Christine | March 25, 2010
Nobody’s perfect, right? I certainly wasn’t during my soups and sauces kitchen practical exams last week. My Espagnole was too salty, my Hollandaise too short. My Veloute cup ran over and my time expired before I could finish my Brunois potato cuts.
It’s a good thing I am one of those bookish types and am [...]
Christine | March 23, 2010
I seemed to have misplaced something on the back burner as I struggled this week to dice my potatoes into tiny, precise cubes and yield French mother sauces to perfectly seasoned 32-ounce quantities in order to pass my practical exams. What’s gone stone cold is my ability to think creatively about random ingredients in the [...]
Christine | March 17, 2010
My mother-in-law was right. I’m guessing you don’t hear that phrase very often about mothers-in-law, in general, that is. Mine is frequently right, and I know she reads this blog so why rock the boat?
In one particular case about 15 years ago, she was, in hind sight I say this, right on the money. We [...]
Christine | March 16, 2010
We’ve used the same textbook for every kitchen class I’ve taken thus far. Pictured on the cover is a bowl of crystal clarified consommé garnished with perfectly diced veggies in green, red and yellow. I’ve been waiting for the day we’d make this the most ambitious of the classical broths, full of body that you’re [...]
Christine | March 10, 2010
Today I created a pan gravy that had very little to do with the pan I had cooked my roast in. That separation was technically the point of this morning’s kitchen exercise. Despite that fact, the gravy was still “bangin”, to quote one of the more hip members of my kitchen crew. Loosely translated that [...]
Christine | March 8, 2010
My two lives collided last weekend when Andy and the kids came to visit me in Pittsburgh. It was a complicated scenario that involved good friends keeping the kids in Carlisle for two days while Andy took a professional side trip to South Bend, Indiana. But we all managed to congregate in the same hotel [...]
Christine | March 4, 2010
Hollandaise sauce was on the menu for most of this week. For three days, each student in my class made the pale yellow emulsion of egg yolks, lemon juice and clarified butter that famously features prominently in Eggs Benedict and tops asparagus across the Western Hemisphere.
You can see why the chef might want to change [...]
