What's an "intermediate" cook?

[snowangel]

Have you done any field trips? Go to a fishmonger for an information and question and answer session? A meat market or charcuterie?

[Doodad]

JAZ and Dave, where are these classes being held? I am in the area and would love to take some of them. I am especially interested in the intermediate class and to that end, here is what I need to learn:

1) Breaking down a chicken including deboning.

2) Cleaning a fish. I can do it camp style on trout, but that is as basic a fish as you can get. A scaly fish and a flat fish would be awesome if I could learn that.

3) The mother sauces. I know most, but am not confident in them.

4) Knife skills for presentation such as tourneying (sp) vege and sharpening/honing.

5) Judging doneness. I know how to do this fairly well, but make mistakes all the time. This would be a great demo as it is readily done at one station such as the grill and the results are easily observable.

Good luck and schedule please.

[djyee100]

So here's my question: what techniques and/or recipes would be the intermediate equivalent of Hollandaise and pan-fried fish?

TheSwede (post #18) may have hit on the answer to your question. At the Basic level, people are cooking for themselves. But at the Intermediate level, people want to cook for and entertain their friends (maybe show off a little too). Mastering a dinner party menu may be the goal at the Intermediate level that will give people the pleasure and confidence to keep cooking.

One issue we're having trouble with is how to teach shopping in the classroom environment. Any ideas?

I'm not sure what you mean by teaching Shopping in the classroom. (Am I missing something?) In classes that I've attended, teachers frequently keep a sample of the whole ingredient on the prep tray, and mention a few things to look for when shopping, e.g., coconuts without mold on the surface, lots of liquid sloshing around inside when you shake it, coconuts that are heavy for their size. They also pass around the packages of any unusual ingredients they may be using, so people know what to look for at the store, e.g., this is a package of kasoori methi you can find at Indian grocery stores. In general, passing around samples of raw ingredients and spices for people to see, smell, and touch always seems to help.

[Dave the Cook]

To give folks an idea of how the basics class is managed:

• Even though it's 11 or 12 hours, there's very little time to waste. So we establish a written schedule for each of the three sessions. The granularity of the schedule varies, depending on what's going on; it might be by 15 minute segments, or as long as an hour. Janet and I, and the person called the principal assistant (in charge of the volunteer crew that helps out by doing prep, washing dishes and plating), each have a copy. We install a small digital clock at the corner of the counter so we can keep track.
  
• Each segment is titled with a topic: "searing," "onion chopping," "cuts of pork," etc. In the next column, we list the recipe (and maybe the task at hand), or who's speaking/demonstrating. A third column includes the essential points we want to make during the segment. These reminders include myths that need to be explained or debunked, important personal experiences to relate (our admission of mistakes is a confidence builder for the students -- the sillier the better); and connections to previous points that will let us reinforce a lesson. For example, we don't really have a segment called "Salt," but because of those notes, salt gets mentioned so often that students absorb a lot of information about it.
  So a typical schedule entry might be:<table width="70%"><tr><td width=25%>12:00-12:30</td><td width=25%>Steamed asparagus - Dave</td><td>steamer basket; trimming; seasonality/crop fluctuation; chlorophyll; acids and degradation; Lincoln Logs; salt afterwards, emulsions</td></tr>
  <tr><td> </td><td>Janet</td><td>Hollandaise, why we're serving it as an appetizer, blender technique</td></tr>
  <tr><td> </td><td>Dave</td><td>stovetop Hollandaise technique</td></tr>
  <tr><td>12:30-1:00</td><td>Teams to stations</td><td> </td></tr></table>
  
• We leave lots of time for questions, and lots of extra material to go through if there aren't many questions (but there always are).
  
• At the start of the class, we go around the room (starting with ourselves). Each person explains why they're there and what they hope to learn from the class. In the first class we taught, we had a guy who had never cooked anything but Kraft Dinner. After the Friday and Saturday sessions, we review the class and make adjustments for the next day. So we adjusted the Sunday menu to include macaroni and cheese.
  
• The students range from early 20s to early 60s. There's always an engaged or newly-married couple, a recent retiree, and at least two people who just graduated from college and can't rely on a meal plan or fast food any more.
  
• The class divides up into teams or four or five to do much of the hands-on work, though there are individual stations for knife work and other small tasks. For example, everyone gets to trim a few asparagus spears, everyone gets to slice and chop an onion.
  
• Even though they're in teams, we make sure that the work is shared so everyone gets real experience.
  

So, like a lot of people have suggested, we tend to teach by recipe and menu, and use them as springboards for lessons across a range of subjects. Does all that make sense?

[Dave the Cook]

Good luck and schedule please. 

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Thanks. The classes are at The Cook's Warehouse in midtown. You can find the schedule here.

[Doodad]

I am in. Wish it was at the Brookhaven store only because it is closer, but hey, can't have everything.

[Sony]

Forgive me if I missed this- how large are your classes? Is there a cap on attendance?

[Chris Amirault]

Great ideas, great topic, great teachers both.

Picking up on the shopping idea and Susan's suggestion: I've been thinking about shopping issues quite a bit since this eGullet Society shop & eat fundraiser that I coordinated in Providence, on which it was clear that some people dive in, poke and smell, read labels, ask questions, and so on, whereas others were reluctant to do so. I also think that a lot of people are intimidated by "fancy" ingredients at large, quality stores. Finally, I think that few people walk into stores (of any kind) with a plan.

It may not be possible, and it may not fit into the current plan you've got, and it probably is more about a transition from intermediate to advanced. But I think two three-hour classes on "Tackling DeKalb Farmers Market" would be a great workshop. The first could start by talking about building a basic plan and shopping list for a meal. Then you could go to the different areas and talk about quality of meat, fish, and produce, making adjustments as you find things. The two of you could talk about substitutions, improvisation, and taking advantage of seasons and availability on foot. Then you could do a debrief: what's the plan when you get back home?

The second class could ask people to bring their plans, lists, menus, and results, and you could debrief on how things went back at their homes. You could also prepare whatever the two of you grabbed, walking people through the sorts of adjustments you have to make when you're improvising.

[JAZ]

Forgive me if I missed this- how large are your classes? Is there a cap on attendance?

←

There is an attendance cap -- it's been 16 for the kitchen basics course; it might go down to 12 for the intermediate course.

[JAZ]

Great ideas, great topic, great teachers both.

Picking up on the shopping idea and Susan's suggestion: I've been thinking about shopping issues quite a bit since this eGullet Society shop & eat fundraiser that I coordinated in Providence, on which it was clear that some people dive in, poke and smell, read labels, ask questions, and so on, whereas others were reluctant to do so. I also think that a lot of people are intimidated by "fancy" ingredients at large, quality stores. Finally, I think that few people walk into stores (of any kind) with a plan.

←

I think that's what Dave meant when he talked about teaching "shopping." Unfortunately, I don't think we'll have the time for a field trip, but I wonder if there are ways to teach this kind of thing without one.

In the basic class, for instance, we talked about making friends with your grocery store department heads. We'd shopped almost exclusively at one of the big grocery stores for our supplies, because we figured that's probably where they'd do most of their everyday shopping. And we wanted to show the students that it's possible to get very decent products from a mainstream store if you know some tricks.

So it's more than explaining what to look for in asparagus, for instance. It's what to do when the only asparagus on display isn't very good. It's what to do if ribeyes are on sale but the only ones you see are cut too thin. I'd say that all of our beginning students were amazed that you can ask a butcher at Publix to cut meat to order, or that you can ask for them to order stuff that's not on display (within limits, of course). I personally think that learning how to shop at your local supermarket can be a better tool for an intermediate cook than how to shop at a farmers' market or high-end specialty store.

More of those tips would be fabulous to have on hand.

[Chris Amirault]

I personally think that learning how to shop at your local supermarket can be a better tool for an intermediate cook than how to shop at a farmers' market or high-end specialty store.

That's a good point. We just had a new place open up four blocks from us, and I have already had three chats with the owner there. It ain't DeKalb by a long shot, but he's clearly got some quality stuff in there mixed with not-so-good stuff.

More of those tips would be fabulous to have on hand.

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Along with sending people into the back for better stuff, it's good to learn how to ask, "When did/will X this come in?" You could also encourage them to initiate conversations about good local suppliers of things, judging their relative quality, and so on. Around here, for example, one wants to get Michael's and not Gaspar's chorice, and not everyone has the former on hand. That's probably true for central aisle items as well at most stores.

Part of what a more advanced shopper does is perceive all of the options, instead of avoiding the unknown. One thing I've encouraged friends to do is to buy one ingredient every week or so that's unfamiliar to see what they can learn. What with the internet, an intermediate cook doesn't need a big cookbook collection to delve into the world of durian, quail, or burdock root; you can jump on eG Forums or other places and discover a few things to do with your find. Even if it's a disaster, you'll learn something interesting -- particularly if you've got two great teachers to help you learn.

You could give people homework to practice these forays. Report on three conversations you had with a grocer, butcher, or fish monger. Bring in an X and tell us what you learned. That sort of thing.

[Doodad]

Great ideas, great topic, great teachers both.

Picking up on the shopping idea and Susan's suggestion: I've been thinking about shopping issues quite a bit since this eGullet Society shop & eat fundraiser that I coordinated in Providence, on which it was clear that some people dive in, poke and smell, read labels, ask questions, and so on, whereas others were reluctant to do so. I also think that a lot of people are intimidated by "fancy" ingredients at large, quality stores. Finally, I think that few people walk into stores (of any kind) with a plan.

←

I think that's what Dave meant when he talked about teaching "shopping." Unfortunately, I don't think we'll have the time for a field trip, but I wonder if there are ways to teach this kind of thing without one.

In the basic class, for instance, we talked about making friends with your grocery store department heads. We'd shopped almost exclusively at one of the big grocery stores for our supplies, because we figured that's probably where they'd do most of their everyday shopping. And we wanted to show the students that it's possible to get very decent products from a mainstream store if you know some tricks.

So it's more than explaining what to look for in asparagus, for instance. It's what to do when the only asparagus on display isn't very good. It's what to do if ribeyes are on sale but the only ones you see are cut too thin. I'd say that all of our beginning students were amazed that you can ask a butcher at Publix to cut meat to order, or that you can ask for them to order stuff that's not on display (within limits, of course). I personally think that learning how to shop at your local supermarket can be a better tool for an intermediate cook than how to shop at a farmers' market or high-end specialty store.

More of those tips would be fabulous to have on hand.

←

Absolutely make friends with every supplier you can. I have no doubt the local Kroger knows me as "that guy", but I get the feeling they enjoy seeing someone that appreciates what they do and buys more than the little tiny cuts they have to create. They always have a whole brisket for me or when I asked for bones you would have thought they had died and gone to heaven. They are really nice and trim the brisket for me without weighing the trim and slip extra bones in.