Join us on September 17^th for a taste of the season with Chef Ian Lai. Northwest Culinary Academy is generously donating their space for the workshop!

All proceeds go to The World in a Garden Urban Agriculture Project which educates community and youth on the environmental, social and cultural benefits of a just and local food system. You can find out more at www.theworldinagarden.com

When I witness brilliance, especially with food, I get quite excited.  On a very recent trip to Portland Oregon I stumbled upon brilliance walking past a street of food carts.  I’ve always been a fan of street food, and it’s about time the city of Vancouver allows more of it, but one food cart in Portland caught my attention and stopped me right in my tracks.  It was an Oatmeal cart called Bloop on Sw 3^rd Ave between Stark & Washington.

Now the brilliance.  Oats are probably the greatest, healthiest grain on the planet, especially if they are steel-cut or whole, not instant.  At our school, whoever show’s up first in the morning makes the oatmeal.  It’s been my breakfast ritual for the last 5 years and if President Obama were to ask me for advice about the health care issue I’d tell him to start a program were oatmeal becomes as American as apple pie (or potato chips, fries, Oreo cookies, burgers…you get the picture).  Many smart North Americans have caught on to the benefits of this Scottish ritual.  The owner of Bloop, Kat, should be given some sort of recognition for her contribution to her society, period.  Firstly, her oatmeal (comes in a variety of ways and fresh fruit toppings) is delicious.  It’s wholesome.  It’s also helping local workers start the day right, which usually means finishing the day right too (so good for productivity).  Without going any further here, I am convinced without a doubt that oatmeal =  good health + excellent productivity.  Oatmeal, yes oatmeal, is the answer to the health, obesity, economics, and general happiness of North Amercia.  Some of us already know this as an absolute fact!

Another brilliant part of Bloop.  My students always ask me what I’d be doing if I weren’t teaching, and I always list them some business ideas, some which I think, convincing myself perhaps, are brilliant.  I even carry a top 10 list of these ideas.  When I first saw Bloop, I stood there dumbfounded and said to myself, “Why didn’t I think of this?”  Well Bloop is now # 2 on my list (I share my ideas only with my students, and #1 only evolved this last term).  In a profession demanding 12 hours a day minimum for the most part, an oatmeal cart is low maintenance.  It’s open from 7am -10am!  My goodness, Kat not only does good for her society, but has a personal life too.

follow her blog at http://bloopoatmeal.blogspot.com/

Brilliant!!!

Colin Lynch, chef de cuisine of Menton in Boston, will be mentioned next term (and perhaps many terms after) when I discuss craftsmanship, becoming a cuisinier, a chef, a foodsmith.  I did not dine at Menton when I was in Boston just recently, I don’t know Colin Lynch’s food intimately (though rest assured I will when I return to Boston again one day), but I do know that he is a true foodsmith.  The proof?

This last Sunday I was taken to lunch by a very special friend at a diner called Sportello, right next door to Menton, both Barbara Lynch’s (no relation) new places and along with a few other gems around the city that showcase her focus, wit, brains, and gutsy business sense.  Menton, a very fine dining establishment, was obviously not open for lunch, but my friend has some clout in the Boston food scene so we walked in for a potential tour.  The service manager was very gracious to show us around. Beautiful dining room, but the kitchen, show me the kitchen!  Well, quite an impressive kitchen indeed.  One would think it was designed by Escoffier himself.  It even had a chef’s table in an adjacent room behind glass.  From this room we were given some details about Menton.  But something else impressed me that Sunday afternoon, around 2pm, something far more beautiful than their French ovens.  There was one lone cook inside the kitchen – it happened to be Chef Colin Lynch – sharpening his impressive collection of Japanese knives with a whetstone.  Did I mention it was Sunday, around 2pm?  How many cooks/chefs sharpen their knives on any given Sunday, around 2pm?  According to Alton Brown, none (referring to episode on sharpening knives, claiming even professionals don’t sharpen their own).  But a foodsmith would, and it was a most beautiful and reassuring sight to my eyes.

Some, when it comes to life in general, have called me of a pessimist.  But I’m an optimist when it comes to the next generations of cooks.  On a rainy Sunday August 22, around 2pm, 354 Congress Street in Boston, my optimism was confirmed.  Thank you Chef Colin.

Get ready this holiday season with a baking class designed to get you started and on your way to baking beautiful cookies and pastries to surprise your family and friends.

Menu has not been determined yet but if you know Chef Tim he always has great recipes and ideas to share.

Dates: Will be held two individual days (identical)
Saturday November 27
Saturday December 11

Times: 9am – 2pm

Cost: $98 + hst

Bring: chef’s knife, paring knife, pastry scraper, 2 tea towels, bib apron, closed toe/heel shoes, container to take home your goodies.

Register: Call 604.876.7653.  Payment is due at registration and can be made by phone with Visa or MasterCard.

Master the art of tempering chocolate.  In this 2-day series you will learn how to taste & work with chocolate.  Some of the techniques and items prepared will be:

- Pre-Crystalizing Chocolate (Tempering)
- Garnishing Techniques: Cigarettes, Curls…
- Ganache & fillings
- Chocolate Truffles
- Enrobed Chocolates
- Molded Chocolates

Date: November 13 & 14, 2010

Times: 9am to 2pm.

Cost: $280.00 + HST

Bring: Chef’s knife, paring knife, pastry scraper, 2 tea towels, silpat (1/2 sheet size), bib apron, closed toe/heel shoes & a container to take home your goodies!

Register: Call 604.876.7653.  Payment is due at registration and can be made by phone with VISA or MasterCard, or in person.

Join Chef Tim in this 2 day class on wholegrain and multigrain breads.  This class is designed for a modern approach to the fundamentals of making multi and whole grain breads.

Sample Recipes:
- Whole wheat pita bread
- Multigrain bread
- 7 whole grain & Seed bread
- Dark Rye

Develop flavour & texture through:
- Better understanding of ingredients
- Mixing Methods
- Making multi and whole grain breads easier and a more desirable choice

Date:  October 30 & 31, 2010

Time: 9am – 2pm

Cost: $260 + hst

Bring: Chef’s knife, paring knife, pastry scraper, 2 tea towels, bib apron, container for your goodies, closed toe/heel shoes

Register: Call 604.876.7653.  Payment is due at registration and can be made by phone with Visa or MasterCard over the phone.

There have been more than a few students I’ve taught with a nutrition background, whether classical or holistic.  They don’t teach nutrition students how to cook when they’re in nutrition school, and likewise most cooking schools do a superficial job teaching their cooking students about nutrition.  Furthermore, the food industry, from fast food to fine dining, focuses mainly on food to look and taste good and not necessarily be good for your health.

So should food first and foremost to be good for our health, and should it please our senses?  Why can’t it, and generally doesn’t, do both?  The old saying “never trust a skinny chef” seems odd because the counter means you shouldn’t trust your health to a fat chef.   When I look at the cooking techniques schools teach their students, they are translatable into any cuisine or style of cooking, even any attitude towards nutrition.  All culinary instructors will transmit their own style and cultural/ingredient affinities.  Some love their butter, are generous with salt and pepper, are liberal with their olive oil, can’t do without bacon and bacon drippings, rely on spices, are turned on by the hot flame and very loyal to their grill, salamander, deep-fryer, or a screaming hot pan; whereas some are very light-handed with fat, salt, spices, heat, and tend to manipulate and transform ingredients as little as possible.  In other words, some cooks are more devoted to technical transformation and manipulation of flavours and visual appeal on the plate, whereas some cooks are more devoted to consciously let choice ingredients do more of its thing and putting forth food that tries to achieve balance.  The former type of cook cares more about what happens in your mouth and what appeals to your eyes before eating the food;  the latter cares more about an overall experience, including what happens in your body after having eaten the food.  Another way of putting this, the former style of cooking is more about the chef and his/her artistry; the latter is more about the food and its bigger picture.  This begs the question “what is the role of the chef?”  Many are taking on the role as an educator for a public desperate for guidance, as the voice about our food system, influencing issues such as sustainability, supporting local farmers, seasonality, transparency.  Well done.   And it’s working.  As a whole we are flocking the farmer’s market for better and healthier ingredients.  So shouldn’t professional chefs be devoting more of their work to cooking healthier dishes with these better-for-you ingredients?  Perhaps this is the next “trend”.

This is why our attitude at our school towards nutrition is continually evolving.  Also, our students demand this.  By simply flashing the latest government nutrition guide to our students is not good enough – in fact, the guide itself needs a lot of work.  We will still teach our students the fundamentals, the classics such as a hollandaise/bearnaise sauce or a beurre blanc; but we will bring to their attention little details like finishing a risotto with cream and butter is a cop-out technique, adding unnecessary fat and calories to justify creaminess that should be achieved by reaching for a wooden spoon and not the fridge.  Our excitement and focus on grains and vegetarian cooking is as devoted to that of charcuterie.  In fact, we now purposely teach grain and vegetarian week AFTER charcuterie week so the students will appreciate well-balanced dishes that much more after a week of pork belly, confit, rillette, galantines, terrines, sausages, bacon, and duck fat.

When someone asks me “who are the talented budding stars in the class?” I’m really baffled.  It is a question too often asked, and it puts me in an uncomfortable, if not irritating situation.  It’s not that faces do not come to mind, but the question itself simply does not conjure in my mind a rational process by which I can make an objective decision.  Also, I’ve noticed that many schools and media use the words “star” and “talented” to draw our attention to the profession.

Let’s start with the “star” business.  The word too often means someone who successfully draws attention to their person, not necessarily their work.  A budding star can be someone who will legitimately one day deserve very close attention, but it can and often does mean someone who will know how to play the media, integrate with the flavour-of-the-month club, mimic the trends of the day to a tee, and smile perfectly for a camera.  The cooking world has mimicked Hollywood and sports so well it practically goes out of its way to shows itself as such on tv.

Now the word “talent” is a bit more dangerous in my estimation for it supposedly has this all or none aspect to it. Again, I’m not sure what aspects of my brain I’m supposed to draw from to make any conclusions about someone’s talent when it comes to cooking.  What am I supposed to be looking for?  Their artistic flair?  Please!  Athletes are scouted, rated and drafted according to their “raw talent”, their “raw skills”, such as how fast they can run, throw a ball, skate, shoot, or kick.  But even now, and more than ever, athletes are being assessed by how hard they work, their attitude, their desire to evolve to the next levels of success.

As a teacher I evaluate skills, and every skill in cooking requires development – mental, physical, and sensorial.  Some students develop quicker than others, often naturally so being more versed mentally, physically and experientially with the fundamentals of cooking; culinary development will always require putting in the necessary time.  Some will simply have to put in more time to catch up to the consistency and efficiency of others.  But one thing I know and know for sure from years of teaching is that the students who work the hardest during and after school, irrespective of their “talents” when they started the course, are the ones that are noticed for the long run in the industry, for they are the ones that persist, evolve, and do the necessary work to put excellent food on the plate.  It is their food, their personal evolution to become the best they can be, you notice.

Everyone can learn to cook.  Some get to a certain level with a lesser path of resistance, just as some athletes do.  But the best students I have ever taught are not those I noticed with having what is called “natural talent” or  “it”, but those simply with the most desire (unless that’s the “it” we’re referring to).  The quality of a cook depends more directly on the quantity of work put in.  That’s the “stuff” damn good cooks are made of.

I’m all about mind-set.  With food, cooking especially, the right mind-set is crucial simply because the wrong mind-set is discouraging, even detrimental to one’s health.  The mind-set we strive to inculcate in our professional students on day one is that of a craftsman, someone completely dedicated and devoted to continuously better his/her skills.  For the home cook, a similar type of mind-set is essential, especially since the average home cook struggles with the discipline of devoting the time to put one’s head down and just cook and try things even if they fail, and try again, take note, and make adjustments to get better.  The quick and easy is the cop-out mind-set.

So how does the average person commit to their kitchen, their knife, pots and pans, range, sink, cutting board, and tools?  There’s an instant rice commercial with this semi-dressed (or semi-nude) girl racing down the stairs to her microwaved rice dish and just as  quickly she scrambles back up the stairs.  What’s interesting about this add is the set:  the kitchen is absolutely beautiful with an island that can host at least a half dozen cooks.  Obviously the message is about time and convenience; the kitchen is a fashion accessory, almost superfluous.  The mind-set propagated here is one that convinces you that time is never on your side when it comes to food, your kitchen a place of toil and off-producing smells.  The ideal mind-set is one where you want to devote time when it comes to food, like one wants to devote time to a hobby, a craft, a passion, a métier, even an indulgence like on-line poker, tweeting, reading a book, yoga, or a sport.  The ideal mind-set treats the kitchen as a studio, a place of chemistry, physics, sculpting, art, experimenting, playing, and doing serious yet fruitful work.  Your kitchen as your studio is your place of ideas, thinking, developing skills and senses, developing instinct and confidence, deciphering food lore and culture, and creating your own repertoire, essentially writing your own cookbook.  Gadgets are now tools, plates are now canvasses, and the dining room is now a gallery – no, more like a classroom, a round table of post-production discussion, of learning.

Food is important.  It deserves a serious workplace.  It’s not the granite countertop, Wolf gas range, or Sub-Zero fridge that makes a kitchen a kitchen:  it’s the cook and cooking.

The profession of feeding others comes with many responsibilities.  My profession of teaching professional students how to feed others comes not only with responsibilities of action, but of thought and communication.  As I get older I feel a much greater weight of responsibility than ever, especially with everything I say and represent, and in fact it often overwhelms me, I catch myself saying too much, holding on to ideas that don’t best serve the student.  But I recognize that I at least do catch myself, reflect, and try to do something about it, a sign that I’m maturing as a teacher.

Responsibility is something we don’t, as a species, fess up to very well, and when it comes to food and health the average North American too often avoids personal responsibility with shameless excuses.  We are quick to blame the big, faceless food and pharmaceutical industries, government policy, our culture, media, advertising, the status quo, short-lived trends, our education system, our parents, even the dimension of time.  What we don’t do is take full responsibility for our bad eating habits we know full-well is jeopardizing our well-being.  For the individual to move towards a healthy food diet, one that is simple, natural, easy to perform and comprehend, and yours – yes your very own, not some doctor’s, some super-star chef’s, out of LA, or from the New York Times Best Selling List – YOU need to first take full responsibility for what you buy, cook, put on a plate, and put into your mouth. YOU need to take action, take your dull knife out of your drawer, sharpen it, learn to use it, and get started.  YOU need to learn how to cook those local, organic, seasonal farmer’s market vegetables.  Knowing now that eating more whole grains is a key to a healthy diet, YOU need to seek out more about whole grains, more about balanced foods, how to cook them, flavour them, and combine them.  YOU need to start depending, trusting, relying on YOU!  Put away those granola bars, the most shameful copout since the back-to-baby-food-replacement-meal-in-a-can.

What I see and hear are adults not willing to accept their lack of fundamental skills.  I see bad health choices and I hear lousy excuses.  Step up!  I’m glad my Foodie classes attract people who want to step up and take responsibility (I’ve designed it that way), otherwise I’d simply be doing a dog-and-pony show.  And I’m thrilled that Northwest Academy attracts the kind of people who are not sucked into this industry to simply become rock/superstar chefs, but are bright and responsible individuals who want to make a difference in other people’s lives.  It is the quality of my students, their desire to make a difference that makes me shoot out of bed in the morning and push myself to become better at my work.

Our problems with food need to be tackled with a sharp knife, not lame words.  In this case, the knife IS mightier than the pen.

Tony Minichiello

Culinary Instructor, NWCAV

Northwest Culinary Academy participated in the Michael Pollan event at the UBC Farm this weekend. Firstly, the Academy’s students who volunteered for the event, including those that helped with all the tedious mise en place over three days, proved again to be professional and great ambassadors of the school’s philosophy. They showed they cared and I’ve always said that caring cooks are the best people I know. Also, I had an opportunity to thank Michael Pollan personally for making my work as a culinary instructor more meaningful, for his writing has indeed instigated socio-political dialogue about our decisions as professional cooks. Such dialogue has now become reality in the Academy’s curriculum. A good thing.

Professor Pollan said two things in his speech I really admired. He admitted this (I paraphrase): The fact that we need a writer to point out the obvious, something we should already know, something most grandmothers and great-grandmothers know instinctively, says a lot about the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. I’m glad he said this because, to be honest, I never read his books from cover to cover for that very reason. I once picked up a copy of Omnivore’s Dilemma at Chapters and simply couldn’t get past its first seven climatic words: “Eat food.  Not too much. Mostly plants.” Don’t need a weatherman to tell me which way the wind blows, I thought. But food, like the weather these days, is a complex story and Michael Pollan comes in from fascinating and provocative directions. I will give it a more thorough read. Luckily I was given a copy by one of students that day at the event, which I had signed.

Mr. Pollan at one point of his brilliant outdoor lecture on Saturday suggested we submit any catch phrases, like his “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” As he pointed out, to differentiate foods into good and evil – the evil, synthesized, manipulated, corporate, convenient, packaged and brilliantly marketed foods versus the good, natural, organic, pastoral, and healthy (and also, by the way, brilliantly marketed) – will not solve our problems. Furthermore, it doesn’t get to the root of our problems. The root of our condition is simpler than we think. In my mind it’s all about cooking. We.ve chosen to cook less.  I believe this with every cell of my body, cells which I inherited from grandparents who understood this to be obvious. Those that can cook will have good reason to put real good as opposed to evil packaged processed foods in their supermarket buggies. Those that can cook will have good reason to go to the farmer’s market to pick out fresh local vegetables, or even plant their own garden. Those that can cook are in control, not being controlled. What we’ve had since WW II is a cooking fall-out. We need a more fundamental, more active slogan like: “Cook more.” The old adage “You are what you eat” is not accurate enough. “You are what you cook” is more accurate, for if you are not cooking, you are at the mercy of someone else’s food politics and ethics.

But I’d like to take this one step further. I’ll share a slogan I’ve been using for years when teaching both professional and amateur students, and which I believe is more action-packed, graphic, has an edge and great sound effects: “Cut more plants, less plastic”. This reduces the saying “You are what you Eat” to “You are what you CUT.” Yes, cut, because all plants, though very romantic when harvested in the fields, must be sliced and diced into small even pieces to cook well into something delicious. Onions, garlic, ginger, herbs, carrots, celery, parsnips, celery root (gnarly and all), and so on all start on the cutting board before they hit the pan, then the plate, and finally the table. We use the most beautiful and loving words to describe the table, but when it comes to the cutting board, the first step to move food from nature to the communal table, we face the inconvenient truth that this requires skill and a bit of time. Michael Pollan uses the action verb “EAT”. But I say to you “CUT.” There is no quick and easy solution here that is made simply with the brain. Sorry, your hands are the key. And if you’re cutting into plastic, tin, or paper rather than plants, in other words using scissors or a can opener more often than a knife, you’re most likely not gardening, not eating local foods, and putting easy-scan foods in your shopping cart (perhaps the cashiers are behind this convenience food conspiracy). If every citizen from an early age were taught how to use a knife to cut plants – which at the same time exposes them to plants – we’d solve many of our health and perhaps environmental issues. Talk is good, but the sound of honing a knife and cutting is music indeed.

By the way, by my calculation, the eight vegetables we used for the event were cut into over 40,000 pieces, cubed, so that as many people could enjoy as many of our appetizers (we served over 400 pieces) with as many different flavours.

Tony Minichiello

Culinary Instructor

Dishwashing, in my mind, is a profession.  I find the words “dishpig” and “dishpit” insulting.  Show me a chef that at one time dishwashed, did it well, and still gets his/her elbows in the sink, and I’ll show you a chef who takes good care of the house – the business, the budget, the food, and the people.  Even Fernand Point pointed demanded all his cooks treat the dishwasher with the same respect one naturally gives the chef.  I have worked for restaurant owners who protected their dishwasher above the chef.  In fact, it is very common for the (good) dishwasher to be the most senior employee of any fine kitchen.

At our Academy, we teach and enforce the skills and discipline of cleaning.  There are two types of students (or people, I figure):  those that respect the discipline of cleanliness as part of the art of cooking, and those that see it as a nuisance, would rather let it slide and be taken care of by others.  The latter, without exception (i figure), will eventually throw in the towel or one day be forced to do so.

Excellent cleaning skills requires excellent choreography, good hand skills, speed, hard workd, eyes and ears working at their highest efficiency, and respect.  In other words, the same skills and qualities to become an excellent cook.  A dishwasher is connected to the heart of a business like no other employee.  More than the head waiter, even the chef, the dishwasher can tell you what’s good to eat on the menu.  More than the owner, the front manager, or chef, the dishwasher can tell you which workers are worth their weight and which are not.  More than the owner, accountant, manager, or chef, the dishwasher can tell you from having to scrape all the physical evidence if the business if going down the tubes. 

I know many high profile chefs that when reading a resume will immediately give priority to ones that have dishwashing in their “work experience” list.  In fact, I can’t think of anything on a resume which should impress an employer more - of any field -than a stint at one time as a dishwasher. 

Tony Minichiello

Culinary Instructor (and cleans his own)