gastronomy in practice
When I began studying at Smith, my friends and I discovered an excellent breakfast place called Sylvester’s. We learned from their menu that the restaurant is named after Sylvester Graham, Presbyterian minister and inventor of the Graham cracker. Aside from encouraging people to sleep with the windows open, take cold showers, and control their lust, he influenced the food world in a major way.
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I really should be working on catching up in my reflective journal for school, but I feel more of a pull to my blog at the moment. If any of the BU gastronomy professors are reading this sentence, please don’t read that last sentence. I know I haven’t been the most prolific writer this fall, and for that I apologize to you my readers. While I am worried that people will forget about my blog, you dedicated readers are the ones who suffer. You know who you are: the ones who check every couple of days to answer the eternal question: “Has she updated yet?” The more I worry about losing readers, the more I hear “Why haven’t you updated?” “When’s your next post?” and even “Is there someplace on the internet we can report a missing blogger?” Thank you so much for your questions, your nagging, and overall your support. I cannot make excuses about why I’m not posting as much, other than to say that I miss the days of being paid full-time for a job I only worked at for about ten or fifteen hours a week.
This semester looks very different from the last year I spent luxuriously studying up on and writing about gastronomic issues. Whereas I used to sit down every morning with a pot of Teekampagne tea (now also available in the US!) and read and write about food, today is the first time since I’ve moved to Boston that I’ve had the time to finish a pot of tea in one sitting. Of course, perhaps that’s partially due to the fact that I just got my teapot last weekend.
My daily routine starts out luxuriously late compared to most people. As I’ve mentioned, class usually starts at 10:30am. I don’t understand why a good third of my class still comes late – it’s ten thirty! The few days I worked last year I often had to be at school by seven thirty in the morning. Now, even with an hour-long commute, I can get up at eight with plenty of time to spare.
Classes have evolved since I first posted on it. They still involve a morning lecture or demonstration, but now they are by an invited chef, who explains to us his or her philosophy, ingredients, and dishes. These are very interesting, and it’s fun to sit and watch as delicious food unfolds before our eyes. However, the afternoon demonstrations offer the most practical learning for me. This is where we apply the things we’ve learned; it’s when chefs come in and teach us their set of recipes. All come in with an agenda (whether it be to teach us about their cuisine, to get through the day’s recipes, or even to find employees) and some execute their plan with more precision and organization than others. Many ask us what our plans are for the future, and it’s been fun to hear the subtle changes in everyone’s description of themselves. Depending on the day, and the chef, I will change my description to emphasize writing, learning, or cooking.
We often don’t get out until five or six in the evening after finishing the dishes (it’s amazing how many dishes twelve culinary students can make!). There’s often some errand to do after school, and lately I’ve been lucky if I’m home before eight in the evening. I have just enough time to eat a very small dinner (we usually eat what we’ve cooked around four-thirty), catch up with David, check my email, and then it’s time to think about going to sleep to start over again the next day. Weekends aren’t less busy. The only difference is I often get up much earlier for work.
Thanksgiving was a very welcome change. David and I luckily got a ride down to Philadelphia with some friends of his, and we spent three wonderful days with my sister and her husband. The first day, Thanksgiving itself, we made the menu I posted about. Everything was delicious*. Specifically the custard, the stuffing (if you use this recipe, make sure though to chop the mushrooms small and add a bit of extra bread), the endives, and the sweet potatoes. I must say, I have never really liked sweet potatoes. I’ve been able to tolerate them with lots of sugar or maple syrup, but never plain. This year, though, Sarah made them from the Julia Child recipe, and added a bit of grated ginger and butter. It was amazing. None of us could believe how something so simple was so delicious.
If anything this fall, I’ve learned to value that simplicity even more than I have in the past. The time I get to spend with David, the moments in class when I make a dish I’m really proud of, and even the time I spend at work, fixing the cookies in the display or making sandwiches on the line and joking with my coworkers. I’ve told many people that this semester I haven’t dreaded going to school once. Although some days I come home happier than others, I’ve always learned something and look forward to doing it again the next day. In the meantime, I need to take advantage of this moment, and get caught up on that journal…
*With the exception of the turkey, which was a bit of a flop due to the fact that I misread my thermometer. It was good for leftovers though!
Julia Child’s Sweet Potato Purée
adapted from “The Way to Cook”
4 large sweet potatoes
1 medium Yukon gold potato
4-6 Tbsp butter
½ tsp ginger (or just to taste)
salt and pepper to taste
Peel and boil all the potatoes until tender. If you have time and space in your oven, you may bake them as well (this will take at least an hour, and doesn’t require peeling beforehand). Over low heat beat in the butter, ginger, and seasoning, mashing the potatoes with a masher or mixer. You can make this ahead of time, but make sure you don’t cool off the potatoes. Put only half the butter in and keep warm in a water bath on the stove. When you are ready to serve them, beat in the rest of the butter and season. They must be served hot!
This Wednesday David and I will be traveling down the Eastern seaboard with the Greyhound to Pennsylvania to visit my sister and her husband.Bus travel is by no means as first-class as planes, as classic as cars, or as classy as private car service; nevertheless I hope it will get us there for the best holiday of the year anyway.
In the last couple of weeks David, Sarah, Nathan, and I have been brainstorming about what we want to eat this Thursday. It’s not easy putting together a menu, and I’ve found it really interesting and helpful to listen to everybody’s ideas. In class on the day we talked about writing menus I felt mine was the least inspired, most traditional menu of the group. This disappointed me until David pointed out that my passion lies precisely in traditional foods, not foams and chemicals*. So, a Thanksgiving dinner shouldn’t be too difficult for me, right? Here are some of my suggestions:
My first thought was to take the squash from the middle of the dinner and bring it to the forefront in an appetizer. I’ve always wanted to have appetizers at Thanksgiving, I think it makes it fancier. Next is the turkey, what to stuff it with, and how to prepare it. Roasted, brined, basted, injected with sauce under the skin, in the oven, on the grill, on a spit? The options are endless, but eventually the line must be drawn. I like in the oven, stuffed, and basted every thirty minutes to one hour: this gives me plenty of time to handle all the other details that need to be dealt with.
Sides with the turkey are often more important than the turkey itself: traditional bean casseroles, corn casseroles, mashed potatoes, extra stuffing (careful not to dry it out!), and plenty of fresh vegetables (even salad if you like). Some suggestions are creamed corn (or leeks), braised endives, peas with pearl onions – again, many options. It’s important to have a balance: too many starches, or even too many vegetables, can make the meal lean too heavily on one side. Not only do you want a balance in types of vegetables, but you also want a balance in flavor – if you have cream in one dish already, try having another dish flavored with onions or peppers. Choose dishes with ingredients that compliment each other – not only within the dish but across the dishes as well (yes, that’s hard, and I will always be learning what goes well together).
Dessert has always been one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving. Focus on what you like, and don’t get too carried away with making too many pies (especially if you feel more obligated than excited about them). This year I’ve omitted a crust entirely, and I’m only having a custard. Of course I know it’s hard to give up the classics, and Thanksgiving is by no means a time to hold back. If you like key lime pie, make it and love it. Try it with some coconut shavings, or in bar form layered with your own graham cracker crust.
Making twists on old themes can be fun and produce excellent results. Keep an eye out for what other people are talking about for their dinners, and don’t be afraid to ask for recipe recommendations. You never know what kind of ideas you can get in the wildest of places!
Pictured above are the cookbooks I’ll be sourcing this year for Thanksgiving. In addition my sister and I have tapped Yahoo and Epicurious for recipes, and I’ve thrown in a soup and a dessert I’ve learned at school. Together, they will hopefully prove to be a delicious meal.
Soup
Vegetarian Butternut Squash
~
Dinner
Roast Turkey
Hazelnut, Sage, and Mushroom Stuffing
Cranberry Preserves
Green Beans with Crimini Mushroom Sauce
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potato Purée
Endive and Walnut Salad with Gorgonzola Cheese
~
Dessert
Pumpkin Custard with Pecan Praline
Vanilla Ice Cream
I haven’t made most of these dishes before – I’ll be tweaking my traditional Julia Child garlic mashed potatoes to make a low-fat version (thanks to Moosewood), and the green beans Sarah found here at Yahoo.The stuffing we got off Epicurious, which also has some interesting menu ideas of their own.The Endive and Walnut Salad comes from the Joy of Cooking, and the sweet potatoes are Julia’s (in “The Way to Cook”).As I said, the soup I got from instructor John Vyhnanek and the dessert is a take on Cindy Salvato’s pumpkin pie, which we’ll be making in ramekins.
If you’re still finalizing your menu and are looking for a soup, the butternut squash is incredible.Vegetarians will love you for it, but if you don’t have to contend with any then you can add chicken stock to create a soup that is even richer.It was one of the first things we made in class this fall, and it was surprisingly simple for the flavor that we got out of it.Try serving it with some toasted or candied pumpkin seeds, homemade croutons, or just a sprinkling of chives.
*Having played around with molecular gastronomy recipes today, I can honestly say I will stick to my mangoes in their natural state or in puree form, but not in a spherical orb suspended with alginate and calcium chloride to make it look like an egg yolk.
Vegetarian Butternut Squash Soup
adapted from Chef John Vyhnanek
2 Tbsp white wine
1 tsp garlic, finely minced
½ cup celery, finely diced
½ cup onion, finely diced
½ cup leeks, finely diced (use mostly the white part but add some of the lighter green parts too)
2 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into ½” cubes
4 cups water
½ stick cinnamon (or 1 tsp cinnamon powder)
2 oz maple syrup (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
Sweat the garlic and wine with some canola or vegetable oil over low heat until they are clear.Add the celery, onions, and leeks and cook slowly until they are clear.Put the squash, cinnamon, and water into the pot and bring to a boil.Then reduce the heat and let simmer about 30 minutes, or until tender.
Remove the cinnamon stick, if using.Purée the soup with an immersion blender (or let cool and use a regular blender or food processor).If you want a really smooth soup, strain through a cheese cloth-lined strainer or a chinoise.Add the nutmeg, maple syrup, and seasoning and bring the soup back to a low boil.Serve warm garnished with whipped cream, pumpkin seeds, chives, and/or croutons.
Note: To make your own croutons, cut the crust off soft bread using a round fluted cookie cutter to make half-moon shapes, or cut triangles with a knife (you can get as creative as you like!).Sauté on medium heat in a pan with butter until crispy and lightly browned.For added flavor, you can put garlic and/or herbs in the butter, but be careful not to burn them.
Perhaps I’m not as prolific as I promised, but I can assure you that this post will be full of pictures and insights to what I’ve been up to these days. To start off with, we’ve done a bunch of stuff in class these past couple weeks. We’ve simmered, poached, grilled, sautéed, broiled, steamed, smoked (yes! with fire!), chopped, measured, baked, and countless more. Here’s a glimpse (in somewhat chronological order) in pictures of some of the things I, or my classmates, have conjured up in our journeys:
Rolls of typical Buffalo, New York style called “wrecks;” my roll promptly disappeared never to be seen again after this picture. Probably was camera shy or something…
Picture courtesy of Ashish Desai
Picture courtesy of Ashish Desai
Butchering day! Here’s Charles Grandon showing us how to make the primal cuts (then later the fabricated ones) of a lamb. The blue on the back is the USDA grading, apparently grape juice, but butchers do have a morbid sense of humor…
Picture courtesy of Ashish Desai
Racks of dry-aged beef on a tour at Kinnealy’s, one of Boston’s major meat suppliers. I was surprisingly not queasy until we went into this room. The meat isn’t rotting, but it doesn’t smell very pleasant in there…
Picture courtesy of Ashish Desai
Picture courtesy of Ashish Desai
The first course of the dinner we cooked with Johanne Killeen and George Germon of Al Forno restaurant. This is a split pea puree with olive oil and garnished with red onions and mint.
Picture courtesy of Ashish Desai
Johanne and George demonstrating the dishes we made that night for the audience. We also made a summer chicken cacciatore and poached pears on mascarpone and whipped cream. All the recipes were from their latest book “On Top of Spaghetti…” They were wonderful chefs, people, and teachers and I wish we could have them more often in our kitchen this semester!
As warned, I took a long hiatus from my posting. After a couple months of David and me being in a constant state of flux (moving out of Radeberg, traveling around Germany, flying to the States, working at yet another fantastic week of overnight International Language Camp, packing and moving to Boston, and settling and moving in to our new apartment and lives) I am finally back and ready to post about my experiences. I hope I haven’t lost all of you attentive readers, and please do spread the word that I have returned and am planning on being just as prolific as ever! Please do excuse this long post, as I have to make up for quite a bit of lost time.
Since getting to Boston I have been incredibly busy. David and I found an apartment quite quickly, and I was lucky to find a job working at Darwin’s, a sandwich/deli and café near Harvard Square, within a week of arriving. This has been quite nice, since moving in to my first apartment and buying furniture etc. is quite a daunting task! I’ve also been able to meet some great people in a wonderful work environment.
However, the main purpose of me moving to Boston, as I mentioned, is to begin my studies in Gastronomy. This website is of course my portal to what I am interested in in the Gastronomy world. It’s where I express my ideas and thoughts about it. While I have previously written largely and almost exclusively on German and American foods and cultures, I will have to extend this a bit now to include all of my studies at Boston University. Please do not be afraid, however! I will continue to post and write about traditional German/American food issues. However, I would also like to keep you all informed about my life at cooking school. Yes, I’m currently taking a one-semester hands-on intensive cooking course taught by several of the most prominent chefs in Boston (and the world!). I’ll keep you updated on what I’m learning, including pictures of the foods I create, including this wonderful vegetarian butternut squash soup.
Disclaimer: this is not my soup, my group’s turned quite thick by the time it hit the tasting portion of our class because it had cooled off. It tasted great however, as we accidentally used chicken stock instead of water. It wasn’t very vegetarian anymore though…
The Culinary Arts Certificate Program is the first class I am taking in my master’s program. In it we have a few core chefs who teach us the basic cooking skills and traditions. In addition we have many countless guest chefs come in and teach us their recipes and techniques. It’s a wonderful experience and a great way to learn about, and network in, the restaurant/food world. We just started this week, and I’m already invested and incredibly busy with it! We spend seven hours a day at school and have quite a bit of reading to do outside of class. I am also keeping a detailed journal (aside from the blog) typing up all my notes and reactions to each day’s events.
Every day we start out with a morning of lecture and demonstration. We assemble in the demonstration room with its classic set-up of mirrors to see into the pots and pans on the stove. We learn about the history, techniques, and tips of the topic of the day and see a demonstration. This isn’t necessarily what we’ll be cooking, though it sometimes is, but it’s also a demonstration of a certain technique (like making a roux) or how to make a different recipe in the same topic (for example on sauce day our chef, John Vyhnanek, showed us a quick pesto sauce and a tomato sauce). Often times we get to eat the demonstration foods, or leftovers from the day before that we have cooked, during our lunch break.
One of eight stations in the kitchens at BU, used both for the Culinary Arts Certificate Program and the School of Hospitality Administration
The afternoons are devoted to us students (there are only twelve of us) getting hands-on practice in cooking. Each day we make around three recipes or so, depending on the length and difficulty. We learn to work in teams and sub-groups, and each team of two has a student sous chef. The sous chef meets with our executive chef, this week John, and then is in charge of delegating jobs to the rest of the students. I have yet to be sous chef – when I’m not in the kitchen I really want to be sous chef, but once class is rolling I am happy I haven’t been chosen yet. I’m not really ready for that sort of thing. Not only do you have to have control and understanding of all the recipes being cooked, but you have to be able to plan ahead and delegate jobs as well. For now I’m much happier being told what to do when.
Our stock room, larger than my whole kitchen at home!
I’m miserable at getting my mise en place set up. The mise en place is French for “put in place” and refers to the prep work. Not only the chopping and measuring of ingredients into dishes for easy use during the cooking time, but also getting all the pots and utensils needed for all of the recipes. I don’t think I’m alone, but I frequently have to go to the stock room to get this or that thing I have forgotten. Or, like yesterday, I will look under my station during clean-up and find out I’ve stored a bunch of things under there only to have used a third of it during cooking!
I’m sure this will take practice and I will be able to figure everything out and feel more comfortable in the kitchen. Right now I’m really excited to just be here, to finally be following this dream. Living in Boston, so far, is great. The weather is wonderful (I know this won’t last) and I love being close to my college friends again. I miss Radeberg and teaching, especially the friends I made while I was there. However, I have been so busy here and I feel so welcomed here that I know this is the right place for me at this point in my life. Having David here with me and sharing our adventures together makes me even more confident that this was a good decision. Stay tuned for a quick-and-easy recipe to make a traditional flat bread/pizza from Southwest Germany/Southeast France as well as my experiences broiling, stewing, butchering, roasting and garnishing food as well as meeting famous chefs!