The bootcamp was described as follows “The prerequisite for every skilled at-home chef, Basic Training Boot Camp gives you the hands-on foundation of knowledge and skill to take you to a higher level of cooking. In this course, you’ll develop a command of classic culinary methods and techniques, including mise en place, station organization, knife skills, soup and stock production, and sauce making. You will also learn and use a variety of dry- and moist-heat cooking methods such as roasting, grilling, sautéing, pan-frying, stir-frying, braising, poaching, and steaming.”
The Culinary Institute (CIA) has three campus locations: Hyde Park (New York), Napa and San Antonio. As much as I would like to visit the New York Campus, flying into NYC in January is dicey at best. Napa was closed when we booked this trip because of the fires. I think they are back open now. I told my good friend Barbara Hunter about my trip and she wanted to come, so here we are in San Antonio.
Today was pretty long and tiring. We had to be there at 6:30 AM! Yes, there evidently are two six thirties every day. Normally class starts at 7:00. We got out of class at about 2:30.
We started by changing into our chef togs. Tomorrow, perhaps I will get someone to take a photo of me in my togs. I had to roll up the pants about 3 times. Our instructor, pictured below, is Chef Pham. She is funny and personable and overall cute as a bug. Did I say patient? She in in the same outfit we each have, including the hat. The only difference, which you cannot see is that we have checked pants and she has solid pants.
We started with a couple of hours of classroom and then spent about three hours chopping everything in sight. Today centered on knife skills. I didn't start really well. I stabbed myself with the pencil in my purse which was just the way I like it, extra sharp. I drew first blood but lucky no one saw the base of my thumb. It was my only injury. I guess I can not always be trusted with sharp instruments. We chopped everything that wasn't nailed down...mangoes, kiwis, apples, carrots celery, potatoes, etc. It was pretty fun. I learned to make tiny dice 1/8 inch, called brunoise, that actually looked pretty good. We also learned some fancy cuts such as oblique.
The chef then showed us how to salt scrub a chicken and the proper way to cut up a whole chicken. I will be in charge of cutting up a chicken tomorrow. I have only cut up one chicken in my whole life. After many years as a vegetarian, my father poked fun of me because (after I started to eat meat) I bought chickens already cut up. Always one to take a challenge. I hacked away at a whole chicken (I am never going to kill one...it would be back to veggies) until there was not one recognizable piece. I would have been better to have just taken the axe to it. I thought it was the most disgusting thing I had ever done. Eeeeeugh. I swore that I would never cut up another one even if they were a hundred dollars apiece already cut. Well, eat my words because tomorrow, I will be cutting up a chicken.
Lunch was great. The real students (future chefs) at the CIA prepared our lunch and we had a very tender skirt steak(?) that was so well seasoned along with many tex-mex ingredients. We also had a large fruit salad from all the fruit we sliced and diced. Starting tomorrow, we will be eating what we prepare. Chef Pham said it would be like Chopped, each group of about four students would get a mystery box and we would use those ingredients. We prepare a dish for our chef, to be critiqued and a platter for each other group of students. Fun! Just incase you don't know what Chopped is...it is a cooking competition that I watch pretty regularly. I think it is on the food network.
So it is off to dinner and a glass of wine. I am sure I will be calling it an early day!
Bon Appetite!
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