Pros and Cons of a Culinary Student!

I thought this up while in traffic on the way to class. Dont take this too seriously, its meant to be funny and silly and iam obviously exagerating it. I honestly love being a culinary student although it is grueling on the mind and body, but its like a good workout, it kinda hurts but you get a high off it and never really regret doing it. So once again these are true to an extent but are exagerated and meant to be goofy.

Pros
-the most obvious, the food, gourmet food is constantly made and ready to be eaten and you try dishes and foods thats out of this world and so exotic that most people are never lucky enough to get the oppertunity to try.
-since your introduced to all this wonderful food, your uniform is very forgiving. You could be pregnant and probably no one would notice since the pants are baggier that the one that were popular in the late 90's and the chef jacket buttoned on the front makes even a waif like me look big.
-Its easy to get roomates, just list in your ad "gourmet chef looking for a hungry roomate to feed...."
-Servers and waiters are at your mercy, its like a resturant higharchy and your groomed to be at the top.
-Your not boring, seriously and not to be rude to anybody out there who is (a lot of my friends are) but like everyone i know is like a phychology/bio/english major and when someone asks you all of a sudden what you study and you say, "me, o i go to culinary school" it sorta stands out.

Cons
-although food is good, doesn't mean it always is, remeber your in culinary SCHOOL, as in learning as in you may get yourself sick
-Although the outfits are forgiving for those extra pounds you may put in, it kinda sucks because i think my biceps have shaped up from all that whisking, kneading, etc. and for anybody who has a body to show off, you dont really get a chance to flaunt it. Even your hair is covered so there goes my 50$ blowout!
-You get ugly, you cant wear makeup, jewlery, nail polish, and that stupid hat covers your head so you look bald.
-you become ashamed of your hands, they are cut, burned, bruised, unpolished, unpampered, just plain old beaten up, alas, they are your most important tool.
-This correlates the the room-mate thing, u might feel kinda used, and on that note, the pressure is on to make spectacular food, otherwise, people think your a joke.
-People dont get why your stressed, but believe me, making hollandaise just right CAN be stressful.
-Seeing food network begins to irritate you since about 90% of the cooks have no culinary background, and you begin to notice it....

ok i could add more but thats all i can think of right now, but again take it with a grian of salt cause i honestly do love it.

Burning from the inside out and finals approaching....

I know i haven't posted in a bit, but its mainly because i have class on saturday mornings at 8 am (meaning i need to leave the house at 7:15) and i only get back from class the night before around midnight. Hence i never feel like writing much once i get home those nights. Anyhow, lets review my last few days this week. Its good i have carpool now so i am not driving exhausted all the time. But i still had a very tiring day yesterday, i nearly fell asleeo during the demo of latkes! (luckily, being the only jew in the class i didn't really need a demo as i have made and tasted ALL sorts of latkes). I perked up once we started cooking, but lectures and stuff that keep me inactive can induce sleep on me. As we were prepping for the latkes, i was explain to the people at my table (or around my station, so to speak) that these are usually eaten at Hanukah and that its a little early to be making these(to be pc, i shold be spelling "Chanukah" but people mispronounce that one even worse so i spare the sore throat). So the girl the works beside me, I'll call her Jessica (because her real name is one of a pop star without any recent hits, like Jessica Simpson) asked me, "So, does that make you Jewish?" I've gotten a bit used to this, so i tried i replied, "yes, why, is that a bad thing??"
"o no no..." she replied obviously worried she ofended me. But it seems i am indeed the only jew in the class and most of the people in the class were clueless about judaism. Not that mind, i was kinda the opposite because i went to a private jewish (but NOT religious AT ALL) high school and i never had real non-jewish friends until college. I tried to do what all good jews do, poke fun at my jewish-ness by saying, "I know, its hard to tell sometimes i am a jew because my nose hasn't developed enough yet". But after thinking about it, i am sad i said that because iam afraid i sparked or refueled the sterotype. And i usually get mad at my jewish friends that say they have a jewish nose.
Anyhow, my latkes were ok, but i made like seven (i only needed to present three) cause i kept messing them up. I had an off day yesterday, i also burnt my onions for my risotto milanaise. O but we had to make a DELICOUS gazpacho soup thursday! (recipe will be posted at nutritious junk). It was a bit weird cause most of the time we spent on it was make the garnishes! i never had gazpacho with so much garnish. We had chopped tomatoes, red bell peppers, green peppers, cucumbers, smashed egg whites, smashed egg yolks (hard boiled, of course), and little cubes of pullman bread that we made into cute little croutons. It was so yummy and i am guessing very good for you. Probably the healthiest thing we've made thus far (besides roasted and balnched veggies). a good break from all the unhealthy clarified butter we've been cooking everything in. So by friday i was so burned out and it doesn't help i need to go to my sanitation class with that smart ass instructor (she hated me today for bringing my laptop! sorry, my handwriting is illegible). And finals are the week after this coming one so i am really headed to a burn out. o yea, and i burned my finger tip trying to grab a hot plate. I hate complaining and i am not really, i am just exhausted but in a good way i guess. At least i am leaving class feeling productive and i do enjoy it when i cook well and everything is orderly. anyhow, i'll post more fun posts about things i learned this week soon, hopefully that will be more stimulating to you lovely readers.

New Carpool and i double as an acting coach!

So this guy that works next to me at our "station" lives in Santa monica so my house is on the way and hence a good carpool opptunity. I could certainly use the extra gas money. he's cool, he saved my carbonara the other night and lets me borrow tools and stuff when i dont have one on hand. Dont think this is a romantic gettup, its not, hes really not my type, but seems like a cool pal. Anyhow its also nice to have some company on the way to school which can take up to two hours if traffic is really bad.
My other chef, chef French, can into class, and asked if he could talk to me outside. You can imagine my nerves. I was like,"o shit, did he find out i wasnt wearing my neckercheif!?" but no, his agency (cause hes about to release a cookbook) gave him a script for a mustard commericial and he knew i was into acting and wanted me to look over it with him and help him out. Phew! ok something i can handle! he has a thick accent as is, so i am pretty sure he nailed out, i hope he did, and i hope he shares the money with me! (unlikely, but who knows?). I made a lot of baked dishes yesterday, roasted chayote (i never had it before but its really good!), roaseted tomates, pommes duchess (which are like little piped mushed potatos that are baked and beautiful, but honestly are kinda off tasting), scalloped potatos, rice pilaf, and risotto with three cheese. I loath cheese not just the taste, but the smell makes me gag too. I felt like passing out as my pot reeked of my three chesse blend. I finished early but this means we'll have A LOT to do today. I also cut myself while packing up my knives so i hope i wont be too handicapped. Ugh..i also need to finish up my sanitation report on lysteriosis...fun times.

Resturant day!

The last class before finals is "resturant day" where our class is divided into five groups of five and we all cook a three course meal for another group. We were randomly assigned groups and i ended up i a group full of guys with on of the guys i probably get most irritated from in the entire class. What should i call him???hmmm....his name (first and last) is SO common so I'll just call him by another common name, george. George is those nerds that aren't cool. i love nerds, at least i usually grow to love them, but no, George is an uncool nerd, making you feel stupid by always inserting his "words if wisdom" when sometimes he's completely wrong. He's annoyingly always prepared for class with all the latest high tech gadgets. He also wanted to be the dictator of the group by deciding on what the menu should be, but actually, I was elected to be "manager" by another member so i guess its my ultimate decision making. I dont know why he elected me, maybe cause i was the only girl. Anyhow, i need some ideas for this meal. I thought for an appetizer we'd make thin crusted gourmet pizza with sage or rosemary or figs and goat cheese or something fancy shamncy like that. The boys (or should i say, George) wanted this roulade of beef. i'll give them that, but i would have prefered something with seafood like Paella. anyhow i am stumped on dessert. we need to make it in two hours so nothing like cheesecake or tiramisu that needs at least a day of chilling. Also, we need to make everything so stuff like ice cream and canned whiped cream is out. I was thinking chocolate mousse but word of mouth is that everyone else is doing that. so any ideas????

Sanitation and my midterm!

so a couple of things went down recently. I had my first "real" santiation class (because i missed the first week, and last week the teacher was sick and the sub ditched!). It sucks to go to school on a saturday at 8 am! thanks god my teacher is a little crazy in that half the class she let us go to the other labs (which in culinary school is where most of the hands on cooking classes take place but are basically large commericial kitchens to the normal people looking in)where they set up an omlette bar. she freaks me out a bit, shes blantly mean but she tries to be funny about it so shes a bit confusing. she talks super fast too. Well its only once a week and its over in three weeks so i should manage. I got my midterm grade. Chef Woodstock (who i know i said has a stick up his ass but i am begining to appreciate it because he genuinely makes me want to improve)said i have a 91 in the class but that i could probably improve and get a solid A which would only require me getting a 93 or higher. It depends a lot on the final which i think is nov 9th so i'll just have to study real hard. I am beginning to get a little more friendly with my class mates. those that work near my station already have a few jokes with me and we share all our secrets when we nail a dish. Anyhow, i do hope people are reading this, i know this has not displayed as much color and fun as nutrious junk, but i hope people are still reading this. I'll write more tomorrow because its my only day off the whole week!

Mmmm and eggs over easy are really hard!

Mmmmm for that lovely dinner we had at our school bistro! it was wonderful! It was merely a tasting menu but it was bursting with flavor. First course was mussels and clams steamed in a white wine reduction with saffron foam. Main course was a filet minon with a mushroom demi-glace with arugula and risotto cocquet (which is bascially a little ball of risotto. The dessert was where i was a little unhappy about, combining two things i dont like very much, it was pumpkin cheesecake. A beautiful presentation, but ehh, still pumpkin cheesecake.
Today though i had to make a few soups like clam chowder and consumme (both i got A's on!) but i also had to make eggs over easy. I must have gone through seven eggs! i still dont think i have it down. it was so freaky trying to flip the pan. Everytime, i asked Wanda (yes as i mentioned earlier, not her real name but reminds me of Wanda Sykes) to hold my hand. It was like jumping into a pool cause the flipping is so fast. anyhow, it'll be on my final so i really need to pratice!

Manic Mondays!

yea, although i haven't really loathed mondays since high school, i really dont like them now. Basically every monday, and last night, we just have a looooong lecture and demos for most of the dishes we'll be preparing this week. So we had a demo for espagnole sauce, clam chowder, cream of tomato soup, roseti potatoes (yes, thats not a typo, its a swiss dish aparently, pommes anna, and some egg dishes. Yes we had a long lecture about eggs. I now know what the different egg grades mean and the different components of the egg (yes, it more than the mere yolk and white). What was sort of funny was that we got a list of egg sizes and it included: jumbo, extra large, large, medium, small, and get this, pee wee! yes mini eggs are apparently called pee wees! any how, yesterday was basically all talk so we weren't actually cooking. today should be better, i'll be making all the dishes we saw in demo and before our whole class actually gets to go the school "bistro" where the almost graduates serve the public but one day a quarter each class gets to eat there so the chefs at the resturant handel a simulated "high volume" situation. I'll tell you all about it, it should be yummy!

Tricks of the Trade!

This week I learned about all these little cooking, presentation, and preparation methods high end resturants use and thought I'd share a few of them. some a are not suprising, others a little disturbing...

-Notice how the more high end the resturant, the smaller you dish is, regardless if its an appetizer, entree, dessert, whatever. Of course big chains give you those massive more bang for your buck portions, but the high end ones give you fairly small portions not because they use better ingredients and thus costing more (that couls be, but thats not why), its because they dont want you to be full to quickly, they want you to stay there and order more and stay longer and longer. Our chef was demonstrating a soup and pour a single ladel into a big soup bowl and said to us not to fill above the rim. He explained that you want to keep your customers as long as possible cause that way, they'll keep ordering more things.

-That sauce, yea, its basically butter, flour , and somesort of seasoning agent, so if your watching you figure or cholestorol, be aware. Most sauces are based on a roux which is equal parts butter and flour. other sauces may be even more unhealthy and contain clarified butter which is 95% butterfat with the milk solids and water evaporatied out of it. You dish shouldn't need that much sauce anyhow because it may overpower.

- If you dont like something, say your allergic. Our chefs told us that they take allergies in resturants VERY seriously cause they could get sued. and sometimes, the inflated egos of big time chefs dont want to alter their dishes simply because someone doesn't like parsely or whatever you dislike. but allergies are a differnt story and they're not going to demand a medical record so just mention this when you order.

- If your vegetarian, ask if your soup is make contians chicken stock. Many resturants have healthy, veggie soups, but they may be made with chicken stock so just ask.

-If your vegan, ask if the pasta is made with egg yolks. i made pasta every day last week and they all had egg yolks.

-be wary that before serving soups, chefs like to up the butter ante in a process called "Monte au beurre" which translates to "mounting the butter". What they do it add soft, room temperature butter right before service. a sneaky way so make it creamier.

this week's wrap up: soups, sauces, and pasta!

I once agian appologize for not updating this week. Anyhows, i thought i'd give you an update of this whole week, cause boy did A LOT happen! Lets start with the chef instuctors. Chef Woodstock still has a stick up is...ahem....but i am kind of appreciating it now. He's hard on me, but it makes me want to do better, to outsmart him and to be honest, i think he likes me because i talk to him during break about stuff that he does in his life(always get to know your teachers on a more personal, one on one level. college taught me that at least!) like this buddhist retreat he did where he only ate vegan food at this remote place in Carmel for a month. He's also given me a good credit on most of my dishes. Which brings me to the dishes....monday is usually a lecture/demo day so no actual cooking. We learned about soups and sauces this week and man, i had no idea they can be that complex! With that, we had to make a number of soups this week like potato parmentier (the french name for potato leek soup), carrot ginger puree soup, spicy black bean, and vichysoisse (which is nothing more than potato leek soup chilled!). I usually am in love with potato leek, but i actually preferred my spicy black bean! It had only like four ingredients and it was SO simple to make, i am suprised i never thought of it before! sauces were a bit strange. we did the classics like roux (butter/flour mixtures) based sauces like bechemel, veloute (basically like gravy), and hollandaise (yuck!) as well as carbonara pasta and prima vera. We made out own pastas which sounds cool but i hated it, he had these terrible pasta crankers that were falling apart on us so it took me forever. All i wanted to do was get a box of barilla and be done with it! Can i just say that i HATE holladaise! the taste, and even more the process! first of all it's concentrated cholestorol with egg yolks, a bit of water and lemon juice, and most importantly clarified butter. for those who dont know, clarified butter is butter heated just enough that most of the water evaporates, it like fattier butter. We made batches of the clarified butter the day before and combined it into this huge plastic tub. I sat next to sit, inhaled the fattiness, and thought, "By god, this is like an atkins dream and susan powder nightmare!". Anyhow, back to the holladnaise, you need to wisk the clarified butter into the egg yold mixture gradually over a towel with heated steam water in a pot underneath. But you have to wisk FAST or else the butter wont combine. Its about 8 min of constant wisking. yes, my arm is sore. Not to mention, i think it tastes awful.
As far as the other students, i am slowly getting a better feel of who they are. some are very naive and litterally just fresh out of high school. and then theres those who blow me a away like this girl, i'll call wanda (cause she reminds me of wanda sykes) who has a full time job, a two year old, AND does this culinary school. There are a few people who keep very quiet and i try to exchange a word or two from time to time to spark converstation, but i think they mostly want me to leave them alone. Its sorta funny because some aspects of the social scene are very high school. there are those few that actually do the reading, you know, the types that get 100 on all the quizes and make you feel a little lazy. there are the social butterflies that cant keep their mouth shut and need to talk about something or someone all the time. the nerds who interject to say what they want to correct you when you were really doing it right all the time (its just this one guy in particular). I was never in any "group" in high school, so i am not sure where i fall here, but i am doing alright i guess. anyhows, more culinary school gossip to come...

More posts to come, just very busy this week!

I apologize greatly for not updating this week, i ve been hella busy with other stuff on top of school but i promise to be post more often so continue checking. I have loads to gab about!

Ratatouille and another year older

I was glad that my last class before my birthday went well. Last night (i dont know if you've noticed but since my classes run from 6pm to 11pm, i write about what i did the day after..) we needed to make rice pilaf (again, but this is the last time we'd get to do it before the final in the beginning of november), risotto, and a ratatouille (which we also had a demo for as well). Having two bad attempts at this rice pilaf, i wanted to get it perfect this time, so i made it first. My risotto wasn't as good as yesterdays. when i presented it to chef Woodstock, he asked me to put it back in the pot and make it creamier (ie, add more broth). When it did come out he explained it was slightly overdone (because i re-heated it) but that it was at the right consistency. However i totally aced my rice pilaf with one tiny exception. NOT SALTY ENOUGH! ok, i know he likes things salty, but geez i might ass well give him salt with a little rice mixed in. He said, "Its cooked perfectly and i'd probably give you something in the "A" range if this were on the final, but not a 100 because its not salty enough." GRRR! so to help me adjust my salt levels he made me try the rice pilaf over and over again, salting it over each time so realize how salty i am getting it. Personally it salted enough initially, but i'll need to know what "just right" is for someone who likes things salty. Anyhow, i am sick of rice pilaf. Ratatouille is a fairly simple dish which i am suprised is not more popular because its vegetarian/vegan friendly. Anyhow, it involved a lot of pan flipping for veggie sauteing because the chef told us to use the as little tools as possibles. And these are commercial kitchen pans so they are HEAVY. I really need to continue my arm strength training which ive put on hold since ive been really bust with school. But he even explained to us we need to condition our arms because we'll imoprove our pan flipping and knife skills. For the ratatouille, I needed to saute all the veggies separately and them braise them again all together. Once i finished, my product looked a bit to greasy so tried to blot some of the excess oil out before presenting it to the Chef. When i did present it, chef woodstock said, "not bad, your cuts are uniform (a crucial component to ensure even cooking), your veggied are cooked just right, pretty good, just make your chiffonade of basil (which was the final garnish we needed to add) a little more fine." Phew! i was sure i'd char all my veggies cause i am actually known to doing that at home. but i was so happy he though it was good becuase i saw him be very critical of others. Besides the cooking, i am beging to get to know the other students more. its a big mix. I am probably one of the few caucasians there. I'd say there's a good girl/boy ratio, i am really not certain about the ages though. I know a good chunkfull are fresh out of high school, but some have kids and theres a woman older than my dad. Its a rather strange concept, having some students older than the teacher. I am actually tolerating Chef Woodstock, i know he's a hard ass, but honestly he's making me want to do better so he might be good afterall. Chef French is cool, he talks to me in French a lot and calls my Isabelle or Brigette (because he knows i am an actress and so he calls me after French actresses i told him i like). I actually think he may just have a hard time pronouncing my real name (for those of you who do know my real name, i am sure it took you a little while getting used to saying it). But he's cool. He's actually written a cookbook coming out next year. The production class next door (i believe its the class you take before you graduate) brough us their left over shrimp, fried chicken, bagette, and scalloped potatoes. I had some rice already but i was stilll hungry so the class and I noshed on it. The bagette was exquiste! better than most bakeries!I brought some home to give to my dad since hes belgian and the real bagette aficionado. He loved it wans it was a great tool for soaking up the left-over shrimp juices left in the pan. I then realized why the othe classes were being so generous, when they gave us pans full of food, it meant WE needed to handle the clean up. ahh no good deed goes unpunished. oh well, i was willing to do a little extra cleaning in exhange for good food (although the fried chicken was mostly breading and grease and i loath scalloped potatos, but the rest was really delicious). well, its my birthday today which i really want to relax but i have in the back of my mind all this homework i need to get done...well i'll try to forget it for now.

Rockin Risotto!

After almost crying when i left class yesterday (let out half an hour late mind you!), it was great to actually have a good day today. We had to make pilaf and rissotto, as well as blanched spinach and broccoli. After about a hald our of practicing knife cuts (cause there are many! and mine although may look fine to the normal person, are not unifom or cemitrtical so i need to practice), we started working on our dishes. This time, ! ONLY focused on 1 dish at a time. I collected all my ingredients so they'd be ready to go (like you see on cooking shows) and all my tools handy. Risotto cant be made in a hurry, so i started that one first. I babysat that for about 45 min checking it from time to time to see if it was ready. Ah success at last! after looking at the texture and consistency and then of course tasting, Chef Woodstock said, "its a but wine-y, but i'd say about an 'A'". HA! at last a successful dish! and not an easy one at that, many people screwed this one up. I brought a zip loc container to show it to my dad. I personally didn't like it cause we needed to add some cheese at the end and i loathe cheese. but before my addition of it i did think it was quite nice. my pilaf was way undercooked this time, and i new it. I admitted it to Chef Woodstock so he didn't hound me for it cause i also know what i did wrong (not enough time in the oven). I also started to get a warmer sense of my fellow classmates. The guys are very respectful and helpful to us girls in the class. i really appreciated that, in college they all treated us like a piece of ass. We all look so unflattering in our uniform that its hard to tell cometimes the one's gender. Anyhow, today i think we are doing risotto agian and i think ratatouille (the dish, not the movie, although the movie rocked!). Lets hope today goes just as smoothly as yesterday....

On the menu: mushrooms, pilaf, spinach, and haricot vert

Finally we got to cooking, and man did i crumble. First of all, we work closely in a big commercial kitchen so the burners, ovens, pans, and pots are gigantic! i am small and although not weak (thanks body works classes!)it was difficuly for me to handle. We only had about an hour to saute spinach and mushrooms, make a chicken stock, blanch some haricot vert (green beans although they insist we call them by their frnch name), and make rice pilaf. Simple enough right? i mean, it looked so easy at the demo yesterday. Ahh, i was so naive. When your not used to the kitchen and where everything is and working side by side with someone, things can get hectic. I made a big mistake of trying to multitask, so i had the butter in the pan read for the spinach, and onions sweating in the pot for the rice, and the water almost boiling for my stock. But needed to prep my veggies get the salt and pepper, get the serving plates, etc....GAH! i was about to crack. and Chef Woodstock comes over to my station and yells "Your butter is burning!". O crap, already on to a bad start. I but the salted water on for the blanching and drop my gree beans in. the Chef Woodstock proceed to holler, "what are you doing"
"blanching" (i reply)
"but your water isn't up to a boil! you werent paying attention during demo"
(to my self) "Crap, and what the hell are you telling me i am not paying attention, i am just doing seven things at the same time and not used to the kitchen and....oh shit, i need to pearl my rice!". Well when all was done Chef Woodstock said my spinach was too greasy, my muushrooms not uniformly cut and therefore i am lazy, not salted enough (yea for you smoker maybe not, and i thought it was certainly enough to raise your blood pressure!), my rice under cooked, my onions not chopped fine enough, and my beans once again not salt enough!
I felt like crying but i felt some solace when others managed to turn their spinch into chips because they were on for too long. Well in about an hour i am off to school and today i am going to be prepared (or at least try)
i need to make risotto and blanched broccoli/spinach. I am goint to get all of my ingredients out before and have my recipe card on the side of my apron so i dont mess anything up, o yea, and ill salt it like crazy. Wish me luck!

Pressure Cooker!

I apologize for not reporting about my first day as soon as i came back, but since i started at 11:30 am and finished at 11:00pm i was tired, hungry, and too wipeed out to blog or really do anything besides shower, eat, and sleep. To be honest, i had a terrible first day. It began with my santiation class taught by a cheery Austrailian Chef. This is an academic class and fairly boring since all we do is learn about food safety, diseases, and such. Its in a class room so obviously, its not a cooking course at all. Then my actual cooking class began at 6:00pm and although taught in a kitchen, we haven't actually cooked anything yet. My class is taught be two chefs. I wont say their real names (incase they google themselves and find my ratting about them) so I'll call one Chef Woodstock (cause he told us he used to have a serious drug problem and was a Woodstock regular) and Chef France (hes a french/algerian chef with a VERY thick accent). Chef Woodstack certainly did a good job of scaring the crap out of me. He spent like an hour explaining how he doesn't tolerate sexual harassment. We were given lots of papers and handouts. There is so much work involved! we have to have a 3 inch binder with all our recipes in plastic holders (talk about expensive!) and TYPE all of our notes and re-write all the recipes on cards and put those in the notebook as well. We have lots of reading and math assignments, mostly about measuring things. For example, we had about an hour lecture of stock and to make stock it must be 100% water, 50% bones, and 10% mirepoix (which is celery, onions, and carrots). You have to be able to convert gallons into lbs, and then into cups, pint, teaspoons, etc...its rather mindblowing and i was never good at math. Anyhow, i came home the first day in tears. I felt so stressed and i dont want to be a wimp and on the first day!? i cant just give up but i am so afraid i will fail at this. There are so many things that i can do wrong, so many ways to mess this up. A single day missed puts a big damper on your grade, and more than two days, forget it, your gone. I know i wanted a serious program, but its stressing me out. The second day was a little better. We didnt cook, but we learned the knife cuts (Julienne, Battonet, Brunosie, parmenteir etc...) and we got a demo of rice pilaf, chicken stock, risotto, balnched spinach, green beans, and broccoli, and sauted mushrooms. This is an Intro of Culinary Arts class, so obviously the things we learn are very basic. We were all starving so we tated the demos. The sauted mushrooms were very simply made with some butter, olive oil, and salt, but i found they WAY to salty. Chef France made them and he's a smoker, and people who smoke have a hard time tasting salt, so this may have been why. Chef Woodstock made the pilaf which was slighly overdone (he admitted to it too) and the risotto was alright, but i am not a big cheese person and he added to it some at the end. Some of the students asked the chefs if they cook at home, and both said never. Actually, Chef Woodstock said that he loves McDonalds. Alright, i can a appreicate a good burger as well but McDonalds? seriously have you seen their burgers!? i prefer old fashion burger joints, hell even fat burger is a step up from McDonalds! the fries i admit are tempting, but good lord i hope his taste buds are more refined. Anyhow, i'll try to post daily but dont count on it cause i am SO stressed right now. It might calm down as i get the hang of how it works and learn to managae my time better. Today i think i actually get to cook, probably rice pilaf and some blanched veggies. I'll let you know how they turned out, i just hope the I wont wilt like the spinach by the end of the week for my birthday.