gregwa

Thanks for all that info Bob. I've actually been looking to get a carbon knife for a little while now, and based on your recommendation, I ordered the Hiromoto HC 240mm Gyuto. It showed up today, and I gave it a quick run through on some veggies tonight, and after a quick test, seems to be a great knife. The knife did have some burs on the underside of the handle, but that's nothing that some fine sandpaper won't take care of. I've been using a 10" wide Wusthof chef's knife, and there is a huge difference between the two. The Hiromoto blade is much thinner overall, making slicing something like an onion almost effortless. As for the shipping from JCK, I ordered the knife on Saturday, and it showed up on the east coast Tuesday!

I just got a Mario Batali 6 qt dutch oven that is made by Copco and so far, it's been great. I didn't think that the self basting spikes would really do that much, but they actually do work fairly well. I've seen the pot on Amazon for $69 when they go on sale, so it might be something worth looking out for.

Yeah, I started the Pro Chef's program in September. So far the instructors have been great. I wasn't crazy about the baking side of the program, but it turned out to be ok for the first part, but once we ventured into cakes, it was a real struggle. Luckily that's all over with now. The only complaint that I have so far has been the last seminar of business management. The instructor was some lawyer, and he started teaching us law instead of menu planning, food costing and the likes. They couldn't find someone to take over the class, so we had to tough it out for 5 weeks. Hopefully the upcoming wine tasting classes will make us forget all about that. I have my seminar on Tuesdays, so I'll be in there this week. A couple of us usually go down the street to Spirit for a few brews sometime around 9. If you want to swing by after orientation, just shoot me a pm.

Congrats! I'm sure you'll love it. I'm just finishing up my first semester at CSCA, and so far it's been great. When I was at my orientation, there were a number of students who were in their 40's and even older in a few cases. What program are you in?