another cycle in the bag. the last three weeks i have been in american regional. in this class we spend a day or two in the many regions of the u.s. we started in the mid-atlantic states, then through new england, the south, louisiana, texas and tex-mex, the central plains, california, hawaii, and the pacific northwest. every day we would spend roughly an hour or so in lecture about that region, it’s history and food, then go up to the demo kitchen for another hour, where the chef would demonstrate that days production. then we would go into the classroom kitchen and have roughly two hours to pipe out what was on tap for that day. within our lectures, john, the schools sommelier and all around beverage specialist, would come through and talk about wines and ales/lagers/lambics within the regions we were talking about. then, later in the classroom kitchen, he would come in and we would have a tasting of different wines, ales, lagers, or lambics from that region.

needless to say, this class was a lot of fun. we made things like seared duck with an orange gastrique sauce, macadamia encrusted mahi-mahi with a wasabi cream sauce, and roasted quail with a port wine reduction. all kinds of delicious goodness. we finished the course with a buffet open to the rest of the school. each group within the class(our group had three people) is responsible for a different region of the states. ours was the central plains. each group then would prepare enough food and present it by 11:00am friday. we had thursday and friday to work on it. it was quite the ordeal, but definitely a lot of fun. our menu was kansas city bbq ribs, steak fries, sauteed veggies with thyme and parsley, and a brownie pudding cake. it all turned out amazing and every single one of our ribs were gone within the first 10 minutes of service. you can go here to see more pictures from school and this class.

monday i start intro to garde manger [gahrd mahn-ZHAY]. basically a french term for the cool, well-ventilated pantry area where cold buffet dishes are prepared and other foods are stored in refrigerated units. we’ll make a lot of salads and dressings as well as do different food carvings and artistic cuts with different cold fruits and vegetables. should be fun!