school and cooking
when i was a little girl, around 7th/8th grade, i wanted to be a professional chef. i grew up watching the great chefs on tv: julia child, jacques papin, the frugal gourmet, the galloping gourmet (graham kerr - i even have one of his cookbooks), and all the others on PBS. when my mom and i cooked together, we would pretend we were hosting a cooking show and explain what we were doing at various steps of making dinner or breakfast or even just sandwiches. my mom encouraged this and helped me draft a few letters to mail to the few culinary academies in northern california. they were very happy to hear from me and i got information packets from the culinary institute - california (they had a cooking show, too, which i loved) and the california culinary academy. because the CIA in st. helena is so beautiful, my mom and i took a day trip up there to take a tour of the school. what's interesting about the CIA is that it's a 4-year university and you graduate with a bachelor's degree (in chemistry, i believe). the culinary academy is a 2-yr program. so anyway, after our tour we ate at the CIA restaurant, which was an awesome experience. the kitchen is totally open and is run by students. the managers of the restaurant are professors and are constantly teaching. the food was delectable and we had a great time.
times changed and so did my career aspirations. the thing is, i still love to cook. once we got cable, i was hooked on the foodnetwork. i haven't found a chef i love as dearly as those old guys on PBS, but they were interesting and entertaining. marshall and i have quite the collection of cookbooks, but i never seem to have the time to experiment much. i also have a subscription of gourmet magazine, which i love, and have been quite successful with all the recipes i've tried from my subscription. sometimes i just wish i had the time to really experiment with cooking. try new things and such. i haven't gotten to the point of branching out and creating my own dishes, but i do have some wherewithal to add or alter an existing recipe.
this morning, though, i wanted to try something. i remember long ago watching alton brown demonstrate how to make the perfect french omelette. the french omelette is very simple in its ingredients (eggs, water, salt) but it's all in the preparation and execution. when marshall and i were in paris a few years ago, we ordered room service for breakfast the morning we were there. i had to order an omelette to see if it was just as good as i'd heard. it was so delicious. just enough seasoning and it was buttery and fluffy and it melted in my mouth. i was shocked, since it was made IN THE HOTEL! where i come from, hotels (unless they're super fancy) aren't known to have the greatest eggs or much of anything, really. i knew i couldn't get that on the first try, but i still wanted to see if i could execute a simple filled omelette. as i walked to safeway to get my friday-morning americano from starbucks i had an idea hatching (pun definitely intended). i bought some eggs and headed home. i had some leftover quick guacamole from our black bean soup earlier this week (it was a garnish) and lots of cheese. i shredded some cheddar and jack and began to whip up my eggs. to season i used a pinch of salt and pepper. i also used half-and-half to make it a little more fluffy, rather than water. it also adds a little more flavor. i remembered alton's advice and kept to it. i poured the egg into the pan and every so often would run my spatula around the edges. i would also lift up one side and tilt the still runny egg to cook everything, unless the majority of the egg mixture was set. next came the tricky part: the flip. everything is in the flip. my first try only folded it over - no worries, i corrected my mistake. i knew i needed to be a little more aggressive at flipping. try number 2: boom - got it! as i the uncooked side was cooking, i place my filling on one side of the egg. once everything was set, i folded over (just once, the french omelette is folded into thirds) and let it cook a little longer to melt the cheese and warm the filling. it tasted great and even better knowing that i created a restaurant-grade omelette all by myself. i was quite pleased and i think i might be ready to try making the french style.
the other thing i love about cooking, is cooking for others. don't get me wrong, i love cooking for marshall, but there's something about cooking for a group of friends and family which is exciting. my mom was is a big entertainer and loves to have people over. i think that's where i get it from. i love having people over and i love cooking for them. even when it's a party, i try and MAKE a few of the snacks we offer. it just adds a nice touch. anyway, i was watching my favorite hamptons chef: ina garten. marshall and i LOVE making fun of her, but she has some great recipes. on the episode i saw, she was experimenting with her own recipes. she tried different ingredients for her scones and tried a new recipe for shrimp bisque (which also looked REALLY good). the one that caught my eye was her wild mushroom lasagna. i don't normally like lasagna. it's always too big and there's too much cheese and it's often so dense i can only have a few bites before i'm full. her lasagna was a white lasagna and the only ONLY cheese in it was parmasean. no mozzarella, no ricota, just lots of parm. her white sauce didn't even have cheese in it. it looks fabulous and i knew i wanted to try it out.
marshall and i are celebrating our valentine's day tonight, rather than tomorrow. seriously - who knew you had to make dinner reservations for v-day a month in advance!? it's all good, i'd rather we go out tonight, anyway. since we didn't have any plans for tomorrow night, though, i thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try out this new recipe. even better - i thought we could have people over, too. as expected a few of our group had dinner plans, already, but said they might stop by afterward. i was glad to see that there were people who hadn't made plans and were available (celtcub, norcalpaco and damneddonkey). a perfect amount to make a single batch of lasagna. i sweetened the deal by offering garlic bread and grilled italian sausage on the side (we have some in the freezer). anyway, i'm looking forward to cooking for these guys. my first cooking experience for them wasn't the greatest (my spanish tortilla ended up as a scramble), so i'm hoping tomorrow night's is more of a success. :)
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last night was my first online meeting with my programming for children class. at this meeting, everyone was grouped up and we had to answer a question from the professor and present it to the class. my partner and i were late getting together, but we feel that everyone else was, too (we're all, teachers included, getting used to the new online interface). anyway, ours was pretty simple and i banged out a quick powerpoint presentation for us to show. our meeting was to last form 7-9, but i was online before the class started to make sure my PPT was uploaded correctly. right when our presentation started, everyone got booted from the system. i started to freak out because i thought it was only me. i finally was able to get back online and people from our class slowly trickled back in. the outage happened right when my partner started our presentation. it was a white before we could get started again. we got through our presentation just fine, but the outage made us run 40 minutes over. perhaps it was the anxiety involved with talking online to people and presenting something, but i was totally zonked afterwards. my plan was to start writing my paper for my other class (due monday), but that didn't happen. i was tired and very cold, so i grabbed a blanket and hunkered down in front of the TV for the rest of the night. i even watched ER, which i haven't done in ages. i missed the office and the first half of 30 rock, so i need to watch those today. but i was exhausted. i guess what i had, which didn't seem like it at the time, was similar to sitting in a classroom for almost 3 hours. i realize now that sitting and closely paying attention to 10 presentations takes a lot out of you. it was a good class, though. everyone in the class is super smart and the class content itself is really interesting. my first assignment is due next weekend and it's a children's area design. i'm looking forward to that. :)
i am NOT looking forward to writing this paper for my other class. i'm so procrastinating on it, it's not funny...
times changed and so did my career aspirations. the thing is, i still love to cook. once we got cable, i was hooked on the foodnetwork. i haven't found a chef i love as dearly as those old guys on PBS, but they were interesting and entertaining. marshall and i have quite the collection of cookbooks, but i never seem to have the time to experiment much. i also have a subscription of gourmet magazine, which i love, and have been quite successful with all the recipes i've tried from my subscription. sometimes i just wish i had the time to really experiment with cooking. try new things and such. i haven't gotten to the point of branching out and creating my own dishes, but i do have some wherewithal to add or alter an existing recipe.
this morning, though, i wanted to try something. i remember long ago watching alton brown demonstrate how to make the perfect french omelette. the french omelette is very simple in its ingredients (eggs, water, salt) but it's all in the preparation and execution. when marshall and i were in paris a few years ago, we ordered room service for breakfast the morning we were there. i had to order an omelette to see if it was just as good as i'd heard. it was so delicious. just enough seasoning and it was buttery and fluffy and it melted in my mouth. i was shocked, since it was made IN THE HOTEL! where i come from, hotels (unless they're super fancy) aren't known to have the greatest eggs or much of anything, really. i knew i couldn't get that on the first try, but i still wanted to see if i could execute a simple filled omelette. as i walked to safeway to get my friday-morning americano from starbucks i had an idea hatching (pun definitely intended). i bought some eggs and headed home. i had some leftover quick guacamole from our black bean soup earlier this week (it was a garnish) and lots of cheese. i shredded some cheddar and jack and began to whip up my eggs. to season i used a pinch of salt and pepper. i also used half-and-half to make it a little more fluffy, rather than water. it also adds a little more flavor. i remembered alton's advice and kept to it. i poured the egg into the pan and every so often would run my spatula around the edges. i would also lift up one side and tilt the still runny egg to cook everything, unless the majority of the egg mixture was set. next came the tricky part: the flip. everything is in the flip. my first try only folded it over - no worries, i corrected my mistake. i knew i needed to be a little more aggressive at flipping. try number 2: boom - got it! as i the uncooked side was cooking, i place my filling on one side of the egg. once everything was set, i folded over (just once, the french omelette is folded into thirds) and let it cook a little longer to melt the cheese and warm the filling. it tasted great and even better knowing that i created a restaurant-grade omelette all by myself. i was quite pleased and i think i might be ready to try making the french style.
the other thing i love about cooking, is cooking for others. don't get me wrong, i love cooking for marshall, but there's something about cooking for a group of friends and family which is exciting. my mom was is a big entertainer and loves to have people over. i think that's where i get it from. i love having people over and i love cooking for them. even when it's a party, i try and MAKE a few of the snacks we offer. it just adds a nice touch. anyway, i was watching my favorite hamptons chef: ina garten. marshall and i LOVE making fun of her, but she has some great recipes. on the episode i saw, she was experimenting with her own recipes. she tried different ingredients for her scones and tried a new recipe for shrimp bisque (which also looked REALLY good). the one that caught my eye was her wild mushroom lasagna. i don't normally like lasagna. it's always too big and there's too much cheese and it's often so dense i can only have a few bites before i'm full. her lasagna was a white lasagna and the only ONLY cheese in it was parmasean. no mozzarella, no ricota, just lots of parm. her white sauce didn't even have cheese in it. it looks fabulous and i knew i wanted to try it out.
marshall and i are celebrating our valentine's day tonight, rather than tomorrow. seriously - who knew you had to make dinner reservations for v-day a month in advance!? it's all good, i'd rather we go out tonight, anyway. since we didn't have any plans for tomorrow night, though, i thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try out this new recipe. even better - i thought we could have people over, too. as expected a few of our group had dinner plans, already, but said they might stop by afterward. i was glad to see that there were people who hadn't made plans and were available (celtcub, norcalpaco and damneddonkey). a perfect amount to make a single batch of lasagna. i sweetened the deal by offering garlic bread and grilled italian sausage on the side (we have some in the freezer). anyway, i'm looking forward to cooking for these guys. my first cooking experience for them wasn't the greatest (my spanish tortilla ended up as a scramble), so i'm hoping tomorrow night's is more of a success. :)
+_+_+
last night was my first online meeting with my programming for children class. at this meeting, everyone was grouped up and we had to answer a question from the professor and present it to the class. my partner and i were late getting together, but we feel that everyone else was, too (we're all, teachers included, getting used to the new online interface). anyway, ours was pretty simple and i banged out a quick powerpoint presentation for us to show. our meeting was to last form 7-9, but i was online before the class started to make sure my PPT was uploaded correctly. right when our presentation started, everyone got booted from the system. i started to freak out because i thought it was only me. i finally was able to get back online and people from our class slowly trickled back in. the outage happened right when my partner started our presentation. it was a white before we could get started again. we got through our presentation just fine, but the outage made us run 40 minutes over. perhaps it was the anxiety involved with talking online to people and presenting something, but i was totally zonked afterwards. my plan was to start writing my paper for my other class (due monday), but that didn't happen. i was tired and very cold, so i grabbed a blanket and hunkered down in front of the TV for the rest of the night. i even watched ER, which i haven't done in ages. i missed the office and the first half of 30 rock, so i need to watch those today. but i was exhausted. i guess what i had, which didn't seem like it at the time, was similar to sitting in a classroom for almost 3 hours. i realize now that sitting and closely paying attention to 10 presentations takes a lot out of you. it was a good class, though. everyone in the class is super smart and the class content itself is really interesting. my first assignment is due next weekend and it's a children's area design. i'm looking forward to that. :)
i am NOT looking forward to writing this paper for my other class. i'm so procrastinating on it, it's not funny...