3rd Time's the Charm?

For New Year's Eve Dinner, I made a dish that I discovered and fell in love with this year, Arroz Con Pollo. (Yes, I wrote about that earlier- Lunch Club). This is the 3rd time I've made this dish now in the past year, and it still takes me over 2 hours! How can I not be cutting down the cooking time, when the author says it should take under 1 hour? I realize distractions in my kitchen do not help my efficiencies, but I should be getting better at dealing with that. I had two observers in my kitchen last night, but in 1 week I'll be in a kitchen with 20+ cooks! By now I think I should be able to operate with a few interruptions or 2nd quarter is going to be quite a challenge!

In Quarter 2 of Culinary School, my class of 27 students will be preparing the Student Lunch for the 150+ hopeful chefs & bakers in the entire program. It will be a very interesting challenge to say the least. During one of the 12 weeks, I will have to prepare 1 dish of my choice which I was hoping to be the above mentioned Hispanic treat. However, I really need to cut down on the cooking & prep time I'm at right now or it won't make the lunch deadline! We'll see how it goes...I start on January 5th, so wish me luck!

Comments

Lunch Club!

At my office we have a "Lunch Club" that gets together about once a week. There are currently 7 people in the group ranging from a recent college grad, to a father of 2 tweens and even the boss woman (who is a great French/Canadian cook)! Each member agrees to cook 1 lunch over the 7 week period, so you are enjoying several homemade meals and only cooking once! It's a brialliant plan really, one that I'm quite proud to be part of! This past week was my turn to cook and that meant the most difficult part of all...chosing a recipe from the hundreds floating around my house in magazines and cookbooks. Trying to be quick and decisive, I grabbed the current issue of Natural Health I was reading and committed to making something from inside, as long as it looked good and didn't call for excessively priced ingredients. The April 2009 issue included a focus on Latin Cooking with Ingrid Hoffmann, host of "Delicioso" (airs on The Food Network, too bad we can't...

The End is Near

On January 4 th I will begin my 5 th & final quarter of culinary school. It's been 15 months of 5 am alarms, full-time student/part time worker budget & a whole lot of stress. But it has also been rewarding and a great deal of fun. I have made some life-long friends and countless connections I hope to carry me through to where I want to be. The problem now is to figure out where that is. How do you decide where to direct your focus in life? When does the sign show up, telling you where to go, what to do, who to be? I've done this once, graduated from college, took a job, worked a 9-5...and was quite successful at it. So, what's the hold up now?? The uncertainty I feel regarding my next career move is enough to cause shortness of breath, nervous actions and mental blocking to keep myself from over thinking about the decisions I have to make. Today I'm going to spiff up my resume and apply for some jobs. Or, at least make some connections, since there aren'...

Yes, I went to Culinary School. No I am not a Chef.

I am passionate about cooking, local food and all things related to the category of eating. In support of small farmers and local produce, a deep love for all the seasons of the year and fresh ingredients, delicious at their peak. I crave a long morning, afternoon, or even all day, spent in the kitchen; whether alone or with company of friends, family or strangers. I followed this passion toward a career when I hit that quarter life crisis – the period where 20 something’s realize working for a living really is not easy & life before this phase didn’t have as many responsibilities as we thought (why didn’t I listen to that advice at the time??). Anyway, when I struggled in my “full-time” office career, I dropped it all to pursue a love life with food and cooking. I let go of the reliability of my job and took out a loan and a leap of faith on somewhat pricey, long term cooking lessons known as a formal Culinary Education. I loved it! The stress of the kitchen, 35 hours of clas...

Cooking Through Life

Search This Blog