#111 - Continuing education (aka Toys, toys and more toys!)

Kitchen toys
Williams Sonoma opened their first store outside of the US.  Of course I had to check it out.  They have different things in the store, but the really great part is that they have my brand of cleaners which I was having a hard time finding (Murchinson Hume, if you're interested).  They have a cooking school with pretty stations so I had to check that out too.

Class - because you never stop learning...
Class was on a Sunday - a seasonal dinner party class.  I was hoping it would help with timing.  I'm not sure if the dishes we did would work for me, personally, since risotto always seems to be a bit tricky to serve correctly if you're doing more than 4 portions.  It was good for things like alternatives, variations and seasonal ingredients.  I have to say, the classes are a perfect way to sell their products, from kitchen equipment to ingredients.  They offer a 10% discount on anything you buy on the day of the class - an incentive that I believe a few people took advantage of during the break.

I got there just a little after class was supposed to start, but luckily they were still setting up for coffee / tea and the last station.  This is a sample of one of the stations.  People worked in groups of 2 but since there was an odd number of people, I got to work alone.  It all worked out really well because one of the girls was tiny so they swapped us around the stations after we made breakfast.

Breakfast
We worked at this station (above) for breakfast.  They had us make breakfast - an organic polentina which is like a more runny polenta-ish porridge but made of organic corn, served  with bananas and honey.  Gluten-free, since it's made with corn so definitely something to keep in mind for my gluten-free family members.  I'm not a huge fan of how sweet it is with the banana (my own food prejudices are alive and well) but it was pretty good.  Also another example of how you have to think about plating before you start spooning things on the plate.  The honey was really runny, but delicious.  It's the polentina which was a bit problematic - a bit too runny and loose to make a good quenelle.  The leftovers came home with me so tomorrow will be an experiment - frying the leftover polentina in a tiny bit of butter and brown sugar for breakfast.  I'll be skipping the bananas.

There were also some nutritional tips, so I felt like the time was well spent, in that respect.

Kale chips for snack (I was still waiting for the dinner party bit).  Not my favorite thing to eat ever, but a healthy snack and possibly an inspiration for variations.  I know it's supposed to be really good for you and apparently it's expensive to buy at the health food store so I'm happy to make my own at home if people want it.  Some were a little burned where the oven was uneven.  Smoked paprika, salt and olive oil - very simple. 


Lunch
Then "the real work" - risotto and fruit salad with a red wine vinaigrette, which might sound weird but the vinegar is hardly noticeable.  The teaching chef demonstrated the lamb shank (and made it - we didn't cook it, sadly enough).  It was a  straightforward pumpkin risotto and fruit salad for the last little while, then eating what we cooked.  It was a bit of a luxury not to have to weigh out ingredients, but it felt wrong somehow.  I think because I'm used to having to do all the prep as well, but our fruits and veggies were already washed and ready to go as well.  Leftovers are currently residing in my fridge, but slated for tonight's dinner.

The current courses are geared towards people who might not be used to cooking a couple of things at once.  I quite liked having the risotto to stir while I sliced the fruits for the salad (they caramelized the onions in bulk after everyone chopped their own) and I peeled a couple of grapes because there was time while cooking the risotto.  They like more butter to finish it (it makes it a little more creamy) but personally I like it a little less rich.  Especially since the lamb shank was still to come.  Love the lamb shanks with gremolata - the smell of the red wine in the sauce was mouth watering.  I have a feeling that it was part of the reason why store shoppers were coming to the doors and looking into the kitchen.

A great class for those who want to learn how to multi-task a bit more and the chefs said Williams Sonoma plans to add advanced classes so I'm interested to see what those might be like.

Until next time - happy cooking and eating!

#88 - Final practical class

Seen and heard
So I got asked if my duck was spam.  Um, no.  Although I can see from the photo how it might be mistaken for spam, seeing as how perfectly it was cooked, rested and sliced.  Well, I'm going to tell myself that instead of it being understandable because there's still fat under the skin.  Also seen, which was really disturbing:  leather hotpants with sheer pantyhose.  Really? I mean, c'mon, be considerate of people's eyes even if you are a fashion victim and don't care how you look!  Those shorts would have been short on my 4 year old niece.  And given the cold weather, I've seen far too many (super) short skirts and cankles.  You may wonder what cankles are - they are, apparently, when the leg fails to taper from the calf to the ankle and makes the abrupt transition from calf to ankle - hence the name.  I didn't use to notice them much until someone mentioned them the other day. Suddenly it seems I see an awful lot of them.  Or perhaps I'm just obsessed with legs since I started going to ballet again.


A confession
I've been having chocolate cravings, which is highly unusual.  If my parents read that last sentence, I'm sure they're going to wonder if they wandered onto the wrong blog.  Anyway - the danger of having food ingredients around and doing Patisserie is that you have - yes, you guessed it - chocolate!  The other night was disgusting enough when I ate the white chocolate straight out of the bowl, but tonight has been even more classy - eating my dark couverture chocolate chips by the handful.  Mind you, these are the ones we have to temper for truffles so I could always try to convince you it's all about quality control, but really, who are we fooling?


Sleeping in

Preparing for the last practical - and
having a Croque Cordon Bleu at the Cafe

The morning started perfectly.  I had already taken my written exam so after my alarm went off this morning, I went back to sleep instead of hitting snooze.  Or maybe I hit snooze once before I went back to sleep.  Whatever - the point is, I got to sleep until the luxurious time of 9am or so.  Then I finished printing out and making last little tweaks to the Cuisine portfolio.  I think it  due at 5pm and I had it printed out and ready to go at about noon - so energizing.  And then at some point my get up and go got up and went - without me.  If it hadn't been for the fact that I had to turn in the portfolio, there's a chance that I might not have gone to the practical, even though I hate missing class.  However...


Queue de lotte poele, encornets farci avec risotto avec langoustines et coriandre - Pan fried monkfish tail, squid stuffed with langoustine and coriander risotto)
Tonight was our last practical class.  Ever.   So off I toddled, clean uniform and portfolio in my bag, ready to take on the stupid monkfish.  I am not a fan of monkfish - the fish itself is nice - white, kind of firm, not fishy at all.  But skinning the thing - ugh - it has a layer of slimy skin that comes off easily but underneath it is a layer of silver skin that you also have to take off.  If you don't take it off, it either turns gray or makes the fish curl up.  Or both.  There's a way that you can kind of skin off the silver skin the way you take the skin off a fillet of fish, but it still leaves bits and pieces on.  Not to mention, if you accidentally cut through the silver skin on the fillet like I did on my first fillet, you have to do it the long and annoying way.


FYI, coriander and cilantro are the same thing, just different languages (I forget which is what).  We didn't have coriander so I ended up chopping up some dill for the risotto - it could probably have used a bit more dill but still tasted pretty good.

So it was supposed to be a fast and easy practical except the monkfish's silver skin was annoying me.  Then we had to brunoise some carrot, celery and onion.  Which is fine except I didn't think the celery through and I got a very nice, fine julienne which I then couldn't use for my brunoise - which I needed for my risotto.  Finally got a good risotto!  It was a little dry looking on the plate but apparently it tasted good and it was cooked the way chef wanted it.  A little too much flour on my monkfish and squid (I patted it off, I did!) but the sauce was good - langoustine-y, saffron-y and buttery (but my sauce split at the end because my plate was too hot).  I got a very encouraging comment - Chef JB told me to cook like this during the exam and I would be fine.


It was also a fun time because no one was taking it seriously.  There was a lot of laughing as we made fun of each other and some of the students who usually don't talk ended up participating as they channeled different chefs from the school.


After class...
My classmates and I went to the pub in the courtyard after class.  Knowing that I wasn't going home soon and that the food wouldn't be nice later, I gave it to one of the guys at the front desk.  By the time I got home, it was too late to buy groceries at Waitrose so I went to Tesco instead.  It's true what they say about not doing grocery shopping when you're hungry - I caught myself looking at things I normally wouldn't - Doritos and Pringles especially.  Managed to stifle those urges but I ended up buying a packet of mac 'n cheese, then some baby salad leaves, baby beetroots and tomatoes to make a salad with goat's cheese I had in the fridge.  Only thing is, I got home and remembered that I still had 2-minute ramen noodles in the cupboard which have to be eaten before I leave London.  Well 2-minute noodles aren't that nutritious and I really wanted some vegetables.  Luckily I had lugged home my knife kit so julienning some veggies took very little time.  I wanted some protein, so a scrambled egg later and having drained the noodles, I put everything together and got this.  I'm not sure if it's blasphemous to the cooking gods, if they exist, for me to put my skills  to fancying up instant noodles.  Whatever - it tasted good and I probably got my day's serving of vegetables in the dinner.


It's too soon after dinner but I am too sleepy to be able to stay up much longer.  Until next time, may you have unbroken and satisfying sleep.