I have been woefully remiss in posting this past week, so this is going to be a long post. I’m going to start out with a recipe of my new favorite dessert (of the week) – the lemon tart. The filling in this tart is fabulous, as it contains about 4-5 fresh lemons! I’m still …
Category: Cooking School Diary
Days 40 and 41 – Level III start
Okay, so we didn't drink this champagne at school. It was at the start of our Wednesday night celebration. If you can find this champagne, I highly recommend buying it. In a world where champagne has become so commercialized and additive'd, thanks in great part to the U.S. palette and the CA sparkling wine producers, …
Days 37, 38 and 39 – End of Level II
Thanks for the guest post on Sunday, Carnet! We are both so busy I didn't even get a real flavor of what it was like in Bangalore until I read the post. I am now craving Indian food. But, not enough to pass up Bar Bambino this evening for a celebratory dinner with Brian and …
Days 35 and 36 – Cheese and Pasta – yes!
So, I probably shouldn't have said, "This is the best day ever!" before we actually made anything. But, I was hungry that morning and cheese tasting could not have come at a better time. Above, Chef Tomm is slicing different goat, sheep, and cow's milk cheeses for our tasting pleasure. Prior to that, we tasted …
Day 34 – Student’s choice – yippee!
Chef Tomm gave each of us a chance to create two courses of our own choosing using at least 2 of the 3 proteins he picked: ahi tuna, calamari and shrimp/prawns (differing sizes). He went around and labeled our stations with "A-1", "A-2" and so on. I set up at A-1 prior to the labeling …
Day 32 – Nutrition (and bacon?)
Today was the first of two days on nutrition. Really, nutritious French food? I guess it depends on your definition of nutritious. The recipe we made today indeed had no butter in it, but it had huge bacon lardons in it (as seen in the picture above), and the bacon was cooked in with the …
Day 32 – Crepes and Banana Fritters
Friday was crepe day! For all the things I have made in my life, never have I made crepes. There are so many crepe eateries in San Francisco that if I want one - and a good one - there are places to go. I think the best part of making them was trying to …
Day 31 – “The bomb” (yes, pate a bombe)…more sweets
This is a picture of my very own Genoise: whole egg foam cake with a coffee-buttercream. I'd like to say the few flaws on it are due to the jostling and car ride home, but honestly, it's my lack of precision cake-decorating skills. However, overall, I'm pretty psyched it turned out looking as good as …
Continue reading Day 31 – “The bomb” (yes, pate a bombe)…more sweets
Day 30 – Tarts and a quiche! Another fantastic fat day.
Oh Mark, for all of our whining that we are no good at pastries, I think our tarts turned out well. The apple tart was incredible-tasting (thanks, Ian, for the calvados addition!), even if our apple slicing and design skills leave much to be desired. I know, I know, we did screw up our puff …
Continue reading Day 30 – Tarts and a quiche! Another fantastic fat day.
Days 28 and 29 – Ice Cream and Profiteroles – yeah, sweets!
Yesterday we worked on ice creams, sorbets, granites and sherbets. Yummmmm. Anne and I had the best sorbet, we're convinced. We didn't have an exact recipe, as there wasn't enough fresh grapefruit juice, so we had to use a raspberry puree and adjust the sugar and the acid content. It worked out splendidly. We also …
Continue reading Days 28 and 29 – Ice Cream and Profiteroles – yeah, sweets!
Salty Apron 