MissAmy
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Posts posted by MissAmy
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There was a guy who started out in my class, and ended up being suspended because he was constantly arguing with the chef instructors over various idiotically nit picky things. He made a HUGE point of informing us all that he worked at The Slanted Door in San Francisco, to the point that we doubted the veracity of this claim. In Protein class....
Protein class?
Is that really what they call it?Well, no. It was called CA102, and was the class where they started teaching how to cook all meats. I call it "protein class" for brevity.
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I have no idea why someone would take the class when they think they know more than me, but it happens all the time. And they don't know more. Heh.
ummmm...culinary school anyone?! i just loved how many classmates (and current students, and recent grads, etc.) thought they knew more than the chef instructors...isn't there a reason why you're paying $15K+ to the school?!
Yeah. I won't tell you how much my school cost, but it was a hell of a lot more than $15k, and we still had the same issues. There was a guy who started out in my class, and ended up being suspended because he was constantly arguing with the chef instructors over various idiotically nit picky things. He made a HUGE point of informing us all that he worked at The Slanted Door in San Francisco, to the point that we doubted the veracity of this claim. In Protein class, every other time chef said anything he would pipe up, "Well, Chef, at the Slanted Door we did it differently." or even worse, "That's not the way I was taught. I think you're wrong." Then on smoke breaks, my fellow students and I would be regaled with tall tales of what a bad ass he was, how he should be teaching the class, etc etc.
Chef (bless his little heart) finally lost it one day, kicked him out of class, and had his butt suspended. I don't think that guy ever came back, but I'm sure when asked about why he never finished culinary school, he makes up some sort of nonsense about knowing more than the chef instructors did, so what was the point of finishing.
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These days, anyone with a television thinks of themselves as completely incompetent about food, or "quite the foodie." They also watch these emaciated nutritionists on the television who give "healthy" suggestions about the dangers of eating anything. The class I'm teaching now can't tell the difference between sage and bay leaf, claim they have "no time" to cook brown rice or make stock, but nitpicked me every step of the way about using butter and salt.
One student, a professional woman (physician) who is really quite smart, told the class about a course she'd taken in Italian cooking from someone. She loved it because "the teacher gives fool-proof recipes. You can't mess 'em up; all you have to do is follow the directions." No one so much as blinked at this.
Where is that "gouging my eyes out" emoticon, anyway?
Wait a minute. They have "no time" for brown rice?? Then what are they doing in a cooking class in the first place? And the butter and salt issue: I'm assuming they eat out all the time, yes? Do they realize how much butter and salt go into restaurant food? And besides, you can always pull the, "Shut up. I'm your chef instructor. You are a lowly student. Shut up and pay attention and maybe you'll learn something" card like my chefs did. 
And in my opinion, the olny responce to a statement like "the teacher gives fool-proof recipes. You can't mess 'em up; all you have to do is follow the directions." is the withering thousand yard stare.
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I had a serious love for the plastic food when I lived in Japan. For one thing, it simplified ordering for me as I learned Japanese, and hense I felt more comfortable trying restaurants I normally would have balked at due to the language barrier. Once my knowledge Japanese language and food became more extensive, I used the plastic food to hunt out things I wanted to try.
And it IS truly remarkable how much the plastic food resembles the actual food you are served. Not at all like the food advertisment photographs here in the States that can rarely be relied on as an approximation of what you will actually be served.
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MissAmy, if something like this should happen again, write to me and I'll console you. I, too, am always 'losing it' and telling people what's on my mind . .and getting into trouble for it. It's interesting, however, how often someone will come up to me later and tell me they never would have had the courage to say what I said, but they're glad I did.
The woman's behavior was selfish, rude, and a whole lot of other things. She ruined the dessert course for everybody, deliberately, after being cautioned not to do so. Christmas dinner is special. If it's just Thursday night at Dick and Jane's, who cares; toss the tart and have an apple or a bowl of ice cream. But at Christmas, that's different. You may be in trouble with your aunt, but you performed a service to humankind. You may well have stopped her from trying a stupid stunt like that again.
Give me her phone number and I'll call her and bitch at her some more!
Do you have to tell her what kind of wine to bring? I'd be scared she'd show up with Strawberry Hill or Boones Farm. 
Hahaha! I'll keep that in mind for next time. And no, she's actually fairly decent about the wine - typically it's some sort of boring yet palatable Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio. She truly fancies her self as quite the foodie! A fact in which I find no end of amusement. She is actually a very nice person, and a rather accomplished therapist, but her relationship toward food hovers around the truly bizarre. She spends all this time and money shopping at places like Central Market and Whole Foods, only to ruin dishes in some sort of misguided attempt to make them "healthy." As if in order for something to be healthy it must taste like reconstituted saw dust. Last time I saw her, however, she had made a flourless chocolate cake (someone else gave her the recipe) and she somehow managed not to screw it up, so maybe she did learn her lesson about fooling around with baking and pastry with the tart. I just wish she hadn't had to learn it at my Christmas dinner.
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Oh god. For some reason, people who do this really, really irritate the bejeezus out of me. This woman who is a friend of my aunt's is notorious. This past Christmas, we hosted an elaborate and elegant dinner party for friends. We made almost everything, and when my aunt's friend suggested she bring dessert, we said, "Sure!" She even went so far as to ask us to suggest a recipe, which we did: my wonderful pear tart, that has a sweet, delicate crust, chocolate bottom, custard filling, and topped with fresh pears. We'd had problems with her bring bad "modified to be healthy" desserts to parties in the past, so we both instructed her, "Make this dish exactly the way it is written. Do not change ANYTHING. Please. And thank you."
Needless to say, what was brought wasn't even a close approximation of my tart. She had used whole wheat flour, omitted the sugar, and used Smart Balance instead of butter to make the crust: it turned out hard and dry and inedible. She used skim milk instead of a mix of whole and heavy cream for the custard: it never set up properly and was runny. She omited the sugar from the chocolate portion: it was bitter and chalky - I think she also used inferior chocolate. The only part done correctly was the pear, but by that point the dish was beyond repair.
I kind of lost it when I took a bite. I was pretty damned rude, actually, and got into trouble with my aunt later. I think my comments went along the lines of, "This is Christmas Dinner, and what part of follow the recipe exactly was misunderstood? I can understand wanting to be healthy, but if you had a problem with this dish, you should have said something. And furthermore, until you take a class in baker's formula it's probably a really bad idea to jack around with baking recipes."
If it had been any other occassion but Christmas I probably wouldn't have reacted so badly, and I do agree that I was wrong. But for God's sake! I can understand doing these kinds of experiments on your own, for your own self to eat, but bringing them to dinner with other people, esspecially when the person who gave you the recipe is right there is just beyond the pale. God that's rude. I do not ask this person to bring food anymore to anything. If she asks to bring something, we just tell her "Bring wine."
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I wish, I wish, I wish, I were there. Maybe if I click my black Mary Janes togther three times I'll magically be transported?
Any chance of getting any pics from anyone?
Not from the child who says he's my son. He forgot his camera and the girlfriend forgot to charge her battery. Man, the priorities of these kids these days.
BUT, he said Dylan was singing the blues (any surprises?) and was wonderful, he got to see a legend, and the kid is a musician...I'm proud. Well, at least he knows what to see in the 2 days he's there, and he gets that from mom. I'm trying to get him to go see the Doctor (John), but since he's following Dylan, I guess that's a given. God Bless New Orleans. I know at least 200 of my bucks are being spent there. I'll get the final total when I get the MasterCard bill! (the 200 was just beer money, hey! it's his birthday, and he's legal now)
You sound like such a cool mom (dad?)!
However. I feel that forggeting not only ONE but BOTH cameras is grounds for revocation of beer money!
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Hey, thanks, Mayhaw Man! I'll certainly be checking that out.
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I wish, I wish, I wish, I were there. Maybe if I click my black Mary Janes togther three times I'll magically be transported?
Any chance of getting any pics from anyone?
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It's one of those things that I just put out of my mind. However, working in one place, where the salmon BLT was the most popular thing on the menu really ruined any taste I ever had for salmon. The constant smell of it cooking just really grossed me out. I still can't even being to think about eating salmon.
I've also seen way too many filthy work stations to really trust any thing that comes out of restaurant kitchens. Why more chefs don't enforce cleanliness is really beyond me. I once saw a floundering fledgling breakfast cook's station literally covered in the slime of raw egg and almost tossed my cookies right there. No more eggs in restaurants for me. I mean, really, there's no reason at all for that sort of thing. Most of the time, though, I just put it out of my mind and when I go out enjoy a meal where someone else is doing the cooking for a change.
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Great pics, cchen. Thanks for sharing and allowing us to live vicariously.
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My grandmother grew beets in her garden, and we always ate the greens. She did hers in the typical Southern way, which is what I do. Just cook up some bacon lardons, when the fat is rendered, throw in a little onion and garlic and saute, add the greens, a little water, salt and peper, they're done when they're wilted. Serve with cornbread. Comfort food nirvana, I tell you!
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This Texan will tell you definitely go for wood/charcoal burning. Although they are harder to master, you will get the hang of it soon, and the flavor is infinitely better.
If you can, see if you can find someone in your area who custom builds them by hand. My father does, as a side hobby/business, and I can not tell you how much I love his grills. He makes them from old propane tanks set sideways, sautered onto a base, and he cuts out a door and builds a handle. He can add a fire box for smoking, you can specify size of smoke stack, and the grills come in all sizes, from ones that are so huge they have to be carted on a trailer, and can cook insane amounts of food like twenty briskets at a time, to small ones that can easily be fitted with wheels and moved around a backyard, and are more suited to burgers, steaks, and the occasional turkey. He is building me a medium sized one, with smoke box, and I should have it in a few weeks. I'm so excited! I'll try to post some pictures when mine is ready.
Custom might (actually it probably will) run you a lot more than your average Weber, but that's why it's custom. You can specify exactly, to the letter, what you want. And who can say no to a dual smoker/grill?
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THAT is a tough question! Oooh.. So, I guess the answer, "It depends on what kind of cake or pie," is not an option, correct?
In that case... I'll have to say cake. I'll NEVER turn down a peice of cake. However, I'm unlikely to turn down pie as well. But I still so dearly love a great peice of cake.
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Are they going to ban factory chickens? Non-kosher beef? Come on.
You can't claim to ban foie gras because it's inhumane and not go after other inhumane foods (no WAY am I getting into a debate over what's more or less inhumane than another, though) that are perceived to be less exclusive.
Reverse snobbery has been put into law. Or ordinance. Whatever.
Exactly. If they're going to do this, then they should also ban Tyson chicken, non-free range beef, and mass produced pork. Idiocy.
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I am highly sensitive to MSG. Living in China, this was a huge problem. I frequently lost entire days to migranes. We eventually got the restaurants we frequented to leave out the MSG in our food. It wasn't easy, though. I am also sensitive to red wine and almost all processed foods. Those frozen Weight Watcher and Lean Cuisine dinners, despite being disgusting, will have me take to the bed within thirty minutes. If I OD on chocolate, the same thing will happen. A peice or two won't kill me, but the time I ate and entire box of Godiva cheesecake truffles (oh my god it was the best thing ever) I paid for it dearly in the form of one of the worst migranes I have ever had.
People can talk all day long about the MSG thing being a myth, but for me it's not. I know what happens to my own body when I eat anything with MSG. I still eat Chinese food where I know they use MSG because some of it is so good. I just make sure to eat it late in the evening so I can go home and take some migrane pills and sleep it off.
As a child, MSG made me behave strangely as well. I would eat something with MSG in it and get just pure crazy. Then, I would suddenly come down with a headache from hell. Someone in the thread above mentioned MSG in Southern cooking. Yes. If you see a product called "Accent" in the store, that's what it is. My mother never could figure out why I had the same reaction to my Aunt Minnie Hazel's cooking as I did to Chinese food, until she realized that Aunt Minne put Accent in all her food.
Call me crazy if you want, but I know that I rarely get migranes if I stay away from MSG.
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Depending on the salad, and who I'm cooking for, I'll sometimes use a dash of honey in my vinaigrette. Honey is a natural emulsifier, so it helps the dressing hold together better, and it adds a nice deminsion of flavor.
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Cool blog! And Happy Birthday!
I was in Amsterdam briefly during the summer of 1996, and I can't wait to see more of the city through your blog. Will you be showing us Dutch pancakes, or is that too touristy? What about the museums and coffee houses?
This is so fun! I can't wait to see more.
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Hmm. I was always told it was because it looked unattractive to be sitting at the table with your elbows and arms all splayed out. Who knows? In all honesty, my mother probably didn't know either, and that's the reason she just made up.
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Well, I'll be jumped up and down. I just made a pork loin roast for tonight's dinner. It was pretty dang tasty.
I made little slits all over it that I stuffed with slivers of garlic, then rubbed the roast with cumin, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Let come up to room temp, then did a nice, deep sear for about ten minutes. Threw some white wine and chicken stock (about 1/2c each) into the pan, and finished the thing in the oven for about another 10 minutes.
It was juicy, tender, and had a really nice flavor. When the meat is resting, just heat the pan juices up, finish with a bit of butter, and you've got a pretty nice sauce.
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How does the retail section compare to Central Market's, e.g. charcuterie, pasta items?
Well, it's mainly imported from Italy, so while there it is much, MUCH smaller and the selection isn't nearly as large, you're more likely to find "ulitmate authentic" whatevers. I didn't get a good look at the charcuterie (they have the case situated right near the door and I'm neurotic about standing right in doorways - yeah I'm weird) but the pasta selection is all imported dried pastas. Honestly, I'm not sure if they brands they carry are the same as CM or not, but I did see a couple of things I don't remember seeing anywhere else. In fact, I'd really like to run a taste test on all these different pastas sometime, but that's neither here nor there.
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What was your family food culture when you were growing up?
Well, my parents divorced when I was but a wee little thing of three. When it was just my mom and I, our food was pretty simple, basic Southern American fare. Nothing fancy, nothing gourmet, and when I think back on it, I realize there was a shocking dirth of fresh vegetables. For years and years I thought I hated green beans, asparagus, and spinach, only come to realize that I actually love them - I'd just only been feed the canned versions, which are revolting. We ate a lot of casseroles involving the "cream of..." soups, which we would eat on for days, it just being the two of us. There was a lot of maccaroni and cheese out of the box and frozen dinners. It's not that my mother is a bad cook, she is actually fairly good, but for some reason there seemed to be a drought of good food during my early childhood years. I think the strain of being a single parent while working full time and going to college didn't leave much room for culinary exploration.
My maternal grandmother was an astounding cook. Everything was homemade, fresh. She always put together huge elaborate meals for the entire family, and many of them are still talked about today. We're not talking about serious gourmet or ethnic food here, just really good, basic Southern home cooking. The stuff I dream about today.
When my mother remarried, my stepfather got us into more ethnic cuisine. He'd lived in Japan and turned us on to all things Japanese. When his job moved us to China, the food culture in our family took on a whole new dimension. Suddenly, my mother was cooking everything from scratch, fresh. We started exploring world cuisines in through our travels. Things changed pretty drastically.
Was meal time important?
Yes. Once my mother married my stepfather, and my sister was born, meal times were almost sacrosanct. We all sat down together as a family, no TV was allowed although we did listen to music from time to time. Meals were large and rather a production.
Was cooking important?
Yes. She started playing around with recipes and different foods. Magically, everything got so much better.
What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table?
A harsh look and verbal punishment. Manners were emphasized, and we were expected to follow the basic rules at a relatively early age.
Who cooked in the family?
Mother. My stepfather could make the occasional tuna salad and call out for pizza, but that's about where his cooking expertise begins and ends.
Side note: My father is also quite a good cook in his own right. But, that's a different story I think since my family dynamics get kind of complicated. It's just easier to stick with the side of my family I lived full-time with. Realize as well, though, that my father and stepmother had a tremendous influence in my culinary education, but this post would turn into a novel if I went very far into that.
Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions?
Half and half. When we were still living in the States, restaurants were pretty much once in a while type deals. We got the odd burger or take out fried chicken here and there, but nice places were saved for birthdays and such.
When we moved away, things changed pretty drastically in that department, and we started eating out all the time. Mainly because we were travelling so much, and for a long time living out of hotels, and we had no other option. It was so much fun to me back then, because I was getting to try all sorts of strange and exotic things.
Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over?
NO. We were expected to behave like adults, with adults, and if we did not, we were sent away to our room.
When did you get that first sip of wine?
At a party my biological father threw when I was twelve or thirteen. It was also the first time I got drunk. It was like, I'd always been a drinker, I'd just never been given any alcohol.
Was there a pre-meal prayer?
If my mother was in one of her religious phases, yes. If not, no. Sometimes we'd say something as a joke like, "For all we eat for all we wear, AMEN! Dig in!"
Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)?
No, but there were something she made more than others.
How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life?
Bits and peices. I don't make anything with "cream of...." soups -shudder-, but my upbringing did instill in me a life long desire to learn about food and experience new foods any time I get the chance. I will literally JUMP at a chance to try something I've never tried before. I also got turned on to cooking by helping my mother in the kitchen.
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For me, Subway is one of those will-do-in-a-pinch kind of places, where I go when I can't find anything else. I mean, at least it's better than McDonald's. Back in college, the Subway near school offered a Sunday special that was TWO footlong subs for SIX DOLLARS. Three of us would go in there, fork over two dollars each and split the subs. I had a job once where I only had thirty minutes for lunch and the closest things near by were a Subway and a Taco Bell, so I ended up eating A LOT of Subway. The Mediterranean Chicken Sub isn't half bad. Grilled chicken, olives, cukes, tomatoes, lettuce, feta, and feta dressing. But would I choose to go there for dinner? Hells no.
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I have always secretly harbored a desire to be a cheerleader, can not leave the house without putting on makeup or being reasonably put-together, still have all prom dresses and bridesmaid dresses from years past, actually possess a 'hope chest' and can not even begin to think of eating any sort of green without some sort of pork product added (which apalls my vegetarian and Kosher friends).
Far be it from me to tell a Southern lady how to enjoy her collard greens. Damn Yankee presumption.
Now top those collards with some smoked turkey, however, and I just might have to buy a bouquet of flowers and pay a social visit.
I'm sure my daddy would be just thrilled if some Northerner showed up off the internet encouraging his baby girl to change her greens recipe!
When people change your recipe. . .
in Food Traditions & Culture
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I agree!