Are you as bored as I am?

Nothing to photograph. No interesting stories to relate.

It's all about the project. Today, Andrea and I prepared a labor schedule and then I worked on developing the right balance between appropriate staffing and reasonable expenses. Linked Excel spreadsheets make "what if" calculations a breeze. Andy made little paper kitchen fixtures and moved them around on a piece of graph paper, working on the ideal floor plan. Derrick and Andrea surfed the web for useful data on Emeryville.

JIm revised the survey and had Chef Larry print him out some copies. We gave Jim the "assignment" of conducting a survey of potential customers. To be honest, none of us really wanted to do it, and when you don't show up, you risk getting the crap assignments. Also, we can actually complete the rest of the project in great detail without survey results.

Of course, if this were real life, we'd need to conduct extensive market research, including surveys, in order to see if our plan was on target. If this were real life, though, Jim would have been axed a long time ago. Unless his dad was an investor.

Breakeven at 7am

Nothing like starting off the week with a little algebra. Chef Larry highlighted the importance of the breakeven point: it's the point at which you start to make a profit, but more importantly, the point where you are generating funds with which to pay back the principal on your (inevitable) loans.

After some math, we caught the shuttle for our field trip to Economy Restaurant Fixtures. The salesman there gave us a brief tour of the kitchen equipment department. Did you know that a Hobart mixer is essentially depreciation-free? Apparently, the company's reputation is so solid, and the products are so well made, that you can pay $14,000 for a mixer today, and you'll be able to get $14,000 for it after using it for seven years.

We took some notes (and some free Jelly Bellies: Sarah's pockets were sagging as we walked back to the shuttle stop), then returned to North Campus for further adventures in restaurant planning. Andrea took a planned day off, but Andrew also didn't show up -- and the restaurant floor plan is his part of the project. Hopefully, we've collected sufficient data to build a rough equipment schedule.

Do you know how hard it is to find commercial garbage rates online? And the Alameda County Health Department website is not all that user-friendly, either.

Before dismissing us, Chef Larry discussed how a SWOT analysis can be used in this kind of planning. We'll have to build one as part of the Market Study portion of our report. In terms of weaknesses, not only is the neighborhood a little sketchy, as David continually reminds me (but it's pretend!), but our team is less than 100% solid. And that's real.

Market Research

Our visit to Economy Restaurant Equipment was postponed until Monday because of staff in-service training. Chef Larry gave us a short lecture on planning a kitchen, the things you need to think about: essentially, food flow, people flow. Remember, "a freezer is a black hole," so get a small one. And you want to design so that the waiters come into the kitchen as infrequently as possible, "if at all." ("Oh, it's definitely 'us vs. them'".)

We did two written exercises on profit and loss statements, calculating subtotals and percentages and getting more familiar with the template P&L document, which is set to the NRA (national restaurant association) standard, starting with Food and Beverage Sales, decreased by Food and Beverage Expenses to get Cost of Goods Sold. My classmates were astounded to hear that they'd have to pay royalties to play music in their restaurants, even if it was just music off their personal iPods.

At 10, we were dismissed in order to do site surveys. Andrea and Andy met Derrick and I in front of the Office Depot in Emeryville, then we took a short driving tour of the vicinity. We stopped at the site and peeked through the cracks in the curtained windows, excitedly talking about the changes we'll need to make to our plans now that we've all had a chance to see the place. "I wish there was someone here to let us in," Andrea said.

Then we took a drive through the 'hood. First, under the freeway (across the Clty Line) and into Oakland, where it was a mere block and a half before we saw a lady of the .... morning, actually. Those lucite heels are a dead giveaway. In the other direction, we drove past recently erected condominium complexes, all metal railings and angles, "now selling in the low $700s." We cruised through the Bay Street district, which Derrick compared to Santana Row, but I had to tell him that Santana Row is far better, family loyalties being what they are. We drove north on San Pablo for a few blocks, and I pointed out the card room, which possibly deserves mention in our report as an "indirect competitor." We circled the Pixar campus and concluded our tour at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, in order to get a first-hand look at one of our direct competitors. Andy was annoyed that the orange-haired pigtailed waitress called Andrea "babe," but didn't give him the same courtesy. We analyzed the restaurant's Q factor: all the edible items that are provided to the diner at no cost. While there's nothing in the way of amuse bouche, the table is cluttered with sugars (five kinds), honey, mustards, ketchup, salt and pepper shakers and tabasco, green and red. "That's a lot of money on an annual basis if they're not accounting for it," Andy said. He hasn't been sleeping through class.

On our way back to the car, we passed Rudy's kitchen entrance, where a dozen or more empty cardboard boxes cluttered the stairs, overflowing onto the sidewalk. "At CityLine, we will have a box flattener," Andy noted. He's in charge of the labor scheduling. He and Andrea headed back to the City, where they both work restaurant shifts this afternoon and evening. I dropped Derrick off at MacArthur BART, and now I'll continue working on my recipe pricing.

Happy Friday!

"A Big Nut To Cover"

Chef Larry gave an abbreviated lecture today, about the calculation assumptions for our restaurant profit & loss statement, then we had free project time until 10:30, when our guest speaker arrived. Steve Zimmerman is a restaurant broker and told us an amazing amount of information in 90 minutes. If I were in the market to buy a restaurant, I'd certainly look to him for advice and assistance.

But I shouldn't be looking for a restaurant, at least not for five years. That's his recommendation, anyway: culinary school plus at least five years of on-the-job experience. That's only one of the critical factors for success. Others are location (primarily, a solid base of residential neighbors who will become "regulars"), adequate capitalization (including at least six months projected labor costs, in reserve), professional management, and consistent food, service and cleanliness. Oh, and it helps if you are simpatico with your partner(s), if any: Steve said most restaurants come on the market because of partnership disputes.

He gave us the "extremely abbreviated" lowdown on leases: ideally, five years with a 5 year option, not to exceed 6% to 8% of your total sales. In SF, rents are ranging from $1 per square foot to $10, in Union Square and the Metreon and the like. He said most new restaurants are "built out," meaning already existing as restaurants, then refurbished, as opposed to "built to suit," which costs between $300 and $500 per square foot for tenant improvements, fixtures and equipment. Another benefit of buying an existing restaurant is licensing, especially liquor licenses, which are distributed via a lottery system and can entail years of waiting or expensive separate transactions.

Even though "built out" establishments are far less expensive to get into than a "build to suit," the cost of the restaurant is only the beginning. For a business costing $150,000, for example, you might have additional fees and costs of up to $350,000, for redecorating, staff recruitment and training, marketing, permits, and the all-important cash reserves. As he said, "It's a big nut to cover."

You shouldn't consider your friends or family as a source for capital. "Life is too short," he said. "This business can ruin relationships." Instead, a good investor is a person with sufficient wealth such that losing the investment in your restaurant will not affect her personal wealth. How do you find such a person? Actually, in the best scenario, they find you, by virtue of your excellent cooking.

Just Like a Wood-Ear Mushroom

This project seems to be expanding, just like the mushrooms we soaked in Asian Cuisine, to four times its original size. Jim came to class today, but none of us knew what to do with him, which made for some awkward moments: you can't rely upon him to appear or perform, so it has to be a little something for the duration. Today, he worked with Derrick and Andy at developing a questionnaire for our market survey. Then they continued working on the floor plan. Andy's got an outdoor seating area drawn in one of his plans: you get there via a "Serenity Path."

Meanwhile, Andrea was working on the mission statement and the concept, several pages describing our restaurant in detail. She's given me the other half of the menu items, and I'm pretty much committed to doing the numbers, and not much else. Which is fine.

We worked on labor costing today, starting with a review of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act and culminating in the current $9.14 hourly minimum wage in San Francisco. Chef Larry has no qualms about expressing his intensely libertarian opinions. There aren't enough people in class with "experience" of any length to be able to conduct a real debate on any of these issues, and I'm curious sometimes as to what kind of an impression he's making. Will my classmates leave school with a deep antagonism towards unions and politicians?

The Core Four

That's what we'll be calling ourselves: Derrick, Andy, Andrea and me, as we slog through this project. Our fellow teammates, along with half of team B, weren't in class today but we made progress.

We get a lot of class time to work on this, which is a good thing, except that the computers are very slow. We did some exercises on menu cost analysis (including one by-hand spreadsheet that took about 40 minutes to complete, so that Chef Larry could teach us the principles behind the oh-so-quick Excel template.) Then we started on menu selection: at Chef's suggestion, we each wrote down dishes on post-its, then shuffled them around until we felt comfortable. Surprisingly, Derrick didn't have any dishes to recommend, whereas Andrea's just leaped off the top of her head, seemingly fully formed. Though I do think we'll be running a couple of dishes that she's been making three times a week at her apprenticeship restaurant.

This is what we've come up with:

appetizers
zucchini blossoms stuffed with crab and ricotta cheese with pesto and tomato vinaigrette
proscuitto-wrapped figs with gorgonzola, red wine reduction
fava bean bruschetta with basil, fennel, and lemon vinaigrette
marinated calamari and red peppers, goat cheese crostini

soups
minestrone with summer vegetables and sausage
roasted red pepper soup with creme fraiche and parmesan crisp

salads
arugula with pears, gorgonzola, and caramelized almonds with balsamic dressing
mixed greens with haricot verts, fingerling potatoes, and pesto vinaigrette

entrées
roasted half chicken with heirloom tomato panzanella
pan roasted halibut with sun dried tomato and olive tapenade, crispy potato cakes, and green beans
herb-crusted lamb loin with creamy polenta and wilted spinach; reduction sauce
pork chop, grilled peaches and escarole, celery root purée
pea shoot and pecorino risotto
pappardelle with asparagus and lemon cream sauce; grilled shrimp optional
rib eye steak with arugula, mushroom hash, and truffled mash

desserts
lavender panna cotta with simona's biscotti
zabaglione with fresh berries
apricot-plum galette with honeyed creme fraiche
chocolate hazelnut cake
affogato

beverages
s. pellegrino water: still or sparkling
basil lemonade
citrus iced tea
espresso

As you can see, we need to include four beverages in our costing matrix, but please be assured that we'll have a fully-stocked bar, as well.

Another part of our project includes doing a survey of potential customers. Please feel free to post your comments on the menu, and I'll include your feedback in our summary.

Derrick and Andy have taken on the kitchen plan and equipment list, and Andrea and I have split the menu items to begin costing. First step: find or develop recipes and create a worksheet for each one. That's this afternoon's project.

City Line

We started Culinary Management today, in the basement of the old building. No cooking -- consequently, no eating. Computers, again. Chef Larry is tall, mustachioed, and kind of gangly, and he appreciates it when someone laughs at his jokes. This is a two week class, half lecture, half project, and the project involves writing a business plan for a restaurant. Our group is me, Andy, Andrea, Derrick, Jim and Adam (who didn't come to class today). In some ways, this is a nightmare come true, but Andrea put a positive spin on it: "We'll just work to get the grade we want. We'll work as if it's a four person team."

Today we began drafting a mission statement, and considering where we wanted to put this restaurant. It's all theoretical, so we could pick an occupied location or not. But we'll have to do a neighborhood survey as part of our project, so Chef suggested that it be somewhat accessible. Andrea was pitching Cow Hollow/Pacific Heights, but we've agreed on my fantasy restaurant location, the City Line building on the Emeryville/Oakland border.I'm hot on this location because of its proximity to Pixar, Emeryville City Hall, and the growing number of housing units that are being developed in the neighborhood, not to mention all the traffic that's headed to and from the East Bay Bridge and Emery Bay shopping areas. Plus, it already has a cool sign that's visible from Highway 580. Andy wants to light it up. It's also a bit edgy, definitely up and coming but not quite there yet. I like that, too.

We have to develop a concept, do a market study, develop and price a menu, and provide recipes and yields. In addition, we have to build a menu matrix (details to come), prepare a graphed menu analysis, a labor schedule, and a one year profit and loss statement. We also need to provide a detailed kitchen floor plan and an equipment list, with costs and specifications. On Friday, we're taking a field trip to Economy Restaurant Fixtures, south of Market, where we'll be able to price our equipment.

Today, we spent some time brainstorming our restaurant concept and we've agreed we want it to be comfortable, hip but warm, with contemporary food based on the seasons. When Chef Larry read "contemporary," he said, "I feel like outlawing that word! What does it mean?" Clarification will come in time. Derrick is definitely in charge of the music mix and Andy's already begun sketching floor plans. We want to have some outdoor seating, along the north side of the building, probably. We've agreed on a bar. (Fortunately, we don't have to do any calculations based on liquor, for the purposes of this proposal.) We have to think about things like wait staff uniforms, dishware, ADA requirements for bathrooms, and equipment depreciation. I think it's going to be fun.

So, Hey, Maybe I Can Actually Learn Something

That's the point of going to school, right? And I'd be the first to admit that my plating technique often leaves something to be desired. So it should come as no surprise that Chef Rhoda was about as impressed with my appetizer plate today as she was with my entrée yesterday; in fact, my score was 80% on both items. But I liked my own work better today, so it didn't feel so bad.

My assignment today was "Appetizer, Thai" -- same geography as yesterday, so I didn't have to stretch much when pulling ingredients. I had about an hour to cook. During the night, before I'd been startled awake by the earthquake, I'd decided to make mini noodle pillows as a base, if I was assigned an appetizer. I also had an alternate plan for making soup. (I gave Andy my idea about including both plain and deep-fried cubes of tofu in his miso soup.)

I started the water boiling and grabbed a handful of fresh egg noodles, and I pulled some ahi, pork loin, and shrimp out of the refrigerator. I cooked the noodles and tossed them with some sesame oil and minced green onions. I started on the shrimp by peeling and deveining them, then sautéing them until partially cooked in garlic and ginger. I took out the shrimp and added some chicken stock, yellow curry paste and curry powder to the pan, and reduced it a bit. Then I stirred in some coconut milk and some diced mango, and let that simmer slowly. I marinated the ahi (soy, fish sauce, ginger, garlic, honey) and the pork (sweet chili sauce, hot chili sauce, lime juice, ginger, garlic) and heated up a sauté pan for the noodle pillows. I curled up a couple of noodles for each pillow and fried them gently in oil, until they were browned. Then I pan-seared the tuna and the pork, added the shrimp back to the curry sauce, plated, garnished, and served it up to the Chef.
"Oh, doesn't this look nice!" Chef said, when I placed the plate in front of her. Then she began poking it with her fork. She thought the plate would be more interesting if I had a different base for each appetizer, like a slice of cucumber, or some soft noodles ("so the sauce could drip on them"), or a pile of shredded carrots. "Thais like those pickled vegetables," she said, obviously forgetting the ones I served yesterday that she dissed. She wanted stronger Thai flavors in the ahi and the pork, but she thought the shrimp was perfect. 12 out of 15.

By the time we finished our dish presentations, it was only 9:15. While some of the class did dishes and "deep cleaned" the stoves, Andy and Andrea and I made a "family meal," utilizing some of the product we had left in the refrigerator. Andy made seafood penne pasta with basil/spinach cream sauce. Andrea fried some calamari and made a spicy mayo sauce. I cooked another three duck breasts (five in two days: I can do this!) and made a big salad platter with mangoes, cashews, cilantro, cherry tomatoes, red bell peppers, and chopped eggs.

We ate and cleaned up, then took the second part of our written final. The first half was yesterday: 60 true/false questions about Asian products. Today was 30 more questions about ingredients and techniques. (What are the four major ingredients in Japanese cooking? Soy sauce, dashi, miso, sake.) We watched the final episode of "Cooking Under Fire," the PBS series, and the tough, ballsy girl got the job. Then we were dismissed. I asked Chef Rhoda to sign my copy of her 1977 Dim Sum book. She said, "When you read this, it will sound like me! I wrote every word!"

I'll be lucky to get a B.

Soy un perdedor, I'm a loser, baby

How appropriate for the Beck song "Loser" to come on the radio just as I was accelerating onto eastbound 80. 'Cause that's totally the way I was feeling after class today. It was individual competition, entrée day, and I didn't give Chef my best work.

It all started out calmly enough. I had one hour and 15 minutes to prepare an entrée with starch and vegetable. My assignment was "duck breast, Thai," and I immediately wrote down the taste profile: sweet, savory, hot and sour. I knew I wanted to make mashed potatoes. Don't ask me why. I thought about a slaw made with cabbage salad. I collected a bunch of ingredients and started on the potatoes. Easy enough to peel and chop them, then place them in a pan of water on the stove.

The duck breast needed a little trimming, then I cut slits in the fat layer and made a marinade of tamarind juice, fish sauce, lemon grass, galangal, red chili flakes, and brown sugar. I plopped the duck in the sauce and moved on to the salad.

Surprisingly, we had no cabbage -- I was hoping for the soft, lacy napa cabbage -- so I peeled a japanese cucumber, sliced a red onion, minced a red jalapeno, and dressed it all in rice vinegar, sesame oil, salt and pepper. I left that to pickle a bit.

I wanted my potatoes to be somewhat Thai flavored, so I roasted some red and green jalapenos, then peeled and minced them. I added a crushed chunk of lemongrass to some cream and put that on the stove to warm up. I started the duck on a sauté pan over low heat, skin side down. The skin side needs to cook slowly over medium heat so that most of the fat under the skin renders out. After the skin was nicely browned, I put the duck in the oven to finish cooking. My biggest concern was that it would be under- or over-cooked.

I poured out most of the duck fat from the sauté pan and started a sauce, deglazing the pan with tamarind juice and adding some of the marinade. As it was cooking, I added chopped mango.

With everything in place and about 15 minutes to spare, I cleaned up my area a bit and did some dishes. Then I did the final prep and that's when everything just sort of caved in.

Not that it was bad, mind you. But it wasn't good. I drained the potatoes, added some butter, and began mashing them with a spoon. I poured cream in -- whoa, too much -- and rushed over to the sink to pour off as much liquid as I could. I pushed the potatoes through a sieve and flavored them with the minced peppers and salt, but they were way softer than I'd planned. I added some fresh mango and butter to the sauce, and let it cook down while I sliced the duck, which (big sigh) was perfectly cooked. I spread some sauce on my warmed plate, then realized that I should have placed it closer to the center of the dish. But time was ticking; I spooned on the potatoes, arranged the sliced duck, and added a little cucumber salad, and took it to Chef Rhoda for evaluation.She took one look at it and said, "This plate is all lopsided." She didn't like the fresh vegetables; she'd rather have seen something cooked. The potatoes were too soft and "didn't taste like anything," and the mangoes in the sauce were overripe or overcooked -- too squishy, at any rate. "A waste of good fruit," in fact. She tasted the duck and said, "This is cooked perfectly." After a couple of bites, she used her two plastic utensils to rearrange the food in a semblance of an acceptable presentation. "You should use a mold for the potatoes -- firm potatoes -- here" as she scooted them across the plate, "and fan the duck up like this." All in all, I received 24 of 30 points. The usual suspects hit the high 20s and I'm bummed.

But you gotta get right back on the horse, right? I picked up a mango and a duck breast on the way home from class, and I'll cook it again, for dinner.

"I’m a driver, I’m a winner; things are gonna change I can feel it..." - Beck

Putting on the thinking cap

In case you're at a loss for dinner ideas, check out this article in today's NYT. Mark Bittman is a genius.

Today was team competition day, and Derrick and I were pretty much resigned to being a team of two when Meghan and Jim showed up, 30 minutes late. We had a large selection of protein to work with, and Chef assigned us regions, and we had to produce the dishes at specific times. We divided up the work: Derrick made the salad, I did the soup and dessert, Meghan handled the appetizer, and Jim had the entrée and sides. Derrick was done first, of course, so he spent the rest of the time tasting and being helpful to the rest of us. We talked about our menu as a team, getting a pretty clear idea of what each course would be, then set about working individually to put them together. Our only real panic came when it was entrée time: Jim had a roasted piece of pork, and cooked some vegetables. The four of us did some quick work to heat and season the vegetables, and make a sauce for the meat.

This is what we ended up with:We had to make a Japanese-influenced salad, so Derrick deep-fried some vegetable tempura and served that on greens with a soy-sake vinaigrette.

For a "Southeast Asian" take on soup, I made chicken noodle, using ginger and green onion in the stock, flavoring the soup with coconut milk, adding diced bok choy, carrots, and chicken, serving it all on a pile of udon noodles. Chef said she would have used lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf in the stock and rice noodles instead of udon, and she thought some little cubes of deep-fried tofu would have added some needed color.For the appetizer course, we were required to serve seafood three ways. Meghan made seared tuna with wasabi cream, grilled shrimp with cilantro chutney, and a salmon napolean, using red pepper cream. Chef really liked our use of sweet potatoes in the Indonesia-inspired entrée, but our meat was slightly overcooked and "the sauce could use some work." (Duh.)We finished off with a Thai coffee mousse served with cashew-peanut brittle. Minus one point because the serving was too large. "But it's share food," Alex said.There was other notable food: Andrea made a great cucumber gazpacho.Silvia's appetizer plate was the best plate of the day. She made three different complex sauces to accompany the halibut, ahi, and scallop.Andrew's meat was cooked properly, but his sauce broke.Sarah and Sam used the Blue People tea to make a frozen yogurt that was really delicious, but Chef wasn't impressed by the plating.Each group received an overall score in the 90s. Chef said she's a hard grader but Not. At the end of the day, she said her only major recommendation was that we work more aggressively with the flavors of our assigned region. Tomorrow and Friday, we'll have a chance to do just that.

Sambal = cooked rempah

And rempah is the raw chili paste that is the basis of much Indonesian cooking: a combination of shallots, garlic, chilies, and dried shrimp or shrimp paste. Instead of mirepoix.

We finished our culinary tour of Asia today with virtual visits to Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Because of their geographical locations, these countries were frequent stops for sailors and traders and their food is quite diverse, as a result. There are curries, but with minimal heat. Coconut milk and galangal, as well as corn and zucchini.

I'm reading The Soul of a Chef, a few pages every night before I fall asleep, and in class we're seeing episodes of the 2005 PBS documentary/competition "Cooking Under Fire." Both are making me feel incompetent and inadequate and perhaps lacking The Right Stuff. Making delicious food. That's the goal. I'll have a chance to put it on the line for the rest of the week in Chef Rhoda's class. Tomorrow is team competition: an Iron-Chef-like challenge where each team has to produce a salad, soup, appetizer, entrée, and dessert, with ingredients to be disclosed at the beginning of class. On Thursday and Friday, we have individual competitions: one day, we have to make a side dish, on the other, an entrée, again, with parameters provided by the Chef. On one hand, I feel like I take this challenge almost every day (except here, I call it "What's For Dinner?") On the other hand, I could easily go into a big funk and wonder if I've actually even improved as a cook since November. But that would probably be a bad road to take. I'll sip my Blue People tea in my new green mug and try to think good thoughts.

Today I prepared Curry Chicken Tofu Soup, and I made it with skill and a clean workstation, and with love. The chicken is poached in stock and coconut milk, with lemongrass, galangal (a root similar to ginger), garlic, curry powder, and cumin. Meanwhile, tofu is drained then cubed then deepfried. When the chicken is cooked, it's removed from the stock which is strained, then carrots and mushrooms are added. When the carrots are cooked, the shredded chicken meat and tofu are added to the soup, along with cilantro and green onions. It's really very delicions.Meghan made Singaporean Fried Rice: sweet with raisins, hot with red chilies, and yellow with turmeric.
Derrick made these interesting corn fritters, called Perkedel Jagung in Indonesia. One of the ingredients is candle nut, a very oily nut which you can actually light on fire. Chef demonstrated it for us in class today. Chef said that macadamias make an acceptable substitute, and that's what I'll be using when I make these at home tonight.Of course, we must have noodles, and Andrea made these, Stir-Fried Curry Noodles with shrimp, chicken, and cooked egg.These are "Murtabak," a flat pastry made with spring-roll wrappers and filled with spiced ground beef.The chicken satay was delicious. Adam had to make the sauce twice. The first time, it tasted off, and it was determined that the peanut butter was rancid. So he tossed that can out and started again.This salad is called "Acar Jawa" and you start with a rempah, the ground chili mixture, then cook it in oil and it becomes a sambal. That is used as a basis of a spicy/sour dressing for blanched vegetables. Dessert was stuffed pancakes, fluffy coconut milk pancakes stuffed with fried peanuts and coconut flakes. Chef says that in Indonesia, these are sold on the street, on a banana leaf, but we had to do with parchment paper.

"Nice Food"

That's the name of the store where Chef Rhoda bought us a bunch of dim sum this morning, and we ate it standing on the street, sharing bites and making "yum" noises. Then she walked into the next shop and came out with a take-out box full of roasted duck, one that had been hanging in the window (head and all) just minutes before. More "yum" noises.

Our walking tour included a visit to the Tien Hau Temple on Waverly Place, where the caretaker was placing just-brewed cups of tea in front of the statues of the gods and goddesses. We passed the paper store, where you can buy elaborate paper "belongings" to burn at the graves of your loved ones, so they have the necessary items in the afterlife: paper houses and cars, paper cognac bottles, paper fast food. We peeked into the fortune cookie factory, where, despite automation, a little lady still has to grab the piping hot cookie off the baking surface and quickly stuff it and fold it into the requisite shape. We walked through the dry goods market, filled with bushels and bushels of dried fish, mushrooms, and other delicacies. Jordan was astounded to see deer tails selling for $350 each: "I just cut those things off and throw them aside," he said.

We stopped at the live game shop, where the customer used two hands to feel the chicken for plumpness before nodding to the shopkeeper, who put it in a bag for her. "It's still alive, isn't it?" asked Meghan. "Yes," said Chef. "But you can't take a live chicken on the bus. I once saw a lady wring a chicken's neck on the corner, so she could catch the next bus home."

We scoped out the kitchen implements store, where you can buy a 4-foot-long meat fork, "for roasting a pig," Chef said. And she took us to two tea tastings: the first at the elegant Imperial Tea Court on Powell Street, which has been designed to replicate a traditional Northern Chinese tea house, more of a social club. We received a short lecture on the history and processing of tea, then had a taste of jasmine, with an amazingly strong floral aroma and a more delicately flavored taste. We walked into one of Chef's favorite stores, the pet shop, so that we could see the beautiful fish. My classmates, more hip in the ways of Disney than I, were naming the various species: "There's Nemo. There's Dory."

Then we stopped at Vital Tea Leaf on Grant, a contemporary store designed like a wine bar, where we sat at a long counter and were entertained and served by Uncle Gee (who also demanded a hug before we left: "Now you are family!") He poured us five different teas, and gave us very specific directions about how to brew it. For example, after your kettle boils, wait a couple of minutes before pouring the water. Boiling water makes for bitter tea. The loose leaf teas from his store can be reused eight or ten times. (Within a 24 hour period -- otherwise, "You will be growing mushrooms!") We tasted another jasmine, a lychee black tea, crysanthemum, and puehr, the kind Chef Rhoda likes. Most remarkable was the tea called "Blue People," a ginseng-oolong blend with a beautiful sweet aftertaste. I could still taste the tea in my mouth when I retraced my steps back to the store with the roast duck, where I bought one and brought it home.

Bombay duck is a fish

A lizardfish, to be exact, and a stinky one, at that. Fortunately, today we just got the anecdote, not a real-life sample.

I saw Chef Stazi in the elevator yesterday afternoon, and he asked what class we had now. I told him we were in Asian, and he said "Oh, Chef YODA."

This morning, Chef Rhoda admitted that Indian cuisine, in all its regional variations, deserves a week of its own, but we do our best with one day. To grossly simplify, northern Indian cuisine uses meat and the tandoori oven, and the spice mixture known as garam masala and no turmeric. Southern cuisine is more commonly vegetarian or pescatarian, and uses curry spices, including turmeric.

Meghan and I made samosas, deep-fried savory treats filled with spiced potatoes and peas. I made the dough while she worked on the filling, then we both stuffed. We also made a version using spring roll wrappers, folded like a flag or like spanakopita. Those are more common to Burma.We had a variety of sauces: mango, tamarind, and mint chutneys, as well as raita (cucumber yogurt sauce) and a spicy cilantro-coconut paste.
Of course, we had dal: this one made from yellow mung beans. Andrea made aloo gobi, cauliflower and potato stew.Andy's shrimp curry with cashews was terrific. It included poppy seeds, sun-dried and cherry tomatoes, and just enough coconut milk to add richness.The tandoori-style chicken was marinating since yesterday, then grilled today and finished off in the oven. Yogurt in a marinade really does impart a wonderful succulent quality to the meat. In case you're wondering, it's food coloring.We finished off lunch with khir, a delicious rice pudding, generously spiced with cardamom and studded with almonds and raisins. Andrea pointed out something interesting today: most of our chefs have repeatedly confused Jim and Derrick, the two small Filippino students in our class. But Chef Rhoda confuses Alex and Andy, the two tall blond boys.

Andy and I took a plate of leftover samosas down to the first floor Advanced Baking & Pastry class and we were impressed by the welcome we received from Chef Lorianne. She asked about our process and ingredients, then loaded up a 12" cardboard cake round for us to take back to class: little slices of beautifully decorated cakes. As Andy carried them back across the hall, we encountered a big group of junior-high-sized students and their chaperones, on a tour of the school. Everybody ooh'd and aah'd at our desserts and we chatted while waiting for the elevator. It reminded us of the enthusiasm we had before we started school, and it reminded me once again how lucky I am to be spending my days this way.

"Monday we're going you-know-where!"

Chef Rhoda must have grandchildren. She used her excited grandma voice to remind us about our field trip on Monday. I drove through Chinatown yesterday on my way across town, and I'm glad we're going to have an escorted tour. I want the inside scoop. Today, Chef showed us the three items we may want to buy from the herbalist: a balm for burns, some pills that help ward off the cold and flu, and a powder to use on cuts. She keeps a supply of all of them in her cabinet in our kitchen.

Today, we cooked food from Myanmar (Burma) and the Philippines. Both Derrick and Jim have parents born in the Philippines, so all morning long, they were being asked about the authenticity of the dishes we were producing. Derrick made the chicken adobo but it's not the way his mom makes it: he asked her about the potatoes in our recipe, and she said they only do that when lots of people are coming to dinner, and you need to stretch it. Today's version also had a bit of coconut milk added at the end, which is optional, according to Chef. It was just enough to tone down the vinegar, not enough to add a strong coconut flavor.Neither Jim nor Derrick are used to the lumpia with open ends, but the homemade ones I've had look just like the ones we made today. Chef said it's so you can drizzle the sauce inside.Chef admitted that Crab Rangoon is not a Burmese dish, even though it's named after the country's capital, but an invention of Trader Vic's. "But everyone really likes them!" she said. "Make a lot."Our lecture was more politically tinged than usual. Chef talked about Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese activist who's been kept under house arrest for most of the last 18 years by the military junta, the ludicrously named "State Peace and Development Council." "It's a beautiful country," Chef said, "but it's right not to travel there." Most of my classmates were unfamiliar with this woman, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991; her ongoing struggle to bring democracy to Burma is "on the back burner," Chef said, while the international community focuses its attentions on the Middle East. Her life is an inspiration and helps me put my "troubles" back in perspective.

"But there is one thing and that is we must always have hope. There is a difference between having hope and dreaming. It is not wrong to have hope but you have to work towards achieving that hope. Just sitting down and dreaming will not do. Have one vision and struggle to achieve it."

Where's Andy?

He's missed class so infrequently that rumors begin to spin when he doesn't show up today. Alex thinks it's a simple case of a well-earned mental health day. "He works so much, he just needs to sleep til one in the afternoon once in a while."

We studied Vietnamese food today. The French legacy: bread! ("Bánh mì" is the sole sandwich indigenous to southeast Asia: a baguette filled with pork or other protein, topped with marinated julienned vegetables.) And there's coffee, also a gift from France. Vietnamese coffee is strong and sweet. Not as sweet as Derrick wanted to make it, though. He miswrote Chef Rhoda's recipe and added 2-1/2 cups of sweetened evaporated milk to his gallon of coffee instead of the specified 1/2 cup, much to Chef's dismay. Fortunately, the milk was thick enough to sink to the bottom of his container and Chef carefully poured off the lighter liquid, managing to salvage the entire batch.

Yesterday we had Thai iced tea. Both today's coffee and Thai iced tea start with special blends. Thai coffee (look for a package marked "Oliang Powder Mix") contains ground corn and soybeans as well as coffee. Vietnamese sometimes includes chicory, like you get from Café du Monde in NOLA. The tea consists of black tea as well as star anise, tamarind, and other spices. Both beverages are topped with sweetened condensed milk and/or cream. Chef Rhoda said she'd point out the shop where we can purchase the mixes, during our Chinatown tour on Monday.

Derrick and I cooked pho ga (chicken pho): beef is more traditional but it takes more time than we have in a class session. We cooked a chicken in chicken stock along with ginger, cinnamon, black peppercorns, star anise, and green onions, then strained and degreased the stock and added slices of chicken breast. We served it in traditional style: with garnishes of rice noodles and cilantro, green onion, mint, thai basil, bean sprouts, and jalapenos.

Sam made a recipe called "Catfish in Clay Pot," but it was seabass, and a large sauté pan. She made a spicy and sweet sauce, then added lightly browned fish fillets.
Silvia made shrimp and crab cakes, studded with large chunks of juicy shrimp and served with a sweet and spicy dipping sauce. Meghan made the spring rolls, a little hand-held salad. She got extra kudos from Chef for her beautifully minced green onions.Andrea made roast beef salad, starting with a chunk of beef filet that she seared on all sides, then sliced. The rare beef was tossed with lots of fresh herbs and red onions, and a lemongrass-jalapeno dressing. This homely-looking rice casserole was succulent and delicious. It's essentially two dishes: a stir-fry of chicken and shiitake mushrooms, stirred in to a lemongrass-flavored pilaf. We also had a black-eyed pea salad, and marinated grilled pork, served with lettuce and rice noodles. Today's delightful dessert was a big improvement over yesterday's debacle: still-warm tapioca, cooked with coconut milk, and studded with slices of banana and little slivers of water chestnuts.We ended the day with a Jeopardy-style review of the material for tomorrow's midterm, on China. We have to know the difference between choan choy (salted turnip) and ja choy (Sichuan pickled mustard greens), and that Chinkiang vinegar is similar in flavor and usage to balsamic. And that Northern China is famous for hot pot, barbecue, and buns. And that green tea is from Eastern China, where the flavor profile is soy sauce, vinegar, and rice wine. Among other things.

"Don't Improvise!"

Chef Rhoda reached a breaking point when she saw that Alex and Andrew had added the noodles to the soup. "The noodles are served separately! You didn't read the recipe!" The boys, working as a team, were a veritable sideshow of hilarity, cracking each other up with one liners and silly voices, working all the while. Andy put together the tray of condiments that accompany the curry soup ("kao soi"):Meanwhile, Alex worked on the soup itself, a blend of chicken stock and yellow and red curry pastes, full of chicken chunks. Chef Rhoda told us that this was one of her favorite dishes, and here they were, not following directions. Andy looked at me sheepishly. "Well, I've done it again," he said. I suggested that they strain out the noodles and rinse them off. It really was wonderful soup.Thailand is unique among Southeast Asian countries: it has never been occupied by a Western nation. It is a very functional nation, with Western-savvy rulers who adapted yet remained autonomous. Consequently, Thai cuisine is relatively free of outside culinary influences, and therefore quite distinctive.

Derrick and I made this morning's "appetizer," Miang Kum, a plate full of garnishes, some special sauce, and spinach leaves. You pile little spoonsful of the minced garnishes (dried shrimp, toasted coconut, fried peanuts, shallots, chilies, ginger, and lime -- including the rind) onto a spinach leaf. You drizzle on some sauce, made with coconut sugar, fish sauce, and ground coconut and peanuts. You fold it up and stick it in your mouth and seriously: it explodes with flavor. Party food, without a doubt.

With our mouths exploding, we all set about cooking. Fish sauce is the soy sauce of Thailand. It's remarkably stinky but mellows immediately when mixed with other ingredients. They use a lot of coconut cream and tamarind juice, as well as that great almost clear sweet chili sauce that comes in the tall bottle. We had Chiang Mai chicken salad.These are super-sticky Spicy Angel Wings.We had to have pad thai.My dish was the only disappointment of the day, and thanks to Chef Rhoda for saying, "But it's not Cooklady's fault." I was assigned to make sweet sticky rice, but the afternoon Chef apparently soaked jasmine rice (or something equally unsuitable) instead of the glutinous rice necessary for successful stickiness. It was a disappointment. He should have listened to Chef Rhoda: "Don't improvise!"

Japan and Korea: Compare and Contrast

Remarkably: we were eight students today. Oh well. As Chef Vinita would say, "We are perfectly staffed."

Having finished our China studies last Friday, we commence today with the rest of Asia. First, Japan and Korea, neighbors across the straits but with very different culinary sensibilities. Both were influenced by China, and include tofu, soy, rice and noodles as significant ingredients. But the food of Korea is fiery and boisterous, whereas Japanese cuisine is often understated and elegant. Andrew made miso soup, first thing (it takes all of four minutes, max), and Chef Rhoda personally distributed a little bowl of soup to each of us, as we prepped our other dishes. "Ah, what a wonderful way to start the day," she said.

Kim chee. Need I say more? Korea is a cold northern country and pickling vegetables is the traditional method of maintaining a supply during the long months of winter. We ate it today as part of a "Korean man's lunch," Chef called it, or "Bee Bim Bop." This is an ample bowl of rice covered with little piles of flank steak and tangy salads made from bean sprouts, daikon, spinach, and cucumber. Add a little pile of spicy kim chee, and top it off with an egg, sunny side up. Derrick made a "birthday dish" of braised rice noodles with vegetables (called "chapchae") -- noodles signify long life so they're often part of a birthday dinner. I cooked Korean Mung Bean Pancakes, made with soaked yellow mung beans, ground and mixed with eggs and a little flour and lots of julienned carrots, green onions, and bean sprouts. The tedious part was trimming the tails off the bean sprouts, but it's a zen kind of job. The pancakes are cooked in a 8" sauté pan, then cut into wedges, and they have crispy edges and a little spicy sauce to accompany them. We didn't received the Asian-cut short ribs that Chef had ordered, so she substituted sliced filet in the rib marinade, made with soy, sake, mirin, and sesame oil. Delicious, but the ribs would have been more fun to eat.

We learned a new stock recipe: dashi, a Japanese staple. It's simply made from kelp and bonito flakes, or, simpler still, from hon-dashi, dried granules of very high quality, according to Chef. Dashi, along with soy, sake, and miso, are the fundamental building blocks of Japanese cuisine. We had shrimp and vegetable tempura, teriyaki chicken wings, and a cold somen platter. Somen are the very fine Japanese noodles that come in bundles, sometimes fastened with a red ribbon. Like udon and soba, somen are egg-free: vegan-safe.

Chef Rhoda spent a little time today, as she does every day, preparing us for our Chinatown visit next Monday. She described some of the ingredients we're likely to encounter in the dry goods store: ginseng, one of the most valuable Chinese medicinal plants. Bird nests. Shark fin. Calcified worms. Dried sea moths. Deer tails.

One of Chef's former students stopped by with a football-sized durian, a scary fruit on the outside, and the inside is even worse. The nodes of fruit, when removed from the shell, are beyond imagination. Is it an organ? Some kind of cheese? A mollusk? The fruit's odor is notoriously noxious: you can't bring the fruit into public places like hotels or airplanes in some parts of Southeast Asia. Anthony Bourdain described the odor as "like french-kissing your dead grandmother." Dutifully, I tried a (very very very very) small piece. Having never kissed my dead grandmother, I can't tell you if his description was accurate. But. Very very very very very.... not planning on eating it again.

Shrimp Day

Actually, it was more like Dim Sum day (southern China, the area which includes Canton [now Guangzhou], is the home of dim sum), but almost everything we cooked included shrimp. Yum.

There were various and sundry traumas in Asian Cooking today. Jim (having missed the class(es) where Chef Rhoda introduced the proper Asian knife techniques) used classic European cuts when preparing his vegetables, instead of finer, less regular, more angular cuts. Derrick mixed the paprika and sesame seeds into the shrimp toast mixture, instead of reserving them to sprinkle on top of the finished toasts. Worst of all, Alex used dark soy sauce in the wonton filling. As Chef explained, "wonton" translates as "swallowing a cloud," and the filling should be very light in color and texture. Alex told her that these clouds were thunderheads.We had perfect siu mai:Adam made this wonderful Eight-Treasure Rice in Lotus Leaf, shown in the steamer basket. The rice was rich with mushrooms and chinese sausage.
Beef Chow Fun is distinguished by the wide rice stick noodles.Twice in one week, I was bowled over by eggplant. This was stuffed with a wonderfully light shrimp filling, then coated in panko and deep-fried, and served with a spicy black bean sauce:The wrappers for these steamed shrimp dumplings are made with a combination of wheat starch, tapioca starch, and rice flour to produce the distinctive, almost-transparent appearance. After helping with the shrimp toast and chicken chow mein, I made some easy desserts. Chef Rhoda told us that part of the dim sum experience is the randomness with which dishes appear. There is no later, there is only now. Therefore, if the cart with your favorite dish rolls by, grab it and eat it -- even if it's dessert.

These are "bow-ties," twisted wonton wrappers with a sticky orange sauce. And these are "sweet crescents," filled with sugar, minced dried fruit, peanuts, and coconut. Sarah took a bite and said, "These taste just like trail mix bars!"

Something to do with something

My friend Karen is a regular reader of this blog. When I saw her on Tuesday afternoon, the first thing she said to me was, "I miss Patricio."

On my day off school yesterday, I made potato salad and deviled eggs, and read a large portion of (appropriately red-white-and-blue) American Food Writing, a new anthology by Molly O'Neill. It's filled with all kinds of eclectic essays, poems, recipes, and even fiction excerpts, all dealing with, well, American food. I especially like this quote from Gertrude Stein (a home girl), who wrote this in the New York Herald Tribune in 1935:

Now what has all this to do with anything, well anything always has something to do with something and nothing is more interesting that something that you eat.

So, on to today's class. I think I could get into this schedule: on two days, off one; on two days; off two. At any rate, there were nine students in class today, and we made the following dishes, in less than two hours:

These are pork ribs, and they actually have been marinating since Tuesday. Andy baked them off today.
Here's Dan Dan noodles, made with ground pork and minced Sichuan pickled vegetable, peanut butter, and srirracha sauce:
This is my dish, Yu Xiang (or "fish-fragrant") eggplant. The "Yu Xiang" style applies to a marinade that would be used on fish (thus "fish fragrant"), but it is used on all kinds of meat, seafood, and vegetable dishes. The basic marinade is soy sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, garlic, and chilies. Once again, I'm finding that I love a dish I'd swear I wouldn't like.
In addition to this hot and sour soup, Chef Rhoda made a wonderful consomme-like broth in a special clay pot with a steamer funnel bottom, like this one: Andy made Ma Po Tofu, and so I loved TWO dishes today that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.Derrick made Kung Pao chicken, which everyone agreed was the best they'd ever had.The tea-smoked chicken was rubbed with salt, Sichuan peppercorns, and five-spice powder on Monday, and today it was steamed, then smoked over rice, tea leaves and brown sugar.
These are dry-roasted green beans: you start by deep-frying the beans, then stir fry them using more pickled vegetable, dried shrimp, and chili paste.
Silvia made Spicy Orange Chicken, one of Chef's favorite recipes, and it's very much like the classic lemon chicken, where the pieces of chicken are deep fried, then tossed in a sweet and spicy sauce.
I don't have pictures of the wonderful sweet and sour fish that Alex made. He kept the crispy fish separate from the sauce, so that you could spoon it over your portion at serving time and still enjoy the crunchiness. We also had a platter of pineapple, oranges, and jicama, but the rice team neglected to make any steamed rice today. "It's okay," Chef said. "We have a banquet here, that's for sure, and you don't serve rice at a banquet."

1000 Year Old Egg

We tasted one in class today. It's the food item, so far, that has caused the most negative reaction among my classmates. Chef Rhoda cracked the egg, which had been stored in a styrofoam crate, then peeled it, uncovering an egg that looked like it was made of black jello. She sliced it open to reveal a greyish blue dried yolk, surrounded by the gelatinous "white." She passed it around, and everybody took a taste, and Adam asked if he could have a drink from Silvia's water bottle, even though they don't know each other all that well.

We had a shifting of teams and now Meghan has joined us. Jim didn't come to class today, nor did Mario, so we were pretty short-handed. So Chef only gave us two recipes to prepare: crystal shrimp and chinese spring rolls with pineapple-plum dipping sauce. With most of our dishes today, there was lots of prep work, but the actual cooking took only minutes. In fact, our shrimp became overcooked in the minute it took Derrick to get more cornstarch slurry, as the sauce was not thickening properly.

We also had Lion's Head, big pork meatballs, but Jordan was scolded ("You did not read my recipe correctly!") because he neglected to cook the cabbage that's supposed to accompany them. In fact, the soft curly cabbage is what forms the "mane" underneath the lion's head, so these were really more like Tiger's Head.

Andrew made Chicken in Master Sauce, a cool technique that calls for poaching the chicken in a "master" stock/soy sauce that gets reused and fortified. He also made some marbled hard boiled eggs using the same sauce, and they were far more popular than the 1000 year old version.
Sam made the green onion pancakes, a crispy pan-fried flatbread that you form by covering a rectangle of dough with lard and green onions, then rolling it up like a jelly roll. Then you cut off slices of the roll, and place them on end, and roll them into small disks.

We also had Ja Jiang Mein, spicy pork sauce on noodles, that might have been the inspiration for Italian ragu sauce.

Adam cooked up a terrific fried rice, made from yesterday's perfect white rice, and Alex and Andrea made potstickers.

Chef talked about some other new ingredients today: citrus peel, cilantro (Chinese use the whole stem as well as the leaves), chili paste, plum sauce, wood ear and cloud ear mushrooms, lily buds, preserved vegetables (a plethora of salty treats!), and cellophane noodles. With Andrea's prodding, she also told us a bit about her background, starting sheepishly, "I'm self-taught." She had a long career of teaching and catering even before she joined the CCA as an instructor in 1987 ("The year before I was born," Alex said), and she's written a number of cookbooks, as well.

"Dig the well before you are thirsty." -- Chinese proverb

Chef Rhoda is a small, energetic woman with short grey hair and a matter-of-fact air about her. One of our first lessons: you can use the cleaver for everything, despite what Chef Allen said. ("The cleaver is only for vegetables.") Chef Rhoda shows us how it can not only chop and cleave, but its wide blade is useful for transporting your ingredients from your board to your wok or bowl. You can use it to tenderize (beef) and smash (garlic and ginger), and the handle becomes a mortar (use a large ladle as your pestle.)

We'll have one week of Chinese cooking and individual days devoted to other areas of Asia (Japan, Vietnam, India, Burma, etc). We have a Chinatown field trip two weeks from today (with plenty of time for shopping, we are assured,) and three days at the end of the class for Iron Chef challenges, both team and individual.

Our class structure has shifted yet again. We've got two new women, another Sara and Samatha ("call me Sam"), and five of the usual suspects were missing today, one who we know is gone for good. We'll be working in teams for the duration, and my team includes Jim, Derrick, and Mario.

Chef lectured today on some basic ingredients ("We'll do some every day") and cooking techniques. We smelled and tasted 5-spice powder, Sichuan peppercorns, bean sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, rice vinegar, not to be confused with rice wine (Shaoxing and Michu), three kinds of soy sauce (dark, light and Kikkoman), and shiitake and straw mushrooms. Chef picked up a straw mushroom and said, "Any minute, you'll see a leprechan sitting on top of it." We learned proper cutting techniques for meats and vegetables (in general: against the grain, at a diagonal). She also demonstrated a couple of essential cooking methods: oil blanching and stir frying. The oil blanching method is the one that gives you the tender velvety texture that makes Chinese meats so succulent. Stir frying in our school kitchen is a special treat: we have eight dedicated wok burners, four of which can output 180,000 BTUs of heat.

After lecture, we got team cooking assignments. Each of the three teams was assigned to make steamed rice using yet another method. ("For three weeks, I want you to do it this way.") You use the finger method to measure the water: place the dry rice in the cooking pot. Stick your finger through the rice to the bottom of the pot. Note how deep the rice is against your finger. Wash the rice, return it to the pot, and add water until it equals that same finger measurement above the rice. Bring the rice to a boil. Boil until the water is almost evaporated and little "chimney holes" appear on the surface of the rice. Immediately cover the rice and turn the heat to the lowest possible setting. After 10 minutes, remove the rice from the heat and allow to rest, undisturbed, for 10 more minutes. "Don't disturb the karma of the rice." Then uncover the rice and fluff it with a large fork. We had three big bowls of perfectly steamed rice. Chef was impressed.

Our team made steamed sea bass and beef with oyster sauce. We also had chicken with cashews, egg flower soup, and spicy shrimp. It was all ready in less than an hour. So far, so good!