Four times in a row now our school wins gold-silver in individual student culinary competitions; the latest came this past Saturday at the Art Institute as our students, Ann and Jerah, placed 1st & 2nd in the “For the Love of Fish: Culinary Voices for Sustainable Choices!” student competition.  And there’s a reason why our students have always done well.

Firstly, their instructor and coach, Chef Ian, who mentors them through the preparations (and who only coaches students that are completely committed to best).  This means hours after school and on weekends practicing, and practicing, and practicing.  Chef Ian is a stickler for details, especially when it comes to movements.  Everything is timed and choreographed to give the student the best opportunity to incorporate as many complex techniques in the given time.  In competition, and fine dining, that’s what cooking is all about.

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The French were the first to develop a precise language to describe cooking with specific nouns and action verbs. It explains why they cook at perhaps the highest level. And some of the lexicon is brilliant, such as “chemiser” (to give a shirt), to describe buttering and flouring a ramekin before adding the soufflé mixture. My favorite is “sol y laisse” (the fool leaves it), referring to that most tender nugget of meat between the chicken thigh and backbone, mentioned a few times in the movie Amelie, often left on behind. Of course we know the standard ones, such as “sauté”, “mirepoix”, “jus”, “mise en place”, “flambé”, etc..

There is one that gets confused. It’s come up in class and I’ve been noticing it on the airways. It’s the word “fonds” (pronounced “foe” + soft “n”). It literally means foundations, specifically referring to stocks. I’ve recently heard referred to as those brown bits stuck to the pan after searing or browning something in it. The correct term for those brown bits is “sucs” (pronounced “sue” + a quick “ks”), from the word “sucre” (sugar), and specifically referring to the caramelized sugars, charbohydrates, and/or proteins that stick to the pan, which are “deglazed” with wine or stock to form a “jus”.

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I have a confession to make. Throughout my high school days I’d pretend to be sick on American Thanksgiving, cuddle up and watch the football games, and soak in a tradition I so coveted but never experienced growing up in an Italian home. I liked the cosiness of it all, the warm feeling of a large roasted turkey at the table with gravy and all the fixins. Americans take their Thanksgiving tradition much more seriously than we do.

Whenever we do turkey dinner at home, which is twice a year, it is the tradition we look forward to. It is the only time we eat brussel sprouts, and we love them. Being a chef, my natural instinct is always to improve taste with more precise techniques. With turkey, I know that de-boning the whole bird will result in the juiciest, most tender meat, cut the cooking time by 4 fold, and give me bones to make fantastic gravy. I’ve done it, it worked extremely well, but my boys didn’t care for it. It was not traditional, and the feeling of the whole bird coming to the table was lost; supposedly, this cannot be compromised.

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It seems this “thinking outside of the box” is pushed so much that it’s come to the point where the box itself has shrunk to nothing. Whenever we give our students some freedoms to think outside the box, too often they go to a land of complete distortion. For example, we made panna cotta the other day. This is a dessert so typically Italian: it’s dead simple, cream/milk + vanilla + sugar + gelatin; it’s cream and vanilla jello, for goodness sake. But if made properly, with good vanilla properly infused in the hot cream, with the right proportion of sugar and gelatin, it’s sublime. But the temptation to put your own twist on things is so great these days, it’s so encouraged, that the box becomes an experience far worse than Pandora’s. So when the students were given some free reign to do what they wanted to their panna cotta we saw things like black sesame seeds, juniper berries, cardamom, balsamic vinegar (which split the mixture), coffee, rose water, and so on. I was livid, made it known how I felt, and will remind them till the end of the term that you can break the rules of the game ONLY once you’ve mastered them. Unfortunately, I see this happening in the industry whenever these hot new young chefs take hold of a menu and do everything outside the box to the point of completely obscuring the classics. It’s come to the point that if I see something so simple as panna cotta on a menu I’ll order that first and only after I have a positive experience with the chef’s ability to make jello-ed cream will I pay for his/her ability to cook the fish.

This thinking outside the box for the sake of thinking outside the box has got to stop. Here’s a better metaphor for developing cooks: expand the boundaries of your box so you can fill it with mastered techniques and understanding of how food works. The box is not just a container of spices and herbs and whimsical combination possibilities. You are not mixologists (boy, some of those concoctions are in line with the juniper-balsamic-black sesame seed panna cotta – are there any bartenders left?): the box contains your tools, your hands, your techniques, and wise decisions. Ask any mature, master chef how they like their food and the answer usually has the word “simple” in it.

So before your hand reaches for the saffron, cardamom, or star anise ask make sure it first knows how to use the salt and pepper properly.

Tony Minichiello, Cook (and still maturing) Instructor

Fact:  The quality of the stock determines the quality of the cook and the cooking. 

Fact:  Stock making is the first essential of every fine kitchen. 

Fact:  On a scale of 1-10, stocks’ importance are a 10!

Fact:   Students give their first stock all the attention it deserves.

Fact:   Most stocks made in the industry are garbage.

Fact:  Stocks are like relationships:  it’s downhill after the honeymoon

The best kitchens make the best stocks.  Period.   It is interesting how all students are in agreement on this logical opinion BEFORE they even make their first stock.  When they actually perform their first white chicken or brown veal stock, they give them all the care and love necessary to produce a clear, greaseless, full-flavoured brew.  But by their third, once they have moved to soups and especially sauces, that first love begins to wane.  Stocks are allowed to boil; skimming is at a minimum; lousy, dirty, uneven cut vegetables are “chucked” in; burnt as opposed to nicely browned bones and onions lend bitter flavours; their not cooled properly, strained well, or labelled.  In other words, the honeymoon with stocks is over as soon as something sexier comes along. It appears that Auguste Escoffier anticipated this, which is why no chef emphasized the necessary relationship a cook must develop with stocks more deliberately on the very first page, the very first line, of his Le Guide Culinaire:

“Notwithstanding the fact that it is the usual procedure, in culinary matters, to insist the importance of the part played by stock, I feel compelled to refer to it at the outset of this work, and to lay even further stress upon what has already been written on the subject”….

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Attention all pastry & baking buffs!

Chef Tim Muehlbauer will present the “next generation” of the Serious Foodie Pastry classes starting this January.  They will be monthly classes over two full Saturdays and held periodically throughout the year (I know he’s already got ideas brewing for February…).

January’s classes will cover Pies, Tarts & Laminated Doughs. You will learn to perfect these delectable treats:

• Peach & Raspberry Pie
• Pear & Sundried Fig Strudel
• French Apple Tart
• Sicilian Mascarpone Tart
• Puff Pastry Shapes (Pithivier, Bear Claw, Pinwheels…)
• Croissants (Chocolate, Almond)

times: Saturday January 19 & Saturday January 26, 9:00am – 3:00pm 

click below for all the details…

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Master Chef Patissier Claire Clark, Executive Pastry chef of The French Laundry, visited our school today and talked to our students while touring for her excellent new book, Indulge. Chef Claire proved to be a very passionate speaker, hit all the notes we as instructors emphasize – which every successful professional must live by. The obvious one that all chefs who visit and talk to our students mention is the “master the basics” speech. We, as instructors, are always harping on the basics, sometimes so emphatically that I swear I’ve nearly popped an eyeball on a few occasions. Though the students realize the importance of the basics, their foundation, they don’t really realize HOW essential they are, simply because they aren’t as sexy as the other stuff: the foam sauces, the brush-stroking and stylized plating techniques, the modern transformations with texture and heightened flavours. But Chef Clark particularly hit the “basics” note on the nail and into the core of every student. It was brilliant!

She talked about her interview with Chef Thomas Keller in the lobby of a hotel in London. Chef Keller’s first questions were straight-forward and simple: Can you make a puff pastry? Can you make a Chiboust? Can you make a crème patissiere? Can you make ice cream? Yes chef, yes chef, yes chef, yes chef were her answers. Yes, but can you make them really, really well? That’s what Chef Keller wanted to know about Chef Clark, can England’s best pastry chef do the basics, the fundamentals really, really well! I immediately observed the students’ reaction to this, and so did Chef Clark. This was a climax of her talk, the “master the basics” speech, through the words of Chef Keller (one of the world’s best chefs), with her potential position at The French Laundry hanging in the balance. Powerful indeed. She got them. It hit them between the eyes.

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