food fest

Wow, what a weekend. We started with lunch on Friday at school and didn't stop eating all weekend. We had all decided to hangout after school and go for some sushi but our lunch was really good and everyone ate everything so we were quite full. We bumped the sushi time to dinner and in the meantime, we decided to explore nearby Chinatown and Olivera Street. Little did I know we were going to purchase various foods to try - alot of various foods. By the time dinner came around, we were even more full but went anyway. By the way, the sushi restaurant was quite disappointing.

Saturday started out with more food - lunch. Three of the classmates are Vietnamese and miss Vietnamese food so we went to Little Saigon and had some real pho. These guys are all buddies from Mississippi so they also have a southern accent which is great. We had some authentic pho then went on to explore all the shops and yes, we stopped at bakeries, markets, fruitstands - everything and got a taste of this and that. Whew! My belly was already full from lunch and you can imagine hanging out all day, how much stuff we ate. Those guys can really eat! Then of course, after all the snacks they were hungry for dinner. Then after dinner more snacks. We found a massage place too. I guess in Mississippi, the massage centers are real expensive so we all went for an hour massage for $20 each. Feeling better they were hungry again and we went to a cafe had some drinks and another dinner. By that time, my stomach really hurt and it was 11PM. Can you imagine eating for 11 hours straight? Holy smokes! But the foods we had were authentic Vietnamese and I got to try some new things - grilled goat, couple of different kinds of sea snails, banana flowers, jackfruit, beef tendons, tapioca starch cakes (similar to mochi), and somethings I've had before but this time around it was better tasting.

Today was alittle better as far as not gorging myself - I didn't hang with my classmates. My roommates returned from their vacation while I went to meet Iron Chef Morimoto. He made a few appetizers for everyone and just came out with his first cookbook.

Iron Chef Morimoto signing his new cookbook.

california culinary academy

With a loss for words, I had to take some time to ponder about this school and the what it means to the culinary world. There has been a great debate about the quality of education young chefs recieve here. It's one of the oldest schools on the West coast and up until a few years ago, had a solid reputation as one of the best in the nation especially with the pairing with Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. People had pride in this school and if you attended, it would distinguish you from other schools since employers sought out CCA graduates.

Let me start this day over with a frantic text message from a friend of mine. We are both CCA graduates and she had heard on the local news, CCA has a class action suit against them for fraud - increasing the price of this school with the promise of becoming a celebrity chef and lowering the learning standard.

With chefs becoming celebrities on television, the amount of students for culinary schools have doubled, tripled, quadrupled in the past 10 years. It's a booming business - a lot of people want to jump on the band wagon of being a superstar chef with the chance of being on television, having their own show or at least being extremely wealthy. To these people, good food is not really the issue - it's becoming famous or the income, that's their motivation. Then there are people who enjoy cooking and become chefs for that reason - make good food while hanging with friends, making people happy through their bellies. Personally, I think the latter people make better chefs and serve better quality food since their primary focus is food and the fame and income are a side effect.

Little do most people know the food service industry only has 2 classes - the poor and the incredibly wealthy, there is no middle ground. Only people that have been in the food industry know this... or have friends in the industry. You start out near the bottom of the totem pole and work your way up. After you put in about 10-15, 20 years, and get an executive chef position will you actually start making the income. The only time this education will help you is perhaps get you in the door and gives you a taste of everything from various food ethnicities, to computer skills, wine pairing and even a little management skills. To advance in these areas, one would have to be in the industry for experience which is the only way to excel.

Some of my classmates thought that by graduating from school, it would automatically put them in a management position. These were the people that had never been in food service before and believed the school recruiter. Others were there to get into the management position and of course, there were others that were recent high school graduates that didn't want to go to an academic college but to appease their parents, decided a vocational school would be sufficient.

People from all walks of life were in my class. Cooking has no age limit... the oldest classmate was in her mid-50's and the youngest ones just graduated high school. We had a good range of people in age and cookery skills - about half the class had prior restaurant experience. And for the most part everyone was eager to learn. It helped that our first instructor is a really good chef... Chef Glenn is also a great teacher and even went beyond teaching us what was in the textbook. It made our sister classes a bit jealous that we were making things not on the syllabus but we thoroughly enjoyed our first 6 weeks with him.

I really believe if you are motivated to learn, you will learn something so in essence, you get out what you put into it. I think most of my classmates were all really good and for the most part we all gleaned as much knowledge as we could. There were some students in our sister classes that still did not know how to boil water, make pasta or make a viniagrette salad dressing upon graduation. Granted, the entire time in school was not all good. Along with the good, there were some really bad instructors and even some instructors who were burned out but were sticking to teaching for a few more years until retirement and it is disappointing to have chef instructors like that.

As far as too many students - there were way too many classmates. Starting out, we had 32 students to 2 chefs... the main chef instructor and the assistant chef instructor. A huge ratio that only got larger when all the assistant chefs were laid off. Eventually, our class number dwindled down to 28 but that is still a large ratio especially when classes were suppose to be maxed out at 20.

Read the article yourself if you like. This is the link:
http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-06-06/news/burnt-chefs

I guess what really bothers me with the article and the current state of the school is that at the City College the culinary students attend school with a longer day, it's 32 times cheaper and the local restaurants would choose a City College graduate over a CCA graduate because of their retained knowledge, reliability, etc. Even when I was attending CCA in 2005, alot of my classmates had a difficult time attaining a job because prior students gave the school a bad reputation by not showing up for work, embellishing their resume and lacking ethics. It also does not help the school's image by firing the two executive chefs. The school President when I attended is no longer there either. I knew there were a lot of disgruntled students, which have made the newspapers and local television news but now it seems, there are alot more angry students out there that I thought. At least some of the instructors were honest with us... my three favorite ones were very upfront Chefs Glenn, Holly and Jason - they informed us from day one that we'd be overworked, underpaid and under appreciated but to be a chef, one has to really be passionate about the food. That the quality and reputation of this school was slowly going downhill due to the corporate buy-out and we should glean all we can from all our chefs because in a few years the school and our diplomas will not mean much in the food industry... it looks like they were correct. Corporations are in the culinary field as a means of capitalization - cram future chefs into a school and extort as much money from them as possible.

The following link was cited in the SF weekly article. I thought to look it up and see what comments are posted about CCA. This is the link: http://www.yelp.com/ in the search, type in california culinary academy in san francisco, california. While some of these critiques are valid, there is something called common sense that would make you questions yourself if you really want to attend this school.

If you ask, did I waste my time attending CCA, I would answer no. I think it was well worth the time and I learned alot. But if you ask if I wasted a lot of cash, my answer would definately be yes - the schooling is way overpriced for the quality of education and the sister schools in Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon are almost half the cost. The admissions counselor didn't even want to talk to me until I told him I was already approved for a student loan. Warning signals should have sounded in my head but my reasoning in attending school in San Francisco versus Austin or Portland, is with the farmland and ocean in proximity, students would get the best of both worlds learning about farm and ocean fresh ingredients. Plus the fact that San Francisco is an international city where diversity thrives, it would be a melting pot of ethnicities and international ingredients. With these thought all in mind, I reasoned that was the difference in pricing and it would be a better quality education and school.

gender controversy

Went on a tour with my class to the fish and vegetable market this morning. It was interesting to see the same fish at each market but some were better quality and some had better prices. We were told if we ever do purchase straight from the fish market, to get the freshest since it's local- watch the budget but stay locally fresh.

At the vegetable market, the age old controversy came up about gender - I'll just say innie's and outie's... on vegetables. We were speaking primarily about eggplants. Some say there aren't any genders because it takes both to make the flower which later turns into a fruit (eggplants are technically a fruit although it's prepared like a vegetable). Others say, there are genders and you can tell by looking at the bottom of the eggplant which one is female or male.

I really have no idea but do notice some eggplants have more seeds than others and the supposed physical difference. When picked young, eggplants have a little bit of seeds... or if picked mature, there are of course more seeds. Some mature eggplants have more seeds than others. The seeds are what make them bitter tasting so the less seeds, the better tasting the eggplant - and if you follow the gender rule - the males contain less seeds. So if you are shopping and don't want to waste your buck on the bitter ones, just look at the bottom where the flower was attached and figure out which one is male and purchase it.

Or you can plead ignorance (or just not care) purchase any eggplant, cut it up and soak it in salt. The salt will draw out the bitterness and will result in a sweeter tasting eggplant/ meal. Or you can just purchase the heavy one - heavy ones mean more veggie portion and less seeds.




Supposedly you can tell genders on any eggplant although these are a bit difficult.













American eggplant are the easiest to tell because of their size. These are a little bit better to tell the gender, if you decide to do so.

Can you tell the difference?





I got these pictures off of the internet - flickr. The bottom pictures is a little easier to tell which is which. If you decide to do some homework or research yourself I've been informed that the eggplant bottoms that look like belly buttons are females - they are indented and round whereas the males are not dented, most times smooth and look more like a slash or scar.

Good luck to those that care about eggplant genders.

uni

Today's class was way cool. We all had a chance to dissect a sea urchin (uni)... it was better than a biology class! Taking a pair of scissors, we had to cut out the mouth in order to break it open. There's a lot of teeth too. Amaze me! It's a good thing they only feed on seaweed.

sorry folks...kinda graphic but I thought the sea urchin mouth was really cool. We cut it out in order to get to the eggs. And wear gloves because the spikes leach their dye and it gets all over the place - can't be making purple nigiri.

sea urchin - it's a spendy dish but tasty. The yellowish brown goop is the only portion you eat out of the sea urchin... it's the eggs. There are 5 egg pouches per creature.

you can have any type of nigiri as long as it's squid... we have different types of cutting skills but all the nigiri on this platter is squid... except for the cucumber and the orange stuff is tobiko (flying fish roe) mixed with strips of squid.

nigiri platter - tuna, sea urchin, halibut and pompano

the famous fish chips I was telling you about yesterday. dried, deep fried and seasoned... they are crispy crunchy just like a chip. almost everyone in class likes them. almost.

nigiri

Yesterday was the first day of second session. We still have 7 students - same ones so we're all familiar with each other. This session is only focused on sushi making - this is the class everyone has been waiting for and will be judged on our timing, skills and accuracy.

Our first task was to make nigiri - rice balls. We spent all day yesterday learning how to make a rice ball. It's a bit more technical than I thought. We have 8 steps to follow and when you're rushed, you forget the steps or better yet, mix up the steps.

Our class goal is to make 8 nigiri in 2 minutes. Yes, we're timed and today I only made 6 which most of them fell apart - not good at all. Some of my classmates made 5 and 7 but they were too big. So far, none of us has made a perfect rice ball - size, weight, looks. Takes practice.

We're also learning how to filet various sea foods. Yesterday was a review on how to filet salmon and tuna and how to cut it into sushi/ sashimi form. Today we dissected pomano (cute little fish), scallop and squid. Amazingly, the scallop had a huge liver - almost the size of my hand. I've never seen such a little creature have such a large liver before. So I asked if it was natural... thinking maybe the scallops were bred for their liver - like foie gras. Nope... that huge liver was normal - in season liver. Wow. Then we learned how to make bone chips - literally. We air dried the pomano skeleton then deep fried it, seasoned it and made good eats... like a potato chip -salty and crispy.

scallop liver - some are brown like this one, others are red

scallop liver dynamite

sushi - pomano, scallop (2 kinds - nigiri and in seaweed), shrimp

stuffed squid sushi

squid tempura roll

session 1 final

Final day is here and done. Whew! For the final we had a written and hands-on - time limit of 3 hours. I think I over-crammed because I totally blanked out on all my Japanese terminology. Luckily though, after intently staring at the test my brain started working again and was able to recall the correct answers.

We made a sushi platter comprising of:

2 cucumber rolls

1 California roll
1 temaki roll - and plating/ decoration also counts.

As well as an appetizer utilizing one of the Japanese cooking techniques. I made a shiitake squid salad with plating and decorations, searing it by fire. At first it looked like a clown face with the spinach leaves as the eyes, tobiko - red nose and the sauce as a smiley mouth... I had to change the presentation by putting sauce all around the plate and smearing it a the last minute. Good save. One thing I mixed up was my seasons... shiitake are currently in seasonfor Fall but squid is a Summer food item.

shiitake mushrooms, squid, spinach salad with a yuzu (citrus/ lime) sake sauce garnished with green onion and red tobiko.

shikai maki

More pics of sushi. Today was pretty much a play day to "invent" vegetarian rolls.

shikai maki (egg, tuna, white rice and adzuki rice)

green roll - with asparagus, green bean, kaiwara, avocado, cucmber with honey siracha sauce
















not sushi - this was a demo on some new products we just got... wasabi gelee (wasabi jello - the white square thing in the back) and gold foil gelee (3 gold colored balls) with red onion, avocado in a cherry tomato










novelty item - gold foil gelee (gelatin/ jello). this 2 ounce container is approximately $80.

bestest cake ever!

Ok, maybe not ever but this was a pretty good tasting cake... My roommate asked if I wanted to bake a cake for her work - September birthday people. Crazy thing is my other roommate's mother works at the same place and this month is her birthday. Anyway, she really enjoys pineapple upside down cake. I had a really good recipe too but somehow, it got misplaced in the move. I ended up having to search out a new one and I'm usually quite leery of new recipes - I like to try the recipe out before I present someone with a cake that way I can change the recipe if need be (and they don't ever get a horrid cake. How embarrassing!) Anyway, I ended up making it and it's actually one of the ugliest cakes I've ever made. I was really disappointed... but the flavor really makes up for it - makes you wanna cry it's so good. hehehe. I'm sure my roommates think I'm an alcoholic since I cook with a lot of it and even put some rum in this cake.

Meanwhile, this is finals week.

seafood cucumber roll for those that don't like seaweed

tuna avocado dynamite

fried salmon asparagus sunset roll

weekend mini adventure

Kinda busy but fun weekend. Had a chance to go kayaking which was a lot of fun out in the Newport bay area. It was real nice - there was a wildlife sanctuary there. Saw couple of cranes, pelicans and couple of fish jumping. Haven't been kayaking in a couple of years... and yes, I did wear a life jacket and I still don't know how to swim.

Then I went to my first ever hockey game. Anaheim Mighty Ducks against the Phoenix Coyotes. There sure was a lot of fighting on the ice. I don't get hockey - I get the part where the puck is suppose to go into the other teams net but other than that I'm totally clueless. I kept asking my friend but it was more like the blind leading the blind. Makes interesting entertainment. Mighty Ducks lost 1-2 after going into over-time.

sushi for lunch

Today we made 2 rolls - salmon skin and shrimp tempura. For practice, we made the two rolls we learned yesterday - cucumber roll and california roll. We also covered a few more plating styles.

Today's assignment and plating:

shrimp tempura roll

salmon skin roll

california roll

california roll - triangle shape

cucumber roll

cucumber roll - tear drop shape

my lunch tray

some of my classmate's lunch trays

ham mono!

Yahoo! We finally started making sushi today... with the easy ones. I think I need more practice though. Regardless, it was a yummy lunch!

These past few weeks we have been studying the hot entree side of the kitchen going through all the traditional types of cooking - raw, grill, steam, simmer, deep fry, noodle dishes, rice dishes and now finally, what we've all signed up for! There were some good meals in the other types of cookery but this sushi stuff is the bomb! We were also studying ettiquette, napkin folds, displays, plating, etc. From today on, we will studying only sushi - other wise called ham mono.

My instructor - Sensei - was telling us our goal when we complete school is to make one cucumber roll (kappa) in one minute. We all thought that is really fast but he said a poor sushi chef can make 160 rolls in one hour - that's alittle over 2 1/2 rolls per minute! Then an average sushi chef can make 180 rolls in an hour... and a really good chef, well this person can make 200+ rolls in one hour - and this is making the roll, cutting it and plating it. That is really fast.

flower cucumber roll with sesame seeds - it definately took me longer than a minute!

california roll (top)

cucumber roll with sesame seeds

spicy tuna roll (top)

california roll with tobiko

earthquake

I did wake up to something strange yesterday. I didn't know quite what it was and thought that the cat got in my room and pounced on the bed... but it wasn't the cat. My friends said it was an earthquake.

Had it confirmed today after class. The earthquake was a 4.7 - a baby. Hey! My first earthquake experience. So strange since I lived in San Francisco, and I don't think there were any the whole year and a half I was there. There were two that I do know of - one before I got there and one after I left but none while I was there.

So my roommates got me interested in playing on the Nintendo. We played some weird line game and of course, I lost a majority of them. Believe it or not we played 42 games. They finally went to sleep but I kept on playing and forgot all about the time. When I looked at the clock it was almost 2 AM. It's a good thing I don't need much sleep during the week since I have to wake up by 530! At least the traffic was light this morning due to the Labor day holiday.

freshness - a different meaning

There was a video we watched in class of a sushi bar in Japan. The little shop was full of fish tanks where you choose your meal by just pointing at the fish or whatever creature you wanted to eat. The sushi chef would get it, slice it up and serve it. In this instance, the guest picked some sort of white fish, when the chef presented the plate to the guest the fish was still breathing - trying to breathe by opening and closing it's mouth. How freaky. Then the guest went on to a crab... I'm not sure what kind it was but it looked like a snow crab. The chef chose one of many in the tank, ripped off it's leg, fixed it up and served it. It was funny because the leg was still twitching on the plate!

Wow, that's fresh seafood!

I went to this party and met someone else with a Harley. I sure do wish I brought my bike with me, I'd have another person to go riding with. I sure do miss it! Just a few more months of not riding. Or perhaps I can convince my roommate to let me ride hers. Hehehe...