A few times a year, CSCA students are presented with an opportunity to participate in a “Guest Chef for a Night” program. Beginning in 2006, the school has partnered with many well known chefs in the Boston area, providing students with the chance to plan a special menu for an evening, to be served as a supplement to the restaurant’s ‘regular’ [...]
Posts from ‘September, 2009’
Week 18, Day 2: Provincial French 2
Today we moved into the heartland region of France and spoke about Touraine and the surrounding area, including Anjou, Orleans and Poitou…all considered to be part of the Loire Valley. This is a very fertile and picturesque area (well known for its chateaus), often referred to as ‘the garden’ of France (hey, just like New [...]
Week 18, Day 1: Classical French 2
Chef J began class today by talking about the evolution of French cuisine from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance period. Owing a great debt to the work of La Varenne, author of the revolutionary cookbook “La Cuisiner Francois” and considered to be the father of classical French cooking as we know it today, French cuisine [...]
Week 17, Day 2: Provincial French 1
For our first class on provincial French cooking, we covered the northwestern provinces of Normandy and Brittany. As Chef C explained, the ‘big 3′ items that define the cuisine of Normandy are dairy products, apples and seafood. The dairy products that come from Normandy are of a very high quality…milk, cream and creme fraiche are [...]
Week 17, Day 1: Classical French 1
After nearly 4 weeks away from the CSCA kitchens, this Tuesday marked the official beginning of the 2nd half of my culinary school education. The days of alternating baking and food basics classes are over…for the next 7 weeks or so we’ll be learning all about French cuisine. My Tuesday classes will be devoted to classical French [...]
Island Creek Oyster Festival
On Saturday, I volunteered my services at the annual Island Creek Oyster Festival, held in Duxbury Beach, located about 45 minutes south of Boston. The event served as a fundraiser for the Island Creek Oysters Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports numerous local charities and sustainable aquaculture projects. With some 3,000 expected attendees and a [...]
See Dan Cook…
…coming soon to a restaurant kitchen near you* *assuming that you live in or near the greater Boston metropolitan area Since the primary reason for this blog’s existence is to document the process of me transitioning from sector 7G chair moistener to eventual chef/owner of my own restaurant, I figured I should let you all [...]
Why Lamb’s Head?
Perhaps it was naive of me to think that a blog entry detailing the cooking of an entire lamb’s head (complete with visuals) wouldn’t trigger some kind of slightly less than positive response. The post elicited a pretty wide set of responses from readers, ranging from awe, disgust, intrigue, shock, confusion and understanding. Given that, I [...]
Lamb’s Head Soup
Disclaimer…these pictures may be just a tad graphic, don’t say I didn’t warn you. My friend Jenni from culinary school is a member of Stillman’s Farm meat CSA. Each month, she picks up her share of assorted of beef, pork, lamb and/or chicken products, delivered straight from the farm. During her last pick up, the [...]
Seafood Risotto
Taking advantage of one of the best things about living in Boston, the wife and I recently enjoyed a lobster night at home. Not liking the idea of wasting food, I decided to recycle the lobster-boiling water into a shellfish stock. After removing the cooked lobsters from the pot, I kept the pot of water boiling as we [...]
