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Confessions of a chef as a culinary student

Beaten seared and sauced. Looking at the cover book picture I am reminded of the egg seperators that we saw at the Fountain Hills art and craft fair. small cups that look like an owl with a slit for a mouth that will stop the yellow from leaving the cup.
You have seen many optical illusions where same sized white and dark squares appear different size.  Try mit checker shadow illusion. But how about palate manipulation with light and dark chocolate assortments.
Magus
CIA professor had vegetables cuts cast in plastic so that the aspiring chefs had something to compare against while sharpening their cutting skills.
Chasseur
Fricassee
Gribiche. Lebovitz's take
Arepa
Gastrique
Moo goo gai pan
The truth of tea leaves picked by trained monkeys.
seasoning the pan
When the author talks about identifying everything on the table by taste, I was reminded of the scene in Hereafter where the culinary class has to recognise the igredients when blindfolded, by taste. At CIA, you should know the answer to 5 differences between sauteing and panfrying.
sauteuse pan.
Guanciale
one spice two spice
Meat slicers come with numbers to configure them to slice other things like ginger.
sweating leeks and garlic
Authentic mexican
The author learns how to recognise if the onion rings were done, by listening to the noise of the hot oil.
ghaliyeh maygoo
According to the author, a foogoth base is a mix of shallots, garlic, black poppy seeds, curry leaves, julienned kokum, birds eye chili, and sauteed fresh,grated coconut.



The book has a good description of what you can expect at a culinary school. It is not just exams, but hours of cooking. The externship seems to be quite a hardship. It is disappointing that after the many hours he put in at a restaurant, he wasnt given the respectational farewell treatment of ice bath dunk. It is interesting to see how the author's relation with food in terms of cooking changes. Pre CIA he enjoyed entertaining friends with his cooking but later he is not after it that much. His way of celebrating the graduation is with fresh ingredients brought from the local farms instead of eating out at a restaurant. I also like the groundedness of the author in realising that he is not cut out to be a chef in a restaurant. You cant miss the author's love for music all through the book.

Author's blog




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