Out with the old, in with the new

This term has gone by so fast, we're already preparing for our final luncheon in International Cuisine. One last chance for all of us to show them what we've got. This time around, we're going to do an entire meal of appetizers, each representing a different country or cooking style. I'm doing another Thomas Keller recipe, Blinis with Eggplant Caviar and Roasted Red Peppers. I mixed up the batter for the blinis yesterday but I couldn't get it to the right consistency. Whenever I tried to fry some on the stove, the bottom burned before the middle was done. I tried every variation of adjusting the temperature, I tried thinning it out with more cream, adding another egg; finally I wrapped it up and put it in the fridge to relax. Better luck tomorrow. Other dishes will include Mini-Quiche Lorraine, Spanikopita, Beef Empanadas, Strawberry Rugalach, and Prior's famous buffalo chicken.

Another neat thing that happened yesterday was that we had several high school students come visit our department. I think we made a good impression, but they were kind of shy! We all sat together in the demo lab, Chef Gordon told them about the program, and some of us students gave our own testimony as well. It's really cool to connect with kids at this level, although none of them were very talkative, I enjoyed seeing so many people at once who are interested in cooking. Sure, they didn't know any of the famous chefs that Gordon expects any kitchen geek to know, but I didn't either until recently. Like me, they are here because they love to cook. We all express and embody that differently. I hope that some of the students I met yesterday end up in our program. We need to grow!

Tomorrow night I'm helping out at a food and wine pairing party in the demo lab, which I did last week as well. I've volunteered to do a demonstration of my Mini Chicken Wellingtons, they're easy and elegant at the same time, so they'll be a good crowd-pleaser. Last week was fun, I got to work with a few underclassmen to help plate, and I even got to take home some leftovers--always a good end to the day!

Next week we're going to Tassel Ridge Winery, I'm looking forward to it! Until I started school here, I didn't even know that there were any wineries in Iowa, I'd always assumed that all the US had were in California and Oregon. It'll definitely be a learning experience. The last field trip we went on to Honey Creek Resorts was really interesting. It's the only resort in the state, it has beautiful grounds, an impressive restaurant, and an indoor waterpark! They told us about what's going to be available once winter relinquishes its icy grip: an 18-hole golf course, docks for boating and fishing, maybe even horses! I could take up several pages describing the place in detail, but to save me the time, I've posted the website on the left-hand side of my blog. A couple of my classmates have even arranged internships there already. Maybe I'll just have to go "visit" them...

Today Chef David Jensen came to give us a demonstration of ice-carving. He showed us his tools of the trade and then carved a marlin out of a 300-lb block of ice! I'll post some pictures as soon as I can! We even got to see him save it when he accidentally chopped off the fish's tail, he just poured on some water and froze it back together. He's been in the ice-carving business for nearly 30 years, and his portfolio shows it! It was really cool to have him come over to show his stuff, and not just because it got us out of taking a test today ;-)

Chef Jensen also works as a chef in a hospital, and he told us about the many ways that that unsuspecting facet of the industry is changing. As far as I remember, hospital food wasn't anything to get excited about, but it sounds like lots of places are making improvements with their selection. It actually got me thinking of maybe working in one someday. It would be kind of cool if I ended up working at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, since I've "enjoyed" a couple of stays there in the past. With their health plan, I could get a heart check-up without paying through the nose. Not a bad gig. In a weird way, it would feel like coming home. I still remember the smell of the place.

The rest of our day was devoted to detail-cleaning the kitchen. I'm proud to say that the grill is cleaner than it's been since we've gotten it. A couple of us doused it in degreaser, scrubbed it until the back of it shone. Then we took the grates off and ran it through the dishwasher. I hope it won't rust.

I got another pleasant surprise this week while looking through the French Laundry cookbook. I found Thomas Keller's plating picture of his "Peas and Carrots" and it looked pretty close to the plate presentation I'd used with for our Contemporary American dinner earlier this month. The only difference was that he used pea shoots and all I had was arugula, but I'm sure that if for whatever reason, the French Laundry might one day be fresh out of pea shoots, he would agree that arugula does just as well.