eG Foodblog: TheFoodTutor - The Man Behind the Curtain.

[TheFoodTutor]

Sid started getting really upset that he was the only cat not pictured so far, and he threatened to bite me, if I didn't post this. Sorry.

I think my jeans look good on him. Don't you?

The food aspect of this picture is that, well, you just don't get a butt that looks like that unless you eat your fair share.

[TheFoodTutor]

Will you and lambfries (whatta moniker that!!) give us some direction on this duck and his/her cirrhosis diagnosis? (gee, that actually rhymes...)

I have a feeling that cirrhotic livers do not taste good. I'll taste the fattened liver later today, and I'll even get a doctor's opinion on it, and I'll get back to you on whether the duck had a drinking problem or not.

A question on this item: does he serve the entire truffle to one person? and if so, what does Chef Hopkins charge for the item?

I questioned lambfries' sanity over wanting to eat a whole one between the two of us. I've seen many people share one among a 4-top, but I've definitely never seen anyone eat one all by himself. The truffle is 1 ounce, roasted with the bacon, and the drippings are served in a little cup on the side. The price is $50.

Now, I have seen one person eat the $100 36-ounce porterhouse by himself at Eugene, though.

Edit to change 1/2 to 1 ounce.

Edited July 8, 2005 by TheFoodTutor (log)

[TheFoodTutor]

By the way, I am taking more pictures of things that are being prepped, but it's so close to the party that I don't want to show everything I'm doing until the end, and after that it should take me a little while to get everything set up.

I'm just about to head out now.

[TheFoodTutor]

Tasting menu class went well. I'm exhausted, with a screeching headache, but I need to resize photos and get the process of uploading underway, but I'll post the menu first:

Blini, caviar, creme fraiche, quail egg.

Duck confit gyoza.

Mango curry lobster salad.

Foie with warm peaches and brioche.

Halibut, clams, corn risotto, corn froth.

Chilled strawberry soup with tarragon ice cream.

Pictures up next.

[TheFoodTutor]

Final prep before heading to the client's home:

Tarragon ice cream base.

Duck confit, cabbage, ginger and scallion.

Potato for blini.

Dressed and ready to go.

[TheFoodTutor]

I wish I had video of this, because the lobsters were very active.

This woman's kitchen is not normally cluttered with bags of prep items everywhere, but the enormous amount of prep for this party makes many of these pictures look like this. Just look at the food, and ignore that other stuff.

Then we let the lobster chill, since it doesn't appear until after the first 2 courses.

Itty bitty blini.

First course. We had ginger and truffle flavored caviars, and I opted to demonstrate two different presentations, with the ginger caviar perched on top of the halved eggs, and the truffle in a quenelle with the creme fraiche, blini and quail egg.

Edited July 9, 2005 by TheFoodTutor (log)

[TheFoodTutor]

Second course:

Fold and pinch, fold and pinch.

Gyoza!

[TheFoodTutor]

I don't have the complete set of pictures for everything, though I may be able to gather a few more from another camera. Here's what I have right now:

Multiple pots: Risotto, clams in wine, creamed corn, caramelizing onions to go with peaches.

The finished lobster salad.

Slicing the lobe.

The finished halibut dish.

OK, any questions?

[TheFoodTutor]

Oh, I wanted to mention that I got an interesting call yesterday. A gentleman called me up and said that he'd run across my website. "The Food Tutor, eh?" he said, "You must be really good at what you do."

"I like to think so," I answered. And then he said that his girlfriend's birthday is this weekend, and he wanted to know if it was too late for him to arrange a class for that evening.

OK, I'm good, but not that good. I do need some time to prepare for a thing like this.

[AnnieD]

Thanks for all the pics from The Food Tutor tasting menu class! How did you have time to stop and take pictures? I'm amazed.

For the gyoza, do you make the wrappers yourself? Is it a hot water dough, similar to a potsticker wrapper? Also, do you roll out each wrapper individually or use one of those presses? And, if you do make the wrappers from scratch, what stage are they at when you bring them to the client? Do they roll them out, etc?

Lots of questions, sorry. It's just that I'm salivating over the gyoza.

Thanks!

[TheFoodTutor]

Thanks for all the pics from The Food Tutor tasting menu class! How did you have time to stop and take pictures? I'm amazed.

For the gyoza, do you make the wrappers yourself? Is it a hot water dough, similar to a potsticker wrapper? Also, do you roll out each wrapper individually or use one of those presses? And, if you do make the wrappers from scratch, what stage are they at when you bring them to the client? Do they roll them out, etc?

Lots of questions, sorry. It's just that I'm salivating over the gyoza.

Thanks!

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We had time to take pictures because the class lasted for 5 hours, plus we passed cameras around back and forth, to get shots of different people doing the preparing. It is true that I have tried and failed many times before to take pictures during classes, because it's just too easy to forget about the camera and focus on the food. But this was the longest class I've ever done, and the people attending were the sort of people who like food and pictures of food.

The gyoza wrappers were one of the very few things bought in a prepared state at all. Well, I didn't bake the brioche, either, but everything else was pretty much from scratch. I could make my own wrappers, but they are very inexpensive to buy, and they are separated well with flour to keep them from getting all stuck together, so I just try to find a brand I like and stick with it. This variety was a little thicker than some of the ones I bought before, which is good for a class, because thicker means more forgiving and less likely to tear, so the students can just focus on the wrapping technique.

Today's breakfast was a half slice of naan, sauteed in a little butter in a non-stick pan. I'm a little hung over, and still pretty tired, so I think I'll wait to take a picture of family meal tonight at work, as anything else I'm eating isn't really remarkable. Working tonight and tomorrow morning, then a double on Monday - the sort of double that involves working lunch at one place, going home and changing and heading to the other place. Good thing both restaurants are close to where I live.

[TheFoodTutor]

I ate a couple of these today, too, brought home from dinner Thursday night.

[SobaAddict70]

Curious how you made the corn froth, and how that dish came about. (The halibut's what I'm talking about.)

Soba

[TheFoodTutor]

Curious how you made the corn froth, and how that dish came about.  (The halibut's what I'm talking about.)

Soba

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The corn froth is a simple puree of corn, cream and chicken or vegetable stock, which is then lightly foamed by holding the immersion blender at the surface of the liquid, the same way you foam milk for a cappuccino, by holding the steam wand right at the surface of the milk. It's not terribly hard to do, but it can make a big mess. I splattered the wall a bit when I was demonstrating this, which illustrates one of the things that's different between restaurant cooking and home cooking: In restaurants, you just make tons of mess all day long, and you just keep on cleaning it up. If you break a glass, you sweep it up and go on with the rest of your tasks, but most people really wouldn't want to have that much splattered food, airborne grease and shattered plateware in their home kitchens. And that's why, more often than not, if I need to do something in a deep fryer, I generally bring my own, because lots of people don't want to own one, since they really grease things up pretty well.

So anyway, the froth bit originates in some of the more interesting aspects of modern haute cuisine, and the foams that all those molecular gastronomists like to use. Of course, you don't want to just start foaming up every little thing that you serve, in order to be trendy, but you do want to use these tricks in places where it will do some good. A foam on clams, for instance, is a natural, because often when you steam clams, they get a little frothy. If you emphasize that aspect, they look even more appealing, like they're covered in sea foam.

In Atlanta, we have a very talented chef who uses these sorts of techniques, Richard Blais, whom I've admired for some time. I had an opportunity to work with him for a little while last year, and I'd have to say that he's had a bit of an influence on lambfries' and my approach to food.

[TheFoodTutor]

A stupid question perhaps:  I was trying to make a creamed corn base for a lobster tail dish and found the result too kernel-y, little bits of cellular stuff dominated.  Should I have cooked longer to soften these or strained the mixture?

I've never had this happen, but it sounds as if the corn you used might have been a little tough to begin with, perhaps? I only roasted the ears of corn in my oven for about 40 minutes, then let them cook in some cream for a bit, and they pureed easily in a regular blender.

At any rate, tough membrane would be best strained out rather than cooked longer. Overcooked corn is really just overcooked corn, after all.

Many people reading this blog will probably not be familiar with the term "Family Meal," as it applies to restaurants. Actually, before I worked in certain upscale restaurants, I wasn't familiar with it, either. If you work at a lower end restaurant, you usually get a 50% discount on food you buy before or after your shift, and there are many options for getting a small meal or a snack before working. As you go into higher end places, you really can't just order off the menu every day, and much of the time, your shift begins hours before the restaurant is open, with opening duties including polishing one's station - this refers to going over every bit of every place setting with a steamy linen, to make sure there are no smudgy wine glasses, no funky forks. So the kitchen of a fine dining place will often come up with a homey meal, mainly for the front of the house, because cooks tend to get fed whether or not you try to feed them.

Lambfries goes into work at Eugene before I do, to prep, and he always makes up a plate for me before I get there and sets it aside. Not sure why he does this, other than that we did work at a place together where family meal would often run out if you didn't grab it in the first 5 minutes, or else you'd be stuck with eating the dreck that no one else wanted. Here's my plate tonight, which, as usual, is an overly large portion.

Meatloaf, potato salad, bitter greens and salad greens. It was very good, except for the bitter greens. I don't know if there are Canadians who know how to cook good Southern greens, but the one who made these isn't one of them, if they exist. Sorry, but I just love to yank the chain of the Entremetier when I work over at Eugene.

Can anyone tell me what an Entremetier is? Lambfries has to work Entremetier all next week, so if you can fill him in on what he's to do, that'd be helpful.

Edited July 10, 2005 by TheFoodTutor (log)

[TheFoodTutor]

We had a birthday on staff. The bartender's birthday is Sunday, so here's the cake she picked out to have made by Kristia: Ice cream cakes with Italian meringue. Kristia made 5 cakes in different flavors. 2 are chocolate, 1 espresso, 1 butter pecan and 1 white chocolate. I had a slice of butter pecan.

I get my cake on Monday, because my actual birthday is Tuesday, and I get to celebrate for nearly a week, because I'm just lucky that way.

Menus change nearly every day here, and we've got to try everything that's new, so here's the soup for tonight. Orange blossom heirloom tomato gazpacho. A ring of aspic decorates the bottom of the bowl, filled with a crab salad, and the soup is poured tableside. It's a really delicious soup.

And there's lambfries at the end of the night, making out an order and asking Kristia what she needs for pastry.

[therese]

The corn froth is a simple puree of corn, cream and chicken or vegetable stock, which is then lightly foamed by holding the immersion blender at the surface of the liquid, the same way you foam milk for a cappuccino, by holding the steam wand right at the surface of the milk. It's not terribly hard to do, but it can make a big mess.

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You mean like this? Talk about your food porn...

Some more conventional food porn:

I'm sort of slammed with out of town guests this weekend, but I'll post some detailed pics (that TheFoodTutor didn't get a chance to take because she and lambfries were, well, working) later today.

And in case any of you were wondering, yes, the food as really really great.

[TheFoodTutor]

Awesome to have someone to help document the week, since my schedule is pretty hectic as well, and posting all of these photos can be very time consuming. Thanks, therese, and thanks for providing a very nice kitchen for this event. Sorry about the mess.

I forgot this pic last night:

New dessert on the menu. A cheesecake made with cremosina, topped with strawberry jam and mint sauce, candied lemon and a lightly spiced cookie on the bottom. Very good.

Now, I wonder if I have time for leftover foie gras for breakfast. . .

Edit because I remembered the type of cheese for the cheesecake.

Edited July 10, 2005 by TheFoodTutor (log)

[TheFoodTutor]

Getting ready for work, again.

These 2 items have the same name, and they basically do the same thing. The one on the left went to work with me last night, and the one on the right is going to work with me today.

Can you name the items? Can you tell me why I have one of each?

[Gifted Gourmet]

Can anyone tell me what an Entremetier is? Lambfries has to work Entremetier all next week, so if you can fill him in on what he's to do, that'd be helpful. 

Entremetier – The entremetier prepares, cooks, and presents all types of vegetables, pasta, rice, and egg dishes. As an entremetier your rice must never stick to the pot and your spaghetti must be cooked perfectly al dente. Vegetable side dishes perfectly prepared and impeccably presented to accompany entrées make you an important link in the “food chain” of culinary arts.

source of the quote

[therese]

Getting ready for work, again.

These 2 items have the same name, and they basically do the same thing. The one on the left went to work with me last night, and the one on the right is going to work with me today.

Can you name the items? Can you tell me why I have one of each?

←

One's a crumber, for sweeping crumbs off a tablecloth (so you use it at the fancy restaurant). The other one's a towel that you'll use to wipe crumbs off a table that's not dressed with a tablecloth (so you use it at the not so fancy restaurant.

[therese]

So I'd been talking to TheFoodTutor about doing a dinner at our house for a while, and since she was blogging this week and didn't have a gig already planned we decided that this would be a good time to do it. We invited another couple who are also really into great food and would enjoy participating in the preparation.

One of the guests is allergic to crustaceans, so TFT and lambfries came an hour early (at 6:00) to cook the lobster ahead of time so as to minimize lobster bits floating around the kitchen. They arrived to find a clean kitchen and a table set for 8 people: TFT, lambfries, me, husband, my two kids, and our two guests (who arrived at 7:00 after a very long drive from Alpharetta or Roswell or someplace like that):

Nice, isn't it? And the really cool thing is that it looked pretty much exactly like that at the end of the evening as well, because we never sat down. Instead we mostly stood and watched and worked while TFT and lambfries put together a really amazing meal.

Things started out pretty calmly. Here's TFT unloading gear and supplies:

Early on there were three (or was it four?) additional guests. They weren't very good conversationalists, so we decided to eat them:

I don't usually think of TFT as being soft-hearted, but apparently she is:

Or maybe not:

[TheFoodTutor]

One's a crumber, for sweeping crumbs off a tablecloth (so you use it at the fancy restaurant). The other one's a towel that you'll use to wipe crumbs off a table that's not dressed with a tablecloth (so you use it at the not so fancy restaurant.)

Exactly. We refer to them both as "crumbers," which kind of confused me, when I first started working at the less fancy place. Actually, I find the little towel most useful for carrying very, very hot plates, something which the other tool is entirely unsuitable for.

Cool answer to the Entremetier question, GG. At some restaurants, the Entremetier not only does all the side dishes, but he readies the plate for final composition, so he's the last person touching the plate before it goes through the window, to the Chef who's expediting, who will then put on the finishing touches.

[TheFoodTutor]

Now I know what I look like when I'm ripping a lobster in half. And so does everyone else.

Gotta go to work, but here's breakfast:

French toast, foie gras, strawberry puree and balsamico.

Some cats have all the luck. They didn't get a piece of foie, but they did get to lick the fat.

[therese]

What we drank...

We started with champagne (with the caviar/blini/creme fraiche/quail egg course):

And then had more champagne (technically not champagne, of course, but very nice:

The next course was the duck confit gyoza, with which we drank this very nice merlot that we purchased on a visit to Harrison Vineyards last spring. I didn't think to photograph the bottle until after we opened it, and there's a drip down the front of the label that gives it that "lived in" look:

The next course was, hmmm, I forget which course came next. The lobster, I think. We had a really nice chardonnay with this course, one we'd had for some time. We don't really cellar wines, but we end up with a lot of them and store them in an old fridge that's the right temp but rather more humid than optimal for label preservation. The wines do well, though, so I'm not going to complain. I've no idea where we got this wine---husband's the wine guy in the family---but it was very buttery, very nice with the lobster and mango and avocado and curry:

Foie gras is one of our favorites. Even the kids love it. Very cool to have somebody else take care of the prep, so here's what we served with it:

Next up was another fish course (the one garnished with clams and corn foam), so more chardonnay, one we got while visiting Napa several years ago. Label degradation apparent:

Dessert was strawberry soup with thyme ice cream. I had a muscat that I'd bought in Le Grau du Roi last spring, so served that: