fundamental kitchen equipment and tools.

As a result of the stitches, I learned a better way to core a tomato for concassé (turn the tomato, not the knife, to reduce the danger of knife slippage).

The blisters came when I was stirring my first in-class roux and bits of molten butter and flour splashed onto my hands. But I made a good brown roux, which helped me make a flavorful espagnole sauce.

I've learned these most basic of the basics from two excellent chef instructors and from listening to and observing my fellow students, both in their own successes and mistakes.

Executive Chef Michael Weller, who oversees the culinary arts program, said during orientation on Sept. 19 that the first six weeks, that is the first term, would be the most difficult. So far, it has been difficult and intense, but also energizing and challenging in many positive ways.

Next comes building confidence, manifest in increased assertiveness at the cutting board, mixing bowl and stovetop.

(Photo courtesy of fellow culinary student Keejoo Hon)

Pumpkins, squash abound, and recipes for them

The Fillmore Farmers Market was filled with good fall foods on Saturday -- big and small pumpkins, smooth-skinned and gnarly squash.

Naturally, pumpkins for jack 'o lanterns are at center stage, with Halloween less than two weeks away. But they're for dinner, too, or at least for parts of dinner. Take a look at www.pumpkinnook.com for a pumpkin patch full of ideas.

And enjoy, whether you're carving or turning pumpkins into something delicious and nutritious.

SALSA SUNDAY: Making salsa to preserve

The last bounty of the garden -- or the farmers' market -- is in, and you are wondering what to do with big quantities of tomatoes and chiles. Canning them for use through the winter is a good way to go, and while it does involve some work, it isn't as onerous as it might seem at first.

The key is to use the right kinds of jars -- sealable Mason or Ball brand jars -- and to follow sterilization techniques for the jars, their lids and seals and for the equipment to be used in the canning process. Read here for information on the right jars and sterilization techniques. Do NOT attempt this without carrying out the sterilization as instructed.

After sterilizing the jars and equipment, you are ready to make salsa. Make it roughly in these proportions: For every pound of tomatoes, use 4 ounces of jalapeños, 4 ounces of milder chiles such as anaheims, 1/2 cup of onions, 1 clove garlic, 1/4 cup of vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.

Peel tomatoes by scoring an X into the skin at the bottom, then blanch in boiling water for 10 seconds. The skin should come right off when pulled at the scoring. Chop tomatoes and onions, dice garlic. Seed and chop chiles.

Put all ingredients, including vinegar, into a pot and bring to a boil while stirring. Reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. Spoon salsa into sterilized jars, wipe tops and sides and seal as indicated in sterilization instructions. Put filled and sealed salsa jars in boiling water for 15  minutes.

Your salsa should be preserved and can be stored in a cool, dry spot before use. When opening a jar for use, check for any signs of spoilage and discard if you find any. Refrigerate after opening.

(Photo credit: www.healthygardener.net)

Culinary school best advice so far: 'Taste, don't eat'

One can see wisdom in Executive Chef Tim Grable's warning -- "Taste, don't eat" -- about weight gain when studying at the California Culinary Academy.

Chef Grable (left) offered the advice in an orientation session the week before classes started. He said watching your weight can be a problem when you find yourself eating your homework and your in-class assignments, literally.

In school's first three weeks, we culinary students have made: butter-heavy béchamel sauce; a butter-laden brown roux for espagnole sauce; pasta and tomato sauce topped with Parmesan cheese; hollandaise sauce, full of butter; mayonnaise, with a cup of oil.

Granted, we had only small tastings of those delicious items, but it's easy to see how when we get to the preparation of foods that those creations become accompaniments of, the potential problem will be at the fore.

For the record: I have lost two pounds since school started.

Further for the record: We did start off with low-cal healthy stuff: learning to cut vegetables including spinach, tomato, carrot, onion and garlic.

But next comes some tempting carnivorous offerings as we learn the basic techniques of braising, sauteing, poaching, grilling and roasting. All accompanied, of course, by those sauces.

Wonder what the pastry and baking students are making?

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.

To make mayonnaise, you have to act like Devo

Metal brushed against metal in rhythmic fury for Culinary Foundations I today as a double class of eager students made mayonnaise by hand.

Devo's lyrics, "'I say whip it. Whip it good," came to mind as the key instruction from Chef Tony Marano: Whip it fast, faster, faster still; then whip it some more.

Two egg yokes, 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper to taste and oil, lots of oil -- up to 1 cup of oil -- combine to make mayonnaise. This is not your momma's mayo, which probably came from a jar with a "Hellmann's" or "Best Foods" label on it. This is real mayonnaise, with no added sweetening ingredients.

What makes it real are the ingredients and fast, furious, unrelenting whipping of the ingredients with a wire whisk in a stainless steel bowl as the oil is drizzled in and emulsified with the egg yokes.

Chef Tony tasted everyone's work and concluded: "I think we all had success with mayonnaise, coast to coast. Some broke (egg and oil separating) but came back together. That's an even better lesson."

What am I cooking this weekend?

Home menu items for this weekend are designed to put into practice the skills I learned this week at the California Culinary Academy.

Dinner
Short ribs, with a madeira sauce, made from a base of espagnole.
Green beans in a béchamel sauce.
Brown rice made in a brown veal stock.

Breakfast
Eggs benedict (old-fashioned, but it's a way to practice making hollandaise)

That's a good start. Check back Sunday to read how they turned out.

(Photo credit: www.ayearfromoakcottage.com)

1 billion people hungry on World Food Day

Did you toss out any food in the last day or two? The butt end of a loaf of bread, a tomato that went bad or leftover pasta that turned into a refrigerator science project? Someone somewhere could have used that food.

We Americans live for the most part in relative luxury, even in the deepest part of the economic downturn. But elsewhere, more than 1 billion people don't have enough to eat, according to a story in the San Francisco Chronicle, which quotes a United Nations report for World Food Day, which is today.

Instead of celebrating World Food Day, we face the sad fact that 1 person in every 7, or 15% of the world's population, are hungry. And yes, there are hungry people in the United States, but relatively few. The U.N. report lists 30 countries where food aid is a necessity; 20 of them are in Africa.

The world produces enough food for everyone. Economics and politics drive distribution, so not everyone gets fed.

America, continue to eat well, but eat less. We don't need all the calories. Maybe if we save just a few dollars on our own food consumption, we can contribute the savings to relief organizations, such as CARE USA, that are working to reduce poverty worldwide.

(Chart from www.sfgate.com)

A 'point' of cayenne and other fineries of sauce sorcery

The saucier is the first among equals in the classic French kitchen.

It is no wonder. The word pronounced in proper French sounds a bit like "sorcerer." And that is what the saucier is, a maker of magic.

Chef Tony Marano, who is teaching sauces to us as part of the Culinary Foundations I curriculum, is a big believer in the magic of the kitchen.

"But don't confuse magic for mojo," Chef Tony says. "Magic is the way we explain science that we don't yet understand."

Aw, man, no! The magic explanation is more than good enough for me. Taste a well-made espagnole or perfectly balanced hollandaise. That's magic.

Sauces come from combinations of butter and flour and water flavored with meat bones and chopped vegetables and butter combined with egg yolks and a dash of vinegar. Oh, and a "point" of cayenne -- the amount that fits on the point of a knife, that is.

What could at first reading seem like composting materials are the ingredients with which the saucier makes magic.

The magician we are learning from -- Chef Tony -- is modest yet factual about his sauce-making abilities. He has whipped up a half-dozen sauces from scratch before our eyes this week and then patiently walked us through the steps it takes to do it the way he does. We are thrilled to need a lot of practice.

Chef Tony was saucier for at least one French restaurant in the Bay Area, where he ran a station that produced all the primary sauces and many, many variations of them every night.

In class on Thursday, his magic -- or was it his mojo? -- was on full display as he demonstrated the makings of mayonnaise and hollandaise, both egg-yolk based sauces. When finished, we all eagerly lined up to taste, and as we passed the bowls for a dip, Chef Tony allowed as to how "this isn't the best hollandaise I've made."

He could have fooled all of us. There were plenty of "yums" and not a single "yuck." It was by far the best hollandaise sauce I had ever tasted.

Or had I tasted magic?

(Photos: Chef Tony Marano upper left; his student sauciers trying their hands lower right. That's me second from right. Lower right photo courtesy of fellow culinary student Keejoo Hong)

'Cat food' puts SF chef in jeopardy on Top Chef

San Francisco catering chef Laurine Wickett was in the bottom three again this week on Bravo TV's Top Chef.

One judge, Food & Wine magazine Editor-in-Chief Dana Cowin, called Wickett's pork dish "cat food."

Wickett survived, as another chef was eliminated. But her reputation and ego were bruised in the judging, shown Wednesday evening. What head judge Tom Colicchio said in his blog:

Laurine opted to make a pork butt rillette, but the problem was that she didn’t know how to make it. She thought it was a braised meat. No, no, no – you confit it in pork fat first, so that the water is forced out and is replaced with fat. After you’ve completely cooked the meat over several hours on a low temperature submerged in fat, you take it out, whip it up with a fork (or a mixer with a paddle), slowly incorporating more of the fat with which you cooked it, and you end up with very lush, rich, unctuous meat. By just braising it, Laurine wound up with a stringy, watery dish. She really screwed up. ... At least her chutney and salad were quite good. … Dana did say that she thought the texture of Laurine’s dish was like cat food … it wasn’t.

Wickett owns Left Coast Catering in San Francisco. She is the last of three Bay Area competitors still on the program.

(As an aside: One is led to wonder how the editor-in-chief of Food & Wine magazine knows what cat food tastes like.)

(Photo credit: www.bravotv.com)

Hitting the sauce; espagnole to be exact

We got in the game today, feeling the heat in Culinary Foundations class, literally. It was my turn at the stove, assigned to make a brown roux for an espagnole sauce, one of the five primary sauces used to create literally hundreds of secondary and what are called small sauces.

Under the watchful eye and coaching of Chef Tony Marano, three of us worked on separate sauces -- the espagnole (below) made from my brown roux, another espagnole made in a different way and a tomato sauce. I've made roux before, and I've made sauce before (akin to what we Americans would call a gravy), but not under professional instruction and in front of a group -- my classmates.

The heat, the three or four seemingly disparate operations going on in a convivial jostle for stove space and my control of the outcome -- Chef Tony allowed me to season the espagnole sauce to my taste -- affirmed again for me why I'm doing this.

My roux browned up slower than it should have but eventually came to a nice color, aroma and texture under 20 minutes of constant stirring. I combined it with a brown veal stock that had already begun seasoning with a mirepoix (2 parts chopped onions, 1 part chopped carrots, 1 part chopped celery). Twenty to 30 minutes of whisking, a tablespoon of tomato paste, salt and white pepper and it was espagnole sauce. My classmates generously pronounced it very flavorful.

New universes are being discovered with every turn of the whisk; viscerally familiar worlds are being uncovered with every sampling from the sauce pan.

(Thanks to fellow culinary student Keejoo Hong for the photo of me at work.)

Pack your knives: Auditions for Top Chef in SF

Bravo TV, home of Top Chef, will hold an open-audition casting call on Sunday in San Francisco, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Parlor, 2801 Leavenworth St., according to www.sfist.com.

It's the first stop on a seven-city swing through the country by the show's producers to find chefs for Season 7 of the program.

Bay Area chefs have done well in past Top Chef seasons, and one San Francisco chef, Left Coast Catering owner Laurine Wickett, remains in the current competition.

1 good reason to go to '18 Reasons'

The nonprofit "18 Reasons" will host a cookbook swap on Oct. 22. Included will be a memorial service for Gourmet Magazine, which is ceasing publication after nearly seven decades.

The festivities will run 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at 18 Reasons, 593 Guerrero St., at 18th Street, in San Francisco's Mission District. Read more here.

A tip of the toque to friend and fellow foodie Susan Bullen for pointing out this event to me.

Making sauces: The heat is on

Culinary school is getting down to the pure culinarity of it. Today, three classmates partook in the making of a white roux, a pale roux and, from them, a bechamél sauce and a velouté sauce.

Chef Tony Marano walked us through the process, which included tasting before, during and after seasonings were applied so we could catch the subtle differences. Salt, white pepper and, in the bechamél a little nutmeg, made subtle, delightful differences.

The "magic" that Chef Tony says occurs in sauce-making was very much present. There was indeed a magic in the way the roux came to color, texture and flavor and then how it combined with the liquids -- milk for the bechamél, chicken stock for the velouté -- to get to the end products (in photo, velouté is in foreground, bechamél behind it).

On Wednesday, yours truly steps to the stove with the assignment of making a brown roux as the key step toward an as-yet undisclosed brown sauce.

Whisk, small ladle, spoon are all at the ready. As am I.

Another tortilla smuggling is in the works

Eagerly anticipating the arrival later today of my son, John A. Chihak, coming to visit for a few days from Tucson. He is an artist (see his Website here) specializing in comic books and will participate in the Alternative Press Expo, better known as APE, which will be held at the Concourse Exhibition Center in San Francisco.

Aficionados may know John from his "Youth in Asia" brand and his sidekick Agnew, along with an array of colorful and fierce characters (that's Munny Nash, above right).

Besides himself and his publications to show and sell at the convention, John is bringing us a much desired supply of flour tortillas. And just in time; we're down to one dozen from the six dozen I brought from Tucson in August.

Inspiring women: my Mom and Julia

(Note: Chef Tony Marano assigned students in his Culinary Foundations I class at the California Culinary Academy to write a short essay on our reactions to a book about food and cooking. This is my essay.)

    Food is culture.

   Julia Child’s “My Life in France” bears witness to that, revealing her embrace of the fullness of French cuisine and the way of life it represents.

   She fell in love with French food and cooking and inevitably with the French people and everything about them. She learned their language, allowing her to encounter and befriend them and adopt French life in every sense.

   She appreciated from literally her first meal in France that good food well prepared by long-established and refined custom was the common denominator in French culture.

   Her recounting of those experiences led me to recognize more clearly than ever that what I learned in my Mexican mother’s kitchen wasn’t cooking; it was culture. And when I cook from the repertoire of recipes and techniques that my mom taught me – both by osmosis and direct instruction – I am respecting and renewing my culture.

   Rooted in corn and chiles, ours is a cuisine of robust flavors and smells and of bright and earthy colors. As such, it reflects the robust and colorful culture that is my heritage.

   Julia Child inspires me to continue pursuing knowledge of food and culinary arts as part of my culture – how these foods, in this place, prepared in this way, presented and eaten thusly reveal the ongoing life of a people.

   She ends her story by declaring that “the pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite – toujours bon apétit!”

   To which I say, ¡Claro que si – que aprovecho!

Cracking open the door to classic French cooking

The aroma of raw flour gave way to that of biscuits evolving eventually to rich butter and movie popcorn in the demonstration kitchen/classroom at the California Culinary Academy today.

Chef and instructor Tony Marano continued teaching us the foundation of classic French cuisine -- the five "mother" sauces.

Slowly but steadily the aroma filled the room as Chef Tony made a roux, first combining equal amounts in weight of flour and clarified butter. Then he slowly cooked it, creating a white roux for use with a bechamél sauce, then a pale roux to make a velouté. The cooking continued on low heat, making the roux richer and darker, ending after several stages in a brown roux, suitable for an espagnole sauce.

Chef Tony showed how to make "magic", moving the roux from one color and aroma to the next. Clearly, there is something magical about how the simple combination of flour, butter and heat can create the thickener for sauces that underpin classical French cooking.

We'll be plunging deliciously and eagerly the rest of this week into the magic of French sauces. Something tells me that the "magic" Chef Tony described will mean a lot of hard work.

(Photo of white, blonde, brown roux on a plate; credit: chefdepot.net)

Me Oh My Oh: It's National Gumbo Day!

                        Jambalaya, a-crawfish pie and a filé gumbo
                        ’Cause tonight I’m gonna see my machez a mio.
                        Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-oh.
                        Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou.

The great country singer Hank Williams celebrated the unique foods of the Bayou with his song "Jambalaya," including mention of that soulful soup we know as gumbo.

In celebration of National Gumbo Day, why not try a recipe from www.gumbocity.com?

(Photo credit: New Orleans Times-Picayune via www.justinsomnia.org)

SALSA SUNDAY: Save your pumpkin seeds for salsa

Pumpkin seeds -- aka pepitas -- are delicious roasted and salted. You can buy pepitas already roasted and salted, but it's more fun -- and easy -- to do yourself. Simply capture them from the kids' Halloween pumpkin carving.

The seeds should be soaked for 10-15 minutes, cleaned, dried and spread on a cookie sheet with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkling of coarse salt (sea or Kosher). Roast in a 350-degree oven for 20-25 minutes, checking them after 10-15 minutes and stirring them. Taste one to test for doneness. Aim to finish with about 1 cup of seeds.

After the seeds cool, place them in a blender or food processor. Add 4-5 diced tomatillos, 1 diced and seeded anaheim chile, 2 diced and seeded jalapeños, a dash of white vinegar, juice of 1 lime, salt and pepper to taste. Blend or process the ingredients to smoothness.

Pepita salsa can be served with chicken, beef or fish.

This may be the worst idea since Hamburger Helper

Sharing recipes is one thing. In fact, I participated last year in a somewhat unsuccessful "chain recipe" effort that was, at the least, a good idea.

But sharing a recipe and then letting other people tweak it, via a Wiki? I don't think so.

The idea was detailed this week in a Time magazine article passed along to me by friend Susan Bullen. From the article:

Christopher Kimball, who searches for perfect recipes for a living as the editor of Cook's Illustrated and host of PBS's America's Test Kitchen, says letting random people tweak recipes will lead to tears on the stove top. "Variables affect other variables," he says, and without one person testing each and every change, "there's no continuity of experience. So how do you get the answer?"

That pretty much sums up my thoughts on it.

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.

Knife skills exam delayed; I'm on 15-day DL

Being on the disabled list has delayed my taking the basic knife skills practical exam at culinary school. Chef Tony said Friday that he doesn't want me to take it until I have the stitches out of my thumb. That's likely as much as two weeks, according to my doctor.

Chef said he wants me to have full mobility in my thumb because one needs both hands for cutting. Currently, the thumb is somewhat immobilized -- splinted so it won't bend and crack open the cut.

Not that it gives me any kind of advantage over my classmates, all of whom took the exam Friday. By all accounts, they did well. Chef Tony ended the class by grading each and then declaring that everyone had made vast improvement in just two weeks.

A perfect score is 50 -- 5 points for each of the 10 cuts. I heard one student say she got a 49.5, another a 49 and several 48s. It will be tough to match those when I do get the chance.

The good news is that it's not a competition. Everyone is supportive of each other, and we all want to succeed and see one another succeed.

I am looking forward to taking the exam. Let the healing begin!

(Photo credit: www.theculinarysalon.com)

Healthier eating for kids in school, and it's about time

Unhealthy eating and overeating are such ubiquitous problems in American society that it's difficult to decide where to begin solving the problem.

How about schools, where meals are served to millions of our children every day? And, where the food service isn't what any reasonable person would call healthy.

In fact, our federal government contributes in a big way to the unhealthy nature of school meals by requiring that a significant portion of the federal money spent on school meal service be spent to buy surplus agriculural commodities, according to a story in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

The Chronicle story (read it here) spells out the issue and what some are doing about it.

(Photo credit: www.whitehouse.gov)

Cooking school has me in stitches -- 5 to be exact

Halfway through the final practice for Friday's practical exam on the 10 basic knife cuts in culinary school, I put a good little gash into my left thumb with my paring knife.

Five stitches and a bit of embarrassment later, I'm wondering if I'll be able to handle the exam on Friday.

The cut is at the first knuckle, and while it isn't deep, it is at a critical spot, because that's where my thumb bends, thus cracking it open. So it is stitched, splinted to prevent bending and wrapped in some pretty cool looking tape.

For the record, I was coring a roma tomato when it happened.

Also for the record, I had completed six of the 10 cuts and still had plenty of time. And, I had the presence of mind to ask Chef Tony, our cool-headed teacher who immediately took me out of the game, how I had done on what I did manage to complete.

He took a serious look at my tray and declared, with a nod and a smile, "You're on the right track."

I'm convinced it wasn't a sympathy assessment.

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.

Putting the French into French cooking

The complexities of French cooking, via all seven classical French cuisine techniques, were explained in an intense, fast-moving demonstration today at the California Culinary Academy.

Chef Gilles Penot (left) of Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts School in Ottawa, Canada, was on the San Francisco campus , which is a Cordon Bleu affiliate school, for the demonstration.

In one hour and 45 minutes, Chef Gilles trussed a chicken for roasting, tournéed carrots and potatoes and cooked a meal as more than 30 novice students, including yours truly, sat in rapt attention.

Chef Gilles' heavy French accent made following his lesson more challenging, but it added a genuineness to the afternoon's activities. There was both a seriousness and a light-hearted happiness to him as he worked, an obvious manifestation of his love for le cuisine Francais.

His teaching involved a facile recitation of the proper French terminology interspersed with rapid-fire questions to students about why he was doing what he did or what he should do next.

In the allotted time, he showed the trussing, browning and roasting of the bird, glazing of the carrots and sauté of the potatoes, plus creation of a brown sauce from the chicken fat's flavors and a hearty-looking stock.

Bonus: In the class that followed, as we practiced our knife work, Chef Gilles showed me an efficient and effective way to hold the potato for tourné.

Next best thing to cooking and eating good food is ...

... reading about cooking and eating good food.

My reading for pleasure includes a good portion of food and cooking writing. Not cookbooks, although I peruse those, too, and have a collection of nearly 100 cookbooks. We're talking books about food and cooking as culture. Here are a few examples, including my most recent and current readings:

* "My Life in France", Julia Child's story told with her great-nephew Alex Prud'homme. I just finished this warm and enlightening book in which the mother of good American cooking tells how she immersed herself in French culture, including its cuisine, and came up with her permanently relevant "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and masterful PBS television series, "The French Chef". (Special thanks to friend and colleague Diane Luber for lending me her copy of "My Life in France".)

* "Heat", by Bill Buford. This is my current reading, a revealing tale of Buford's year or more around super chef Mario Batali and his Babbo restaurant, including Buford on the trail of the Mario mystique in Italy and elsewhere. The book title's subtext tells it all: "An amateur's adventure as kitchen slave, line cook, pasta-maker, and apprentice to a Dante-quoting butcher in Tuscany." (A second nod of thanks to Diane Luber.)

* "Down and Out in Paris and London", by George Orwell. I haven't read this, but it was recommended by Chef Tony Marano, one of my professors at the California Culinary Academy. Especially compelling, it seems, are the tales from Paris breadlines and the lives of workers in restaurant kitchens.

* "Beef: And Other Bovine Matters", by John Torode. This offering showed up attached to a recipe for seared beef tenderloin with thyme in my daily Epicurious.com New Recipes feed. The book description shows it leans heavily on recipes but also appears to contain a good deal of the history of beef, breeds, butchering and other background. Torode was born in Australia and now runs restaurants in London.

* Just about anything by M.F.K. Fisher. Here's a list of her works. Most compelling titles: "How to Cook a Wolf", her only novel "Not Now but Now" and "The Story of Wine in California".

* Anthony Bourdain is overexposed, methinks, but he is a talented writer. Try "A Cook's Tour", in which Bourdain sets out to find the perfect meal and travels the world.

This list is sadly incomplete, like a tomato sauce with only tomatoes. There are many more, and I will add to the list in this blog as time allows.

(Photo credits: George Orwell -- top right -- from levity.com. M.F.K. Fisher -- lower left -- from her official Website)

T.G.I.F.? Not this week

"So, are you feeling good about Friday?"

Chef Tony Marano of the California Culinary Academy asked me that as he watched me parboil a tomato for concasse as part of my preparation for his upcoming knife-skills practical exam.

Minutes earlier the man critiqued my tray -- skin in the onion ciseler, unevenly cut potatoes battonet, carrots julienne still cut larger than the specifications (1/8 of an inch gets smaller and smaller as we get older, no?).

After that, how could he ask the question? Here's how: It was meant purely as encouragement from an educator who loves his profession and wants to see his students come to that affection, too. And I do, Chef, I do. I just wish there were one, maybe two extra days in the week for practice before Friday.

(Photo: the soon-to-be victims and the weapons of my kitchen mayhem.)

Cooking like Julia, in under one hour!

The first recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" is Potage Parmentier, Leek and Potato Soup. It's simple, takes little time to make and, most of all, it is delicious!

Practicing my knife work for culinary school led me to make a good pot of Potato and Leek Soup last evening. I small diced 1 pound of potatoes and thinly sliced 1 pound of leeks, put them in 2 quarts of water, tossed in 2 tablespoons of salt and simmered for 45 minutes. Then I mashed the softened veggies with a fork. Just before serving, off the heat, I stirred in 2 1/2 tablespoons of softened, unsalted butter. To add color, mince some chives or a little parsley to garnish and serve.

Start to finish -- 1 hour. The working part of the recipe took 15 minutes.

A couple of important steps for the novice cooks: Peel the potatoes before dicing; wash the leeks thoroughly to remove dirt that is embedded in the tight folds of the leaves.

It's a great place to start making Julia's recipes. The result is a soup that she is seen making in the photo and that she describes: "Leek and potato soup smells good, tastes good, and is simplicity itself to make."

(Photo credit: media.onsugar.com)

10 knife cuts, 30 minutes; that's 3 minutes each! Yikes!

Chef Tony gave his students a full hour today to practice the 10 knife cuts he taught us last week, in preparation for a practical exam on Friday. For the practical, we will have to make the 10 cuts in half the time.

That could be an issue for me. Today, in the one-hour practice, I finished nine of the cuts, and my own critique is that five of them were pretty fair, while the other four need work. Not to mention the 10th, which I didn't even get to before Chef called for cleanup.

Tuesday is another day. We will not have an hour. Each day, Chef Tony said, he will shorten the time to move us closer to the reality of 10 cuts in 30 minutes, the expectation for Friday.

A couple of pieces of good news in all of this:

* In the fury of practice for the practical, I have not drawn blood.

* In that same fury, two classmate have, but only small cuts on fingers.

Fun food job of the week: Stanley's Steamers

It's not haute cuisine, but it could be big-time fun. This advertisement is on the California Culinary Academy Website and on Craigslist. This would be a fun job for meeting people and being in the middle of the action in San Francisco.

HOW ABOUT A FUN, OUTDOOR JOB THAT PAYS WELL?

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, we have several openings 32-40 hours a week for individuals who can sell hot dogs, pretzels, and drinks from our "Stanley's Steamers" hot dog carts located in San Francisco's Union Square, PLUS be able to drive our company van making deliveries and working in our commissary several days a week.
Please note this is a combination vending/driving job, not vending only.
Applicants need open availability (mornings and evenings, 7 days a week) and a driving record with not more than 1 moving violation in the past 3 years.
Driving shifts pay $13.50/hr; Vending shifts pay $9.79/hr, plus $25-$40 in cash tips daily. We offer a Blue Cross Health Plan to full-time staff after 90 days.
To apply, please send us your resume with job history and job references. It always helps to include a personal note telling us something about you.
To apply: job-82jmb-1407437055@craigslist.org

SALSA SUNDAY starts with fresh, ripe tomatoes

Nothing is better for making good salsa than ripe tomatoes. Even better, home-grown ripe tomatoes. The bowl of deliious little romas at right came from the small back-yard garden tended by my daughter Ann Chihak Poff and son-in-law Curt Poff in Oakland's Rockridge neighborhood. They are sweet and juicy, perfect for salsa.

My plan is to use them in a basic recipe, much like the very first Salsa Sunday entry here on Aug. 30, but with one key modification: I will roast the tomatoes and the jalapeños to give them a bit of a smoky flavor before dicing for the salsa. I call it salsa chipotle, although this recipe doesn't use genuine chipotles, which are smoked jalapeños.

Use your outdoor grill or broiler pan in the oven to roast a half-dozen ripe roma tomates and 2-3 jalapeños. Turn them every few minutes to get the skin blackened all around on both the tomatoes and the jalapeños. After they are blackened, put them in a plastic or paper bag and set in the sink so they create their own steam, for about 20 minutes.

Meantime, chop 1 white onion, 2 cloves garlic and grill them until they are tender. Fine dice them.

When the tomatoes and jalapeños can be handled, remove their skins, clean out seeds and fine dice them. Stir in a glass bowl with the onions and garlic, add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

For my taste, salsa that uses chipotles -- real ones or done the way I suggest doing them -- is best eaten at room temperature. It goes well with steak, fish and on tacos.

Peruvian "super chef's" eatery not SF's first cevicheria

Gastón Acurio has arrived. His La Mar Cebicheria is open on the Embarc-
adero in San Francisco, serving authentic Peruvian ceviche and other seafood delights.

Time magazine this week refers to Acurio as the next super chef, saying that while he doesn't yet have the name recognition of Italian-American Mario Batali or Spaniard José Andrés, his coming to the United States is the first step toward it.

Thanks to my friend and soon-to-be fellow culinary student Susan Bullen for sending me the link to the story.

Oh, and if the publicity leads to a jam at the door of La Mar, try the excellent Peruvian ceviche at Fresca on Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights or three other San Francisco locations.

(Photo credit: Ines Menacho, Time magazine)

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 1

The truth about the truth

"It's a tradition. Well, it's more of a nuisance than anything else. But you gotta wear it."
-- Chef John Meidinger (right) telling students on Day 1 that wearing a complete uniform as school rules require for all classes includes the neckerchief.

Don Juan and Casanova were chefs

"Cuisine is not about power; it's about finesse. As chefs, we're poets and lovers, not fighters."
-- Chef Tony Marano describing the military-like organizational "brigade" of the kitchen staff as established by the great Frenchman Georges-Auguste Escoffier.

Bad career move

"You don't want to take a chance on making someone sick or killing someone, because that will ruin your career. Or it should."
-- Chef John Meidinger explaining that food spending a cumulative four hours in the "danger zone", 41-135 degrees Fahrenheit, should be thrown away.


Addicted to science

"Food scientists can be our best friends, or they can be evil. ... Worldwide (restaurant) chains use food scientists to layer fat, oil and sugar to levels in foods to make them addictive."
-- Chef Tony Marano (above left) discussing how tastes and flavors can be manipulated.


Rocco my world
"We have books about cute chefs like Rocco (DiSpirito, a New York City chef/restaurateur, photo at right), but also not so cute chefs."
-- Diana Vasquez, Librarian at the California Culinary Academy, telling students what's among the 4,000 volumes she oversees. She didn't identify any "not so cute" chefs.

(Rocco DiSpirito photo credit: delish.com)

Tourné or not tourné; that is the seven-sided question

Our "Bible", Gisslen's "Professional Cooking", ends its step-by-step instruction for the tourné by showing a photo of the finished product with this caption: "If perfectly done, the potato has seven sides." Then it adds in parentheses and somewhat wryly: "(but customers rarely count them)."

You can bet that the next time I am in a good restaurant and find tournéed potatoes on my plate, I will count the sides.

Tourné -- past participle of "to turn" in French -- is the knife cut that produces a little football-shaped potato, and it is the last of the 10 basic cuts learned in this, my first week of culinary school. In one week, we students in Chef Tony's Foundations of Culinary Arts class must do the 10 cuts in 30 minutes.

The tourné exercise went well, and it is one cut that I feel confident about. It aso happens to be the one that from all appearances is the most complex. Yet it was simpler for me than the julienne (1/8 of an inch square by 2 1/2 inches long), which others in the class appeared to cut with ease.

Good food, good wine, good fashion, good time, Saturday afternoon in the Fillmore District

Looking for Saturday activities in San Francisco? Try this:

In the Fillmore district -- specifically on Fillmore Street between California and Pine streets -- it's the first Taste of Fillmore.

Here's all you need to know: http://www.tasteoffillmore.com/

What comes after good? Great, of course

We boiled water today in culinary class, our first use of fire on just the fourth day into our studies.

Actually, Chef Tony boiled the water; we students used it to blanch tomatoes so we could practice tomato concassé. That's one of 10 basic cuts and shapes we are learning in Culinary Arts Foundations I. Each has a name, is precise in method and outcome and helps form the foundation of all the cooking and food preparation we will undertake going forward.

After a rough start Tuesday on the battonet, my cutting work is improving. Chef Tony said so himself, when he saw the results of my ciseler -- that's the dicing of an onion, something I already knew how to do, sort of. I asked Chef when he came 'round for an inspection if my ciseler looked good. "Yes, good," he responded. "Not great."

He wants great, and so do I. A few onions will meet their ciseler this weekend in my kitchen.

(Photo credit: mon-chef-a-moi.com)

Pumpkins and apples and squash, oh my!

Autumn is bringing welcome additions to the Fillmore Farmers' Market in San Francisco.

Pumpkins and other winter squash should begin appearing in abundance. Pumpkins, by the way, are for much more than Halloween and jack 'o lanterns. As the season gets going, I plan to use them for soups, side dishes and roasted pepitas. Stay tuned for some recipes.

Several vendors had apples last week, and more are expected as the harvest gets going.

And the squash -- acorn, butternut and other varieties -- ought to start piling up. Squash are great to have around, because they can keep for weeks, if the skin isn't pierced, and they supply delicious and sweet tastes for soups, garnishes and in combination with other ingredients. My acorn squash and quinoa recipe will appear here in the near future.

Meantime, though, at Saturday's market, I will be on the lookout for big white potatoes and carrots. Why? Because my culinary school practical exam on 10 cuts and shapes -- including julienne, tourné, battonet and paysanne -- will be in a week. Practicing -- and the yummy results including cream of carrot soup and, perhaps, potato leek soup -- will be a top priority for the next week.

(Photo credit: ehow.com)