227 replies to this topic

[Jason Perlow]

There happens to be a public middle school across the street from the FCC campus, and that is where I teach FCC classes on Tuesday nights. It's a fairly standard middle school, which appears to have been built out in the late 1970s. I teach in a middle school Family and Consumer Sciences classroom. Here's what it looks like:

Wow. Now I know what happened to the guys who built the Romper Room sets!

[Jason Perlow]

When you guess on Thursday's class, remember that it's part of my 6-class "basics of cooking" series, not one of the one-off single-subject classes I teach on Tuesdays in Frederick. The contents of my shopping cart at Wal*Mart constitute most of what I need for tomorrow night.

Well, I am guessing it involves a mirepoix for basic chopping and knife skills and mise-en-place, combined with the tomatoes for some kind of sauce. The chicken and parts could be for basic stockmaking or you are going to show them how to make a correctly made roast chicken with lemons stuffed underneath the skin, in combination with the tomato sauce. Stawberries and whipping cream I am guessing some type of strawberries over schlag, or you are going to make strawberry shortcake with fresh whipped cream or some sort of souffle with the eggs.

[Kouign Aman]

chicken cacciatore and strawberry fool.

[Jason Perlow]

Yeah I was originally thinking chicken cacciatore as well. That would account for the mirepoix and tomatoes.

[helenjp]

Come on, you guys, you haven't seen a Japanese home economics classroom. THey look like the science labs...and they look like Frankenstein's B Lab. The wooden workbenches topped with wavy chrome sheets are bolted to the floor, and have been there since they were installed several decades ago. The square wooden stools have leg extensions and substitutions bolted on to them, and are all slightly different conformations of plywood and raw lumber. The floors are mostly lino-tiled, and the tiles that peel off the concrete floors are stacked neatly at one side of the classroom so people don't trip on them...I would love to be in a bright orange MacDonalds play area school kitchen every year preparing the school bazaar eats!

I agree with the "freeze in advance" advice for packed lunches! Also, if the low-carb thing is getting old, what about a lunch thermos? Straight from freezer to microwave to thermos - does that sound good? (Check the bento threads on the Japan Forum, google Zojirushi Mr. Bento Lunch Jar, or thermos lunch jar...).

[srhcb]

Around my household, we call this place Mall*Wart, and we refuse to give them a dime of our business.

And I have to agree on the Mall*Mart too.  We just refuse to shop there.  I'm happy to pay more elsewhere.

Could someone explain this to an ignorant European? Why do you all hate this store so much?

I don't know if you can get the cartoon tv show South Park in Europe, but their episode on Wal-Mart pretty much explains the "controversy".

SB (It offends everyone!)

[Malawry]

Man, what a great dinner. We just had some dry-rubbed ribs that I started mid-afternoon, and some hand-cut coleslaw alongside. For some strange reason, I am craving a Coca-Cola, but if I was going to indulge in one I certainly wouldn't do so at 7:30pm. (Not with my sleep issues!) Photos to come tomorrow, most likely.

I meant to get a bunch of stuff done in the kitchen this afternoon, but it didn't happen. Sometimes I feel lethargic and unmotivated. It was a beautiful day outside for once...weird to have temps in the 50s (F) when there's snow on the ground!

I spent an hour this afternoon wrestling with my car...I drive a 2005 Honda Element (the one that looks like a Soviet milk truck) and had yanked out the back seats months ago to make more room for schlepping catering supplies around. Well, my husband is taking the Element to Charleston, WV for a conference next week because he's carting some students along with him, so I figured I'd better get the seats back into the car. It took me over an hour, including a long phone call to the dealer, to figure out how to make it work, but I did get it done (and each of those seats weighs about 35 pounds--not light for a pregnant lady). Now my car appears to have a much smaller capacity, and it's gonna be weird to drive it tomorrow with backseats behind me, but the seats are probably there to stay now that Colin is on the way. I am hoping one of the gifts from this weekend's baby shower will be one of the 2 car seats we registered for, in which case I'll probably go ahead and get it installed at a fire department to be sure it's in there right. I don't know what I'll do for future catering gigs...I can pull out one seat rather than both back seats if needed, so I may try to make that work. Usually we have to do some engineering to make everything fit for a catering job to begin with, though! I don't even want to think about it right now.

I sold my old car, a 5-door VW Golf hatchback, to buy the Element late last summer. The Golf held an awful lot of stuff for such a little car, but it can't compare to the Element's haul capacity. How much stuff I can haul has a huge impact on what kind of job I can take. I didn't realize this until after I did my first big job (a 75-guest wedding), but even if I get to the point where I have enough catering business to start acquiring my own tableware for rent, there's no way I can haul tableware AND all the food, beverages and assorted equipment I already have to take on a job. If I lined up a really big wedding, I'd have to build in the cost of renting a trailer or even a truck to my estimates. In some ways I'm learning as I go along with the catering thing--I've not had a major or even a minor mishap at a job yet, but catering is a huge organizational and logistical puzzle more than it's a cooking challenge for somebody with my skill set. Fortunately, I enjoy tackling those types of problems. Double-fortunately, I don't have any gigs lined up right now, because I find my brain has a hard time wrapping around such problems at this point in my pregnancy.

Speaking of pregnancy brain issues...I have to tell you the Story of the Corned Beef. My mom has this terrific recipe for a sweet-sour corned beef. A few weeks ago, I picked up a raw corned beef from Costco to cook for our dinner. The package said the meat weighed 2.8lbs. Mom's recipe said to simmer the meat with some aromatics for 40min/lb. I could NOT figure out how long to simmer the meat for the longest time! I was resisting writing it down because I normally convert recipes and do time calculations in my head as second nature--I don't even have to think about it before proceeding, I just...do it. (I don't especially enjoy math, but I'm very good at simple arithmetic and normally just do it all in my head.) Finally I figured out that I needed to simmer the meat for about 112 minutes. Then I went to program the timer on my range and realized I couldn't figure out how to program 112 minutes...if you put in "112" that reads as 1 hour, 12 minutes. Finally I figured it all out and got everything going, but that was a humiliating experience for me overall. It really is true, your brain just goes on vacation when you're pregnant. At least mine has.

[Malawry]

I just had a little chocolate experiment with the leftover dark chocolates and the leftover ganache from last night's class. I chopped all the dark chocolates except the Hershey's and the Baker's and melted them down together. I rolled the ganache into truffle centers and then coated them with melted chocolate and rolled them in powdered sugar or cocoa powder. (I didn't feel like bothering with tempering the dark chocolate, so this way I didn't have to worry about the finish.) Then I dipped some cheesecake bites in chocolate with plans to freeze them--the result of that experiment was not so pretty because the cheesecake was crumbly and very hard to coat well. But it's just for family snacking, so it's not that important to me how it looks.

Photos of dinner and tonight's chocolate projects to follow tomorrow.

[helenjp]

our brain just goes on vacation when you're pregnant.

But there's built-in compensation! Unless you go round leaving hard evidence in foodblogs, your pregnancy brain-drain will *also* wipe all humiliating memories of pregnancy stupor from your post-pregnant memory!

[Malawry]

our brain just goes on vacation when you're pregnant.

But there's built-in compensation! Unless you go round leaving hard evidence in foodblogs, your pregnancy brain-drain will *also* wipe all humiliating memories of pregnancy stupor from your post-pregnant memory!

I guess it's too late, since I'm roped into staying here for a full week.

[Malawry]

No more guesses on what I'm teaching tomorrow night? I'm disappointed. Go back and look at my Wal*Mart shopping cart, it contains most of the ingredients I'll be working with tomorrow.

[Jason Perlow]

Well come on, were we even close?

[Malawry]

Jason, you got components of your guesses right.

I'll come fess up in the morning. Right now, I am heading for bed.

[kayswv]

Malawry

When we ran the Carriage Inn, we frequently bought supplies from Sams or Costco in Frederick but also from Frederick Produce Co, now FoodPRO 321 East 5th Street Frederick, MD 21701 800-368-2556. www.fpcfresh.com If you haven’t tried them, have a look. May be useful for your catering work.

Also, have you ever gone to MD Mid Atlantic Expo? Used to be at the Fairgrounds in Timonium, but when Googling it just now, the 2005 show was at Baltimore Convention Center. 2006 website not yet activated. You can preregister as a food professional and it’s worth a day of sampling and getting some preparation ideas. It’s usually held in September.

kayswv

[ruthcooks]

Wal*Mart has a history of setting up shop in a neighborhood or city and pricing their goods as low as possible to the point of driving out smaller businesses.  Given the choice between a store that sells artisanal cheese, for instance, and a Wal*Mart that offers a wide selection of cheese but at a lower quality control (and more importantly, cost), which do you think would people choose?

OK, time to counter the "New York" view with some Heartland reality. In the small town where my mother and sister live, I doubt that there are more than 5 people who even know what "artisanal cheese" is. No such cheese is available within a 45 minute drive.

On the other hand, their very small Wal-Mart has taken on the flavor of the community, such as the pharmacist doing home delivery of drugs when needed. It's function is almost like a community center where everyone meets. Some businesses failed when Wal-Mart came in, but they were in the nature of a dusty old shoe store which was only staying in business because the mortgage had been paid off on the rickety building.

A similar situation developed here (30 miles west of Philly) with grocery stores. The "local store" (5-6 miles miles away) was a Genuardi's when I moved here about 5 years ago. It was sold to Safeway. Then a new Giant opened about a half mile away with very low prices. Genuardi/Safeway is struggling. I like it because the store is so much smaller--fast in and out, easy on the arthritis--and the staff has little turnover.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to stay loyal, however, as their traffic is so low that produce is suffering. Their prices are totally unreasonable. They try to stock foods if you request them, but certain things become unavailable for no reason. This week, petite diced (canned) tomatoes and tuna in oil disappeared from the shelves, and I got soft (fresh) tomatoes, rotten potatoes and a bad eggplant. I'm about to cave in, but whatcha gonna do?

And I'm curious--isn't Costco a big box store?

[Pan]

Malawry, I'm curious what the approximate ratio of men vs. women is in your courses.

I hope you get a good sleep tonight.

[Genny]

OK, I'll try!
Roasted Whole Chicken: stuff with lemon and onion
Knife skills: Cutting miripoix for chicken thys, braised cacciatore
Strawberries with Whipped Cream (do people really not know how to turn on a freaking hand mixer???) and possibly biscuits for shortcake.
Hmmm, eggs. Just hard boiled eggs?

(eta: whoops, fragement thought...fixed it!)

Are you introducing fresh herbs?

Edited by Genny, 15 February 2006 - 11:02 PM.

[eJulia]

My guess:

Roast Chicken 101
Simple tomato sauce 101
Hard boiled eggs 101
Strawberry shortcake for dummies

But I hope your pantry has garlic, evoo, sugar, salt and if they're lucky, you bring some fresh herbs (basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme) to the party.

[Kouign Aman]

Good morning. I hope you had a restful sleepful night. They're darned precious.

another guess ...you're going to teach them how to deconstruct a chicken, but use the thighs for the actual cooking.

The eggs are a challenge. Frittata perhaps. I keep wanting to add baked goods, but from what I remember of the syllabus, thats at the end,if ever.
maybe you'll fry the chicken and use the eggs for battering or crumbing them.

dessert - lemon mousse wtih strawberry garnish

Please have mercy, tell us the real menu!

[SobaAddict70]

Wal*Mart has a history of setting up shop in a neighborhood or city and pricing their goods as low as possible to the point of driving out smaller businesses.  Given the choice between a store that sells artisanal cheese, for instance, and a Wal*Mart that offers a wide selection of cheese but at a lower quality control (and more importantly, cost), which do you think would people choose?

OK, time to counter the "New York" view with some Heartland reality. In the small town where my mother and sister live, I doubt that there are more than 5 people who even know what "artisanal cheese" is. No such cheese is available within a 45 minute drive.

On the other hand, their very small Wal-Mart has taken on the flavor of the community, such as the pharmacist doing home delivery of drugs when needed. It's function is almost like a community center where everyone meets. Some businesses failed when Wal-Mart came in, but they were in the nature of a dusty old shoe store which was only staying in business because the mortgage had been paid off on the rickety building.

A similar situation developed here (30 miles west of Philly) with grocery stores. The "local store" (5-6 miles miles away) was a Genuardi's when I moved here about 5 years ago. It was sold to Safeway. Then a new Giant opened about a half mile away with very low prices. Genuardi/Safeway is struggling. I like it because the store is so much smaller--fast in and out, easy on the arthritis--and the staff has little turnover.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to stay loyal, however, as their traffic is so low that produce is suffering. Their prices are totally unreasonable. They try to stock foods if you request them, but certain things become unavailable for no reason. This week, petite diced (canned) tomatoes and tuna in oil disappeared from the shelves, and I got soft (fresh) tomatoes, rotten potatoes and a bad eggplant. I'm about to cave in, but whatcha gonna do?

Correct. It is as Rochelle noted, a rather complex subject that's difficult to delve into without crossing certain boundaries on eGullet. I gave one viewpoint which tends to hold in some urban areas. Your view is equally valid.

And I'm curious--isn't Costco a big box store?

Not to derail Rochelle's blog -- but Costco is for the most part, open only to members and their guests, not the general public. There are other substantive differences. More information (not that Wikipedia is necessarily a good source but it'll suffice for now) can be found here.

[Malawry]

Good morning, all. I did sleep reasonably well last night for once, aided by two kitty-cats curled up on and beside me. (Plus a warm spouse always helps too!) We are owned by three cats in this house, but their dietary habits are fairly uninteresting...they are limited to Iams and filtered water, and the occasional human-grade tuna from a can when we're fixing some for ourselves. Sometimes we like to say that we're having a child to even up the cat-human ratio--it is a dangerous thing when the feline lobby outnumbers the human lobby in any situation, makes it very hard for the humans to retain alpha position.

Tonight's menu is much more simple than many of you were guessing. Chicken stock, tomato soup and a lemon tart. They are very into the desserts and specifically requested that I try to fit in a dessert for each class. I think stocks are essential as learning tools. I make my chicken stock like Fat Guy does, with a whole chicken plus some supplemental thighs (or backs or something, but Wal*Mart doesn't carry any interesting chicken parts...no feet either).

Stock takes several hours, and my class is only 2 hours long. So I'm gonna make one batch of stock this afternoon and take it to class to strain and reduce it, and we'll start a fresh batch while I'm there so everybody can see what stock looks like in the early phases and practice their knife skills on the mirepoix. I like to include a recipe that uses the stock, and tomato soup (finished with heavy cream) is a quick, easy and popular stock-based dish. (Though I usually make my tomato soup with vegetarian stock at home.)

The lemons, butter and egg are for that tart. I have flour and sugar and whatnot already on hand for adding to the mixtures. The strawberries will just be a garnish on the tart, along with a little whipped cream--I guess they threw a lot of you off!

I would have liked to have covered a braised dish tonight as well, but there's only so much one can fit into 2 hours of classwork--it's really not a lot of time! We may hold back the chicken thighs, a little mirepoix and a can of tomatoes and try to do braised chicken thighs if it looks like we have time.

[Malawry]

When we ran the Carriage Inn, we frequently bought supplies from Sams or Costco in Frederick but also from Frederick Produce Co, now FoodPRO 321 East 5th Street Frederick, MD 21701  800-368-2556. www.fpcfresh.com If you haven’t tried them, have a look.  May be useful for your catering work.

Also, have you ever gone to MD Mid Atlantic Expo? Used to be at the Fairgrounds in Timonium, but when Googling it just now, the 2005 show was at Baltimore Convention Center.  2006 website not yet activated. You can preregister as a food professional and it’s worth a day of sampling and getting some preparation ideas. It’s usually held in September.

kayswv

Thanks for the tips! I have gone to Sysco's trade shows in Baltimore, but not to the MD Mid-atlantic Expo. I'll definitely look into it.

I have also purchased a lot of equipment from Gilbert Restaurant Supply in Frederick.

[Lori in PA]

The big box store conflict gives me mixed feelings. I also live in a rural area. We don't even merit a Superwalmart, just a regular one! When the regular Walmart moved it, it did put some smaller stores out of business, but they were the ones with the lousy, lousy service. As far as food goes, one of the downtown buildings vacated by one of the above out-of-business stores has been replaced by a gourmet grocery and take-out. It's tiny, but it seems to be doing very well. Also, the Super Walmart 30 minutes away is my source for White Lily self-rising flour, so for that reason alone I'm thankful it's there.

[Malawry]

And I'm curious--isn't Costco a big box store?

This will be my last word on the whole Wal*Mart issue. Costco is a world apart from Wal*Mart in terms of how they treat their employees, and employee treatment is one of the top things that concern me when I decide where to spend my dollars. I am also very happy with their product line, their service and their low prices. But yes, Costco is a big box store--I am not opposed to every big box store out there, though I am more limited in my big-box shopping than most American consumers because I am very specific about where I spend my money.

I may be only about 85 miles from Washington, but this is definitely the rural edge of suburbia, and there are not a lot of small retailers in my neck of the woods. My life would be simplified greatly by shopping at Wal*Mart, and my checkout slips would definitely reflect lower prices there as well. I drive 30 minutes to Martinsburg to visit K-mart rather than going to Wal*Mart 3 miles down the road. I am willing to go to great lengths to speak with my dollars, and I feel fortunate that I'm in an economic position that I can make that choice. Lots of other people are mostly stuck. I don't judge people for their choices, but I do hope that people who are in a position to do so make specific choices rather than sticking with what's convenient or cheap. I think making specific choices about food shopping, in particular, has a big impact on what foods are available in any given market. Ruth, it sounds like you are making choices about where you shop, and I'm all in favor of that!

[Malawry]

Malawry, I'm curious what the approximate ratio of men vs. women is in your courses.

I hope you get a good sleep tonight.

In both Frederick and Jefferson County classes, I have about 20% men/80% women. In Frederick it varies by class. Men seem much more likely to come with a spouse, while women usually come alone. I've only taught one man who came alone so far.

Thanks, I did sleep fairly well last night. Who knows, though, there may be a nap in my future this afternoon!

[Malawry]

But I hope your pantry has garlic, evoo, sugar, salt and if they're lucky, you bring some fresh herbs (basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme) to the party.

I actually have all those things on hand. I even have some fresh herbs leftover from another class, including some thyme that I'll add to the stock and probably the soup as well. I bought parsley yesterday.

[Rachel Perlow]

I make my chicken stock like Fat Guy does, with a whole chicken plus some supplemental thighs (or backs or something, but Wal*Mart doesn't carry any interesting chicken parts...no feet either).

Stock takes several hours, and my class is only 2 hours long. So I'm gonna make one batch of stock this afternoon and take it to class to strain and reduce it, and we'll start a fresh batch while I'm there so everybody can see what stock looks like in the early phases and practice their knife skills on the mirepoix. I like to include a recipe that uses the stock, and tomato soup (finished with heavy cream) is a quick, easy and popular stock-based dish. (Though I usually make my tomato soup with vegetarian stock at home.)

I hope you also show them to pull the whole chicken out after about 45 minutes, carve out the breast meat and return the carcass to the pot. There are so many things to do with the simply poached breast meat, including just throwing some in, pulled, with additional mirepoix veggies, after the stock is finished, for a hearty chicken soup. You could do a simple tasting of the meat pulled from the stock early vs the meat that has given everything to the stock.

I sure wish my mom know about that, way back when. She served her chicken soup with meat that had all the flavor cooked out of it. And, with the carrots & celery that were nearly as mushy as the liquid of the broth itself.

[jackal10]

OK, time to counter the "New York" view with some Heartland reality.  In the small town where my mother and sister live, I doubt that there are more than 5 people who even know what "artisanal cheese" is.  No such cheese is available within a 45 minute drive.

Its curious that the romantic rural idyll is of small locally produced artisanal produce, including cheeses, breads, and the like. Yet in practice in most of small town USA (and most of the developed world) its the poor end of mass production, and the place to get "artisanal" goods are in expensive stores in big towns, manufactured by refugees from that life trying to live a dream that never really existed...

I guess it may be different in Amish and other special areas.

[Malawry]

I hope you also show them to pull the whole chicken out after about 45 minutes, carve out the breast meat and return the carcass to the pot.

Yes, Rachel, as I said above, I use the Fat-Guy method for chicken stock--complete with yanking out the chicken when it is cooked and stripping off the meat. Otherwise, IMO there's no real reason to use whole chickens.

For those of you who want more detail on this method, check out the eGCI Stocks and Sauces class.

[Pan]

[...]I may be only about 85 miles from Washington, but this is definitely the rural edge of suburbia[...]

Are there people who actually commute to Washington daily from that distance? And are there more than a couple of people in the area where you're now living who go to DC more than once every couple of months for a special dinner or to stock up on hard-to-find specialty items?