I am finding Chef Matthews (the dean of the school who also teaches several of the classes) endlessly inspirational. There will be several classes that will help me develop technique and skills in certain areas, etc, but World Cuisine is turning out to be more intellectual and philosophical than practical or tangible, which I love. I'm still not sure exactly what my mark will be in the culinary world. How I will voice myself or what my identity in food will be is uncertain as of yet. I'm sure it will be something that solidifies over the next few years and will continue to morph as my life changes. For now I will just immerse myself and seek knowledge. I will try to absorb as much as I can and stay sensitive to any gravitational pulls, taking note of and exploring further areas I find myself particularly interested in. I can now define what California or Pacific Rim cuisine is and I see how this has influenced me. I am also realizing how much I truly love and enjoy Colorado. These parts of my life will carry weight in my expression through food.
I've made it through the first week of classes. It is a bit tiring but I find myself craving more. I'm a bit disappointed that I have no class to attend tomorrow night, but at least I will have some free time to actually cook. My Monday through Thursday schedule consists of waking up around 6am to go to work, getting home around 4:30, eating dinner and hanging out with my wife for an hour before leaving for school at 5:30, and getting home from school anywhere between 10:30 and 11:30. It's long days but the time seems to go by quickly and I'm feeling very alive in these pursuits. I'm enjoying it all immensly, except for the detestable student loan process that just doesn't seem to push through...
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Safety and Sanitation
I suppose I won't always post once (or twice, as in last night's class) after every class session. But for now it pleases me to and it's my blog. So shut up and read...
Tonight was, as the next couple of nights will be, about safety and sanitation. Talk about a contrast to the mind rendering dialogue from my World Cuisine class last night. This is the boring stuff. 99% of it is common sense, which 99% of us already understand, but because that 1% just don't seem to get it we have to address it and make sure we cover all of the bases. I know this and am taking it with a grain of salt because I recognise it as a necessary bore (I would've said "evil" but cleanliness is next to godliness, right?).
In all seriousness, it's not that bad. It's just hard to switch gears so rapidly from last night's thought provoking discussions. Last night was: man eventually figured out that, instead of hunting an animal for food, he could trap a male and female, breed them, and never have to hunt again. This allowed him to stay in one place, which led him to create more elaborate dwellings for himself, which was the birth of civilation - all because of food. Tonight was: don't use bulging cans because someone could get Botulism.
Nevertheless, I will learn it and learn it well because it is an important aspect of my future career and life path. Eventually I will be training my own employees on safety and sanitation to keep one of them from serving food from a bulging can, killing a customer (God forbid), resulting in several costly lawsuits and my restaurant getting shut down.
Tonight was, as the next couple of nights will be, about safety and sanitation. Talk about a contrast to the mind rendering dialogue from my World Cuisine class last night. This is the boring stuff. 99% of it is common sense, which 99% of us already understand, but because that 1% just don't seem to get it we have to address it and make sure we cover all of the bases. I know this and am taking it with a grain of salt because I recognise it as a necessary bore (I would've said "evil" but cleanliness is next to godliness, right?).
In all seriousness, it's not that bad. It's just hard to switch gears so rapidly from last night's thought provoking discussions. Last night was: man eventually figured out that, instead of hunting an animal for food, he could trap a male and female, breed them, and never have to hunt again. This allowed him to stay in one place, which led him to create more elaborate dwellings for himself, which was the birth of civilation - all because of food. Tonight was: don't use bulging cans because someone could get Botulism.
Nevertheless, I will learn it and learn it well because it is an important aspect of my future career and life path. Eventually I will be training my own employees on safety and sanitation to keep one of them from serving food from a bulging can, killing a customer (God forbid), resulting in several costly lawsuits and my restaurant getting shut down.
World Cuisine (cont)
I'm having a hard time sitting still at my desk today. It's a good thing we're super busy and short handed. It will help the day go by and if I was bored, as I usually am, I would probably be going out of my mind right now or I'd say "screw it" and surf the web. I'm still kind of on a high from last night's class and I want to just let me mind wander and drift over everything we discussed.
The five cultures we'll be covering in World Cuisine this first trimester will be Italy, France, India, Chinese, and Japan. It would be impossible to learn all there is about any one of these cultures and it's food if we spend all three years studying nothing but it. Instead, Chef told us we will be focusing on the main aspect of the culture and it's contribution to food, particularly as it relates to us here in America.
From Italy we will learn about their passion for food. Italians don't care much for organization or structure because they feel it robs them of the emotion and passion that they have for food. From France we will learn the opposite: structure and organization. The French didn't create classical cuisine but they were the first to write everything down, give everything a name and record it all, so they parented cuisine for the entire world through their organization. India knows more about spice than any other culture could dream to. However, they don't worry much with technique. They cook a lot of things in a lot of similar ways and spend their time more with seasoning and spice. On the other hand, the Chinese are all about technique. Because there are so many people in China and so little resources they had to get very creative with how something was prepared, more so than what was prepared. And lastly, from Japan we will take the notion of perfection. Nobody is more obsessive about perfection than the Japanese. When you look at history and study Japanese sword making, calligraphy, even drinking tea, they perfect everything they do. Sushi is the perfect example. In a nutshell, it's just raw fish and rice. But the Japanese don't accept "just," over decades and centuries they have perfected sushi. Which fish to use, what angle and thickness to cut it at, even the vinegar rice has been (and is being) perfected to no end by the Japanese.
I can't wait to keep digging deeper... (and what will Wolrd Cuisine II consist of?!?)
The five cultures we'll be covering in World Cuisine this first trimester will be Italy, France, India, Chinese, and Japan. It would be impossible to learn all there is about any one of these cultures and it's food if we spend all three years studying nothing but it. Instead, Chef told us we will be focusing on the main aspect of the culture and it's contribution to food, particularly as it relates to us here in America.
From Italy we will learn about their passion for food. Italians don't care much for organization or structure because they feel it robs them of the emotion and passion that they have for food. From France we will learn the opposite: structure and organization. The French didn't create classical cuisine but they were the first to write everything down, give everything a name and record it all, so they parented cuisine for the entire world through their organization. India knows more about spice than any other culture could dream to. However, they don't worry much with technique. They cook a lot of things in a lot of similar ways and spend their time more with seasoning and spice. On the other hand, the Chinese are all about technique. Because there are so many people in China and so little resources they had to get very creative with how something was prepared, more so than what was prepared. And lastly, from Japan we will take the notion of perfection. Nobody is more obsessive about perfection than the Japanese. When you look at history and study Japanese sword making, calligraphy, even drinking tea, they perfect everything they do. Sushi is the perfect example. In a nutshell, it's just raw fish and rice. But the Japanese don't accept "just," over decades and centuries they have perfected sushi. Which fish to use, what angle and thickness to cut it at, even the vinegar rice has been (and is being) perfected to no end by the Japanese.
I can't wait to keep digging deeper... (and what will Wolrd Cuisine II consist of?!?)
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
World Cuisine
Whoa... this is going to be an awesome class. I thought - it'll be fun! We'll go in the kitchen and make food with all these crazy techniques, using all these ethnic ingredients, and learning all of these cool things about other cultures food. Well... we'll probably do all that too but tonight was the first class and it was, more or less, a four and a half hour philosophical discussion about who we are as individuals, as a society in America, and as a world. Who we are, where we came from, what role food had/has in it all, why we do what we do, eat what we eat, look the way we look, and on and on and on.
There's no way for me to successfully or accurately regurgitate any part of tonight's class, at least not yet. My brain is tired and is moving all over the place (the similarities between slavery and prostitution, how India has such a deep understanding of spices but isn't as concerned about cooking techniques, why is our army still in Iraq, what is the definition of food and how Ferran Adria is alterring that definition, for example). What will my role be? Will I invent new cuisine? Will it be a fusion with regional cuisine I have yet to discover or learn about? How will my relationships be affected? I know God has led me to this, but how will He use me in the culinary world?
Tonight left me with many questions. Questions that I don't really want answers to yet. I want to let them marinate my brain. I want them to stew around inside of me and continue to create more questions and, more importantly, continue to inspire me. And to think, this was just the first night; this is just the beginning. If Paragon is good for nothing else, if the Chef's turn out to be hacks and the curriculum a joke, it has at the very least stirred something deep inside of me. My view of food is alterring big time. I feel as though I am ascending to a new plateau of knowledge, not technical, but philosophical and logical. Tonight I made some connections in the history of this country, our world, and my own life, and it all was tied together with food in one way or another.
I didn't want to leave class tonight...
There's no way for me to successfully or accurately regurgitate any part of tonight's class, at least not yet. My brain is tired and is moving all over the place (the similarities between slavery and prostitution, how India has such a deep understanding of spices but isn't as concerned about cooking techniques, why is our army still in Iraq, what is the definition of food and how Ferran Adria is alterring that definition, for example). What will my role be? Will I invent new cuisine? Will it be a fusion with regional cuisine I have yet to discover or learn about? How will my relationships be affected? I know God has led me to this, but how will He use me in the culinary world?
Tonight left me with many questions. Questions that I don't really want answers to yet. I want to let them marinate my brain. I want them to stew around inside of me and continue to create more questions and, more importantly, continue to inspire me. And to think, this was just the first night; this is just the beginning. If Paragon is good for nothing else, if the Chef's turn out to be hacks and the curriculum a joke, it has at the very least stirred something deep inside of me. My view of food is alterring big time. I feel as though I am ascending to a new plateau of knowledge, not technical, but philosophical and logical. Tonight I made some connections in the history of this country, our world, and my own life, and it all was tied together with food in one way or another.
I didn't want to leave class tonight...
Foundations
I had my first class at culinary school last night: Foundations. It will cover everything from safety and sanitation to knife skills to stocks, sauces, and soups. The chef instructing the class is a crack up and seems very serious about the intensity of this course. His goal is to have us ready to work the line in a fine restaurant by the end of the trimester - a pretty lofty goal. There is a lot of information to be learned and skills to be practiced in each class. I'm very excited to be getting started and I will do my best to absorb every minute.
The first night was a lot of fun stories and information from the dean as well as getting the syllabus (the most bare bones syllabus I've ever seen) and general information about the class from the chef instructor. The next couple of classes will be about safety and sanitation, which means we will still be sitting in the classroom for quite a bit of the class duration. I'm really itching to get in the back and start cooking, but first things first. There will plenty of hours spent in the kitchen between this Foundations class as well as in my second class (tues/thurs): World Cuisine I.
It may be challenging at times, but I'm glad that I doubled up on classes. I want to completely immerse myself into the culinary world right now. Last night, after working a full day and going to school all evening, I went home and read food magazines for an hour until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more. I would love to start working in a kitchen alongside going to school but at the moment my income and benefits from my day job are too necessary. Hopefully by this time next year I will be working in a fine kitchen at night and continuing my classes during the day.
World Cuisine tonight! I can't wait!!
The first night was a lot of fun stories and information from the dean as well as getting the syllabus (the most bare bones syllabus I've ever seen) and general information about the class from the chef instructor. The next couple of classes will be about safety and sanitation, which means we will still be sitting in the classroom for quite a bit of the class duration. I'm really itching to get in the back and start cooking, but first things first. There will plenty of hours spent in the kitchen between this Foundations class as well as in my second class (tues/thurs): World Cuisine I.
It may be challenging at times, but I'm glad that I doubled up on classes. I want to completely immerse myself into the culinary world right now. Last night, after working a full day and going to school all evening, I went home and read food magazines for an hour until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more. I would love to start working in a kitchen alongside going to school but at the moment my income and benefits from my day job are too necessary. Hopefully by this time next year I will be working in a fine kitchen at night and continuing my classes during the day.
World Cuisine tonight! I can't wait!!
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