slkinsey

Oh? Well, you may be right. To be honest, I am only going on impressions I have gleaned from discussions here and elsewhere. Certainly you would know better than I. What would you say is more valued in the professional world: two years of cooking school or two years of professional experience with no cooking school? This is not a rhetorical question, I'm curious. Beans, what can I say? In my opinion, and the opinions of most people, the Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary is the reference standard for the English language. I make proper usage of English words (English being probably the most precise language on a word-for-word basis) something of a hobby, and I have observed that "patronizing" in particular is misused on a regular basis. It is not the case that condescension is inherrent in any situation in which one person interacts with another from a position of greater knowledge or authority, or where attitudes as to the relationship are formed based on that disparity. Regardless, I am going on what I have seen in the public record, and I can't say that I agree with your characterization. Understanding that a student sucks at piping is not patronizing, neither is drawing on one's teaching experience and offering fundamentally different criticism/instruction (including withholding certain criticism) to students with different goals and levels of expertise. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I am also entitled to say that I think you're wrong. We'll just leave it there.

I have never seen any of the flavored versions avaliable at retail here in NYC. In fact, I was only turned on to it by a guy at Columbus Circle Liquors who offered me a taste from their freezer. The vodka itself is almost comically underpriced. Something like $19 a bottle compared to $25 or so for many other brands that I don't think are as good. The flavored ones do sound interesting, though, don't they? OTOH, I wonder how hard it would be to make this sort of thing for myself. I'm not sure how I'd do almond, but tarragon sounds easy. I made some lemon verbena vodka last summer that was really interesting. And, for some reason, I have been thinking lately of what fresh bay leaf infused vodka would taste like...

I would say that your understanding is a misapprehension, if this is indeed what you have gleaned from the foregoing. I think people are saying a combination of two things with respect to amateurs: 1. the vast majority of people who are interested in learning about cooking do not have the endurance, dedication, motivation, commitment and willingness to go through a curriculum that would be useful to a prospective professional cook. The inevitable result of this is that any cooking school which depends on revenue from a significant percentage of amateurs would have to lower the level of the class if they wish to continue to attract and retain such amateurs. There are, of course, some small number of hardcore amateurs like Sandra, but no school is going to depend on revenue from such students because there aren't enough of them. 2. there is also some question as to whether many of the skills learned in a truly professional class are all that valuable to amateurs in the real world. For example, most of the equipment used in the professional kitchen is very different from anything that might be used in the home. Why learn to make 500 pounds of dough in a huge Hobart when you will be using a KitchenAid at home? Especially when there are things you might learn about making the 500 pounds that are not applicable to making two pounds at home? Similarly, as other people have pointed out, a big part of professional cooking is learning how to do a lot of food in a very short period of time. Is it more valuable for a home cook to learn how to bone out 50 chickens in an hour, or how to bone out one chicken really well in 10 minutes? To a certain extent, the whole amateur question seems somewhat secondary to the fact that cooking school educations do not seem to be particularly highly valued in the professional world, if what I have read from professionals in this and other forums is any indication. If anything, the programs need to be more rigorous, more geared towards the professional arena, and more focused on acquiring skills that will make their diploma valuable in the workplace. The schools need to do something that will make a prospective employer say, "so-and-so went to the Academy of Culinary Excellence... that means he/she can contribute something to my kitchen that I won't be able to get from someone else." Such a program might include things not strictly in the kitchen like teamwork, team building and leadership skills; understanding management; how to work with owners; how to calculate costs and price dishes; speaking Spanish; career skills for moving up the ladder; how to find a career in the business that works for you; etc. I can't imagine that any such work would be of interest to an amateur. This is the same reason why amateurs who go to "Pro Football Camp" aren't made to run until they vomit. A good cooking school, like a good music schoool, should also be one that helps make connections for the students and places them in top kitchens where they can continue to learn and develop their skills under people who are interested in developing their talent.

I took a wine class with Willie Gluckstern. Interesting fellow and very passionate about price/value ratio in his wine purchases. Thanks for the tip. I'll have to check out the wine shop next time I'm in New York! Nancy's is a cool place. Their whole philosophy is to sell undervalued wines that go great with food. This is one of the reasons riesling is so great. It is probably the greatest white wine grape there is (especially for food), and yet most people in America don't really know about it so you can almost always get a truly great bottle for around $10/bottle. Barbera is another great wine that Willie/Nancy's turned me on to.

Mmmmm... brats! Reminds me of the old college days. Especially good with some fresh cheese curds from Schultz' Cheese Haus on Highway 151. We always steeped our brats in significantly-below-simmering Blatz and onions for a while before throwing them on the grill. The beer bath definitely made a difference in both texture and flavor, although I am just as fond of brats cooked without this step. My fraternity (strangely about 50/50 music majors and physics majors) used to throw huge cookouts where we'd grill up a hundred or more brats at a time, with me usually as the grillmaster. After the last brat was cooked, it was always fun to dip into the kettle where the brats had been braising and toss a coffee can full of rendered brat fat on the hot coals. Nothing like a 30 foot tall column of flame to liven things up. Of course, there was the time my best friend and I almost blew our arms off trying to light the brat grill with gasoline from my car... but that is another story. If no one else has pointed it out, the NY Times had a good article about Sheboygan and bratwurst last summer.

Good information or riesling also in The Wine Avenger by Willie Gluckstern who is, among other things, affiliated with the excellent Nancy's Wines on Columbus at 75th Street (NYC).

Provided that "rank amateurs" can keep up with a class designed exclusively for the needs of prospective professional cooks, I agree that there is no reason they should be excluded -- unless, as I stated before, it is the decision of the school to do otherwise. My only question is to whether or not a cooking school which depends on a certain amount of revenue from amateurs in its professional program can truly maintain the standards and rigor that it might with a class consisting entirely of prospectice professionals. The answer strikes me as a resounding "it depends on the school and it depends on the percentage of amateurs." Clearly, in the case of Sandra's program, the presence of 2 dedicated hardcore amateurs in a class of 20 would not necessarily lower the level. Were this number to rise to 7 or 8 out of 20 and not so hardcore, it might be a different story. But ultimately it is up to each school to make those decisions. In my business I can tell you for sure that there are elite programs that would drop a young artist who was not planning on making a career in music (the one exception might be an artist of such exceptional talent and promise that they would be retained in the hope that they might be convinced to enter the field).

Interesting, my brand new edition of the The Compact Oxford Dictionary, Second Edition has this to say: I assume your use of the word was intended to be sense 3 above. Regardless, I don't see how Lesley C's behavior was patronizing no matter whose definition was used, yours or mine.

Although I have been using Skyy for mixing, on the rare occasions when I want a hit of the straight stuff from the freezer, I like Brilliant. It comes as close as any vodka I have ever tasted to being completely odorless and tasteless. It is all texture, mouthfeel and finish.

I'm in a graduate level teacher training program. That's extremely vocational, but there are plenty of people in the program that want the certificate for reasons other than teaching in the public schools that require it. Interesting... Would you say that there are plenty of people in the program who do not plan to pursue teaching or a relevant related field professionally?

Wow, that's a big "etc"! Most of my educational experience is in universities. (I have 2 undergraduate degrees in the sciences, and am doing graduate work now.) Most people in higher education are not studying medicine, law, or music. They have a clear idea of what they want to do when they start, but by the time graduation comes, they just want to hit the road. The reason I specifically mentioned music, medicine and law is that these schools are fundamentally vocational schools, as is a cooking school. The goal of a conservatory is to train people to take jobs as professional musicians. The goal of an academic course of study is different. As University of Colorado President Howard Goldblatt said, "I consider liberal arts as a freeing of the mind from the demands of narrow specialisation and vocational preparation, and a focus on ways of learning -- seeking coherence and unity, developing a skill for critical rational analysis, and viewing history, arts, and sciences through the prism of morality and ethics." This strikes me as a pretty good description of pure academics. If you are pursuing an academic advanced degree, I imagine you would agree with me that you are not being trained to do a job. This is a good example of the "weeding out" I described earlier in this thread. Music schools, especially undgraduate, have to admit students based on talent and promise to a certain extent, and then let the next four years sort the wheat from the chaff. As for music schools, or any schools for that matter, that "accept all comers" -- that is the difference between a not-so-good school and an elite school. Berklee, I have to say, is not exactly what I would call a high-level music school. Fundamentally it is a jazz/pop "music school" where a large percentage of the students who go there form musical groups with fellow students and leave to pursue fame and fortune. As for colleges accepting substandard students to subsidize the education of more talented students... I have spent my entire life around career academics, many of whom have been involved at the highest levels, including admissions. There is no college or university of which I am aware that admits students based on their ability to pay.

Isn't this the same recipe as dulce de leche? Nothing white trashy about that! It's a hip foodie ingredient -- or, at least, it was a few years ago.

What blend are you using from Sweet Marias? Are you making your own blend? I have been using their "Espresso Monkey Blend" for some time with around 7% of Monsooned Malabar and 7% of their top Robusta added. I roast to a "Northern Italian" (i.e., just a bit beyond full city) roast using a Hearthware Precision air roaster. Never had any problems with excessive brightness.

I don't know what your school experiences were like, but I can tell you that the number of students in most any conservatory who intend to work professionally in music is a lot more than half. And I have to believe that the same is true for most law schools, medical schools, etc.

How many amateurs are really taking classes like this? What percentage of students in your class are amateur? Also, we must consider the fact that different schools will differ as to the percentage of amateurs in such programs and the degree to which such programs accomodate them.

Lesley's reply to my post (also on the same page): Hmmm... it doesn't strike me that you two are disagreeing there. Your statement that all the real training is out in the field could be interpreted as implying that formal training is without real value. I read Lesley's reply as simply pointing out that she had got some valuable training in cooking school and that not all the "training" she got in the field was necessarily -- therefore it is not the case that all the real training is in the field. However, your restatement has a different flavor than the quoted comments above. The way I see it, one forms a (hopefully) firm foundation through formal training and then builds on that foundation in practice. This does not seem to be incompatible with what either one of you has said. ...not that Lesley needs me to stick up for her, of course.

Absolutely! Is anyone suggesting that this is not the case?

The less than honest gush at someone's piss poor piping skills that would be considered laughable is in fact patronizing. I wouldn't know if it was haughty or cooly. Can't hear the tone of voice! It is too much the manager in me -- I look to coach and encourage the troops. I'm only successful if my team is successful. And that is how I view an educator ought to be -- however in the real world... ahem. Sometimes they are hard to find! Beans... I hope you understand that I am only jerking your chain in a friendly way. And I hope you can also tell that all I was doing was quoting the dictionary definitions of the words you were using. That said, I don't recall reading anything Lesley C wrote that would indicate she made a practice of lying to amateur students and praising their poor piping skills disingenuously. I think it's more a case of making the decision to say nothing about the sucky piping skills, because such feedback is not well received and also because that is anyway not the reason such students are in the class. I refer you to Jersey13's comments earlier in the thread to the effect of "having taught ... continuing education programs, I noticed that there tended to be an 'I came to get what I paid for, so you just keep your negativity to yourself' type attitude among what we've been calling the 'hobbyists' in the groups." Patronizing someone, as my earlier post of definition showed, is to adopt an air of condescension toward a person; to treat him/her haughtily or coolly. To condescend, by the way, is to assume an air of superiority over another. There is nothing in what I have read to indicate such behavior on the part of Lesley C towards certain students. Acknowledging to us that such students nevertheless had poor piping skills does not make one a poor or patronizing teacher. Also, the way to "coach and encourage" the troops, which you suggest, very much depends on the context as well the mind set and expectations of those being coached. As it so happens, there is a certain kind of maintenance and refinement work that classical singers routinely do on an ongoing basis called "coaching." From my perspective, I am not really interested in hand holding and sugar coating -- I want to identify what I am doing that could stand to be done better, and work hard to improve on those things. This involves a lot of looking at and working on things I am not good at, and not a lot of patting me on the back and telling me nice things. I do not continue to patronize (another meaning of that word) coaches who work that way. Needless to say, this style of work is not appropriate for an amateur singer who wants someone to help them learn the notes and Italian pronunciation for an operatic piece they have no business singing so they can perform it at the church social. There is nothing wrong, in my book, with a professional opera coach who doesn't care to work with amateurs for this reason, or who interacts with amateurs in a fundamentally different way than he/she might with me. This directly corresponds to Lesley C's remarks regarding amateur students. There is nothing inherrently bad with understanding that someone is bad at something. There is nothing wrong with a teacher using his/her judgement to decide whether it is germane or prudent to inform a student of every shortcoming.

You think she was adopting an air of condescension toward them; treating them haughtily or coolly? I think it is probably best described as "an attitude that strikes you as 'elitist' and which you don't like." I, personally, have no problems with elitism -- even though I can hardly ever count myself among the elite.

Hee! I can remember when I was a kid and we had a small mouse problem for a few months. My parents set some traps, and every so often when the family was eating dinner around the kitchen table we would hear SNAP! "SQUEAK!" come from one of the cupboards. Kind of unnerving, as I recall, but we laughed about it. As far as I recall, our traps got them in the head and killed them right away every time. We used peanut butter. Perhaps some Nutella or Gianduia might do the trick for your gourmet mice? For those readers that are horrified at the use of mouse genocide, I won't tell the story of how my grandfather tried to smoke out a squirrel who had taken residence in our North Carolina mountain house's chimney, in which the squirrel became confused, ran the wrong way and almost burned the house down.

Ugh. How about coaching their dismal piping skills instead of telling them that their technique is laughable? Why lie? After all they are paying you to teach them how to do x, y or z. When I enroll in a "professional" culinary school, I'm paying them too, they better tell me if I suck. My law professors didn't hold back if something was flimsy at best. I think you said it best -- you loathe teaching amateurs. That's fine. I loathe arrogance in teaching. Interesting... I am trying to figure out how this attitude towards teaching constitutes a feeling or an impression of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or presumptuous claims.

I remain unconvinced as to whether making confit in cryo or plastic offers any tangible benefits over doing it the traditional way. That said, I do think that two of the techniques discussed in this thread are very much worthwhile. Cooking below the simmer is sometimes a little bit of pain in the butt, but it can produce very good and interesting results, and does allow one to hit the perfect temperature with much more accuracy. I suggest you check out the McGee book I referenced earlier in this thread if you are interested. Cooking in cryo (or in FoodSaver) can also produce great results. The main thing that is great about this, IMO, is that it makes it practically impossible for any of the juices to run out as the food is cooked because there is nowhere for it to go. Can work great with certain fish, for example.

I don't understand why the assumption is made that LCB "dumbs down" it's coursework - at any given time they may have a class of all aspiring pros or a class that has a few amateurs - the coursework is still the same, it has been for years. That is not my assumption at all. My assumption is that, if a cooking school does not "dumb down" the professional curriculum, then it will have a hard time attracting/retaining amateurs for that curriculum. And I think my assumption is borne out by the relative numbers of amateurs and aspiring professionals in the various curricula.

OK... one more question for when you are back, and I may have this thing figured out. What I think I understand is that sometimes the protein, fat and carbohydrates are used to build things our bodies need, sometimes they are converted to metabolic energy and sometimes they are converted to stored fat. So... let me make a hypothetical example: I eat 50 calories of protein and 50 calories of fat. My body takes a look around and says, "OK... we really don't need any protein or fat to build anything right now, but I do need around 50 calories of metabolic energy to keep everything going." So, the body needs to decide what it is going to use immediately and what it is going to store as fat. My understanding is that the body will "selectively choose" to store the 50 calories worth of fat and will therefore use the 50 calories of protein for metabolic energy. This is what I mean when I say that the form of the calories and the efficiency in converting calories in their various forms to stored fat doesn't seem to matter too much so long as there is enough dietary fat around. My understanding is that any time the body finds itself in an "excess calories situation" it will first convert dietary fat to stored fat and will only convert dietary protein and carbohydrates to stored fat when there is no longer any fat around to store. In other words, the body won't burn 25 calories each of the protein and fat, and store 25 calories each. This is relevant when applying your efficiency figures, as the 25/25 protein/fat mix would be converted to 36.25 calories of stored fat whereas straight fat would be converted to 47.5 calories of stored fat -- a 31% difference. This page seems to support that idea: Given the relative efficiencies of storing fat, protein and carbohydrates you quantified earlier, the above would seem to indicate that an ultra-lowfat diet would be recommended for weight loss, because any time the dieter did eat any excess calories, the efficiency of converting those calories to stored fat would be much lower. Of course, as I think you pointed out, protein is almost always accompanied by plenty of fat in the real world. Thought this was interesting: http://www.accessexcellence.com/AB/GG/Fig_4.02.jpg

If the Cordon Bleu regularly trains amateurs alongside aspiring professionals in the curriculum leading to the Grand Diplome, the question it to what degree the standards you mention are affected by the participation of the amateurs and what they might be if the school exercised different admissions criteria for the curriculum leading to the Grande Diplome. I'd like to reiterate that I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with a cooking school accepting amateurs if they elect to do so. A provate school may accept whatever students it chooses. I also don't think there is anything wrong with such a school insisting that all students, whether amateur or aspiring professional, exhibit performance and dedication up to the level they have determined is appropriate for aspiring professionals. I do have a hard time believing that any such school would be able to retain a significant number of amateurs in such a curriculum. But, if they can make the grade, keep up with and otherwise behave like the aspiring professionals in a rigorous curriculum geared 100% to professional cooking, I don't see a reason why any school would not allow such amateurs to attend.