After 16 weeks, I’m pleased to report that my classmates and I have successfully made it through to the end of the Culinary Certificate Program. For some, this marks the end of their journey at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, the exams no longer standing in the way of graduation (or wearing taller chef [...]
Posts from ‘August, 2009’
Week 16, Day 1: Review
While last Wednesday’s class served as a review of all things relating to mother sauces, the review session that we had in class today was much more comprehensive. We covered almost all of the topics and techniques that we’ve learned over the last 15 weeks in order to prepare us for our two upcoming exams…the written exam (which happened this evening) and the [...]
Week 15, Day 2: Sauces Review
With only a written exam and a hands-on cooking ‘practicum’ separating us from the end of the semester, our final Food Basics class on Wednesday served as a review of pretty much everything that we’ve learned about sauces in the last 15 weeks. The class began with a review of the 5 primary ‘mother’ sauces [...]
Some Homemade Desserts
A few weeks ago, the wife and I made a weekend trip to visit family in New Jersey. If the only view of New Jersey you get is from the window of a car speeding down the NJ Turnpike, then you may find yourself wondering who the witty fella was that came up with NJ’s ironic nickname, ”The Garden State”. [...]
Week 15, Day 1: Commercial Baking
I find it hard to believe that this is the 15th week of class…I guess time does really fly by when you’re having fun. Even harder to believe is that this is the last week of instruction during my first ‘semester’ of culinary school. Next week’s Monday class will be devoted to a review of [...]
Sabers and Culinary School – Together at Last
Chef J had a special demonstration for us at the end of our five week Food Management seminar. He led off by telling us about the three different ways to open a bottle of champagne; the wrong way, the ‘normal’ way, and the ‘impressive’ way. The wrong way involves shaking up the bottle for a [...]
Week 14, Day 2: Game
According to Wikipedia, game refers to any any animal hunted for food or not necessarily domesticated. For class purposes, we dispelled with the notion of ‘wild game’ roaming free around the countryside and the idea that someone went out into the woods with a 6-pack and a loaded 12-gauge and returned home with a fresh dinner. In [...]
Week 14, Day 1: Pasta
I’m not going to get into any of the historical aspects of pasta here; there seems to be a bit of an ongoing debate as to where pasta actually comes from and my intention is not to add fuel to any raging fire. Many people think that the Italians were the ones to invent pasta [...]
