A Taste of Le Cordon Bleu

Thanks to all these coupons deals, I got to experience something different something new for half the price - the best part.

Few weeks ago, I did the wine bottling thing.  Last weekend, I had my first-in-the-life-time cooking lesson learning from Le Cordon Bleu chefs.  How cool is that??  There were quite a few cooking classes to choose from for $99 per 2 people (that's the great deal).  I picked Cajun/Creole because it was one of my favorite food.

The cooking class was at the California Culinary Academy.  I really didn't know what to expect. Is it like in the cooking shows?

I've never seen so many chefs in white chef hats before.  And those kitchens are amazing.  All kinds of pots and pans.  Everything is huge!!
The participants broke off to 3 groups of 18.  Each group in its own professional kitchen.  We then further separated into 3 work stations of 6.  We each had our own cutting board and an apron.  Boy, it was serious!

Chef told us that we will be making 5 Cajun dishes.  5??? In 3 hours???  Are you sure??  He gave us cooking tips, told us where things were, how to cut and cook certain way then he turned us loose.

At first, everyone looked kind of loss.  Where to start?  What to do?  Each team quickly formed a plan.  2 of our teammates tackled the gumbo, 2 was in charge of jambalaya.  My pal, Francis, and I took on fried oysters, a Cajun flavor coleslaw and a brand new dish that I had never tried before: Maque Choux.

What's a Maque Choux? How does it taste?  What does it look like?  There wasn't even a picture since it was a dish the Chef added on the fly.  OK, Maque Choux it is.  I love a good challenge.  And fried oysters!!  Man, I was loving it.

It was controlled chaos in the kitchen.  All the ingredients for each dish were prepared in advance including sugar, salt, spices, oil, etc... so we didn't have to frantically look for them.  That saved a lot of time.  So what did I learn?  Check what you need and have everything prepared first!!

The Chef and his assistant chef worked with us calmly. They must have seen people running around like chicken without heads way too many times.  I loved the techniques they shared and I appreciated the tips. I learned so much in a short 3 hours!!  

Q: How do you know the fried oysters are ready?
A:  It's ready when the oil is not dancing around it anymore.

Technique: Toss the oysters in the breading mixture with just three fingers.  If you handle the oysters too much it will warm up the oysters and make the coating less crispy.

Wow! how do you like that?  I can even apply the same technique to other deep fried dishes!!

Knowledge: Oh, I did not know there are so many different kind of roux.  And, I didn't know Cajun roux and Creole roux were different.  Did you???

Knowledge: Celery, onion and green bell peppers are known as the holy trinity of Cajun/Creole cooking.  Can't cook without these three ingredients if you doing Cajun/Creole!!

Time's Up!  After two hours, Chef started counting down time.  Man!  It was like the Iron Chefs!  We all hurried, plated the food, cleaned up our stations and brought them to another big kitchen to join others from the other kitchens.  When we saw all the food on the tables, we could not believe that we actually made all those food.  

Yes, we did it!!  It was a great morning and I walked out with an MasterChef apron, a certificate of completion and the satisfaction that I have pushed myself to another level.  Nothing major but it was also not a everyday feat.

I'll give myself (and others) a round of applause!

Creative Solutions

Most of the elevated dog feeders sold are still too low for the big boys.  Robert and I have looked into buying the ones for big dogs but the feeders are big and bulky and expensive.  It's like highway robbery.  *sigh*

So Robert and I have been looking at alternatives.  He was even going to build something himself but we actually found something better and inexpensive!!

Solution #1:  Can you tell what is this?  It's actually a table without the glass top.  Robert got it at a thrift store for just few bucks.  Being a designer he just knew what to do with it.  Flip it over and use the legs to hold the bowls.  Easy!  Simple!  Isn't he just clever??

Solution #2: While browsing in Goodwill today, I found two tall cast iron plant stands.  I thought heck, if the bowls can't fit, then I can still use them as plant stands like they were originally for.  So we bought them, took them home, and tried the bowls.  It was a perfect fit!!

This is why we love checking out thrift stores.  You never what you can find and you can always come up with good uses with the finds.  

Let's give ourselves a pat on the back!!

Bottle-Cork-Open-Drink

I'm glad that I got this LivingSocial deal for a visit to La Nebbia Winery!  It offered a chance to bottle and cork your own wine plus a tasting of its wines.  Heck, all these for $25?  I especially like that I will get to see how wine is bottled.  It's like "you drink milk but do you know how it's milked?"

La Nebbia Winery.  A winery in our backyard.  Actually, it's about 25 minutes away in Half Moon Bay on Highway 92 but close enough to call it my backyard.   I have driven by it quite a few times, but I finally had a chance to visit last Sunday.

It's little family-style winery.   It has a little wine tasting room, a wine bottling warehouse for the general public and a beautiful garden for picnics.  Note to self: make this a point of interests when I have visitors.

OK, the wine bottling part isn't quite that romantic.  A big warehouse with giant industrial tanks and a metallic equipment to fill and cork the bottles with one push of a button.  That's it?  We did get to attach the wine labels by hand though.

Since Jean and I were the first to arrive and there were only two of us, we got to spend some quality time with Kendyl, the winery owner.  She poured us each a glass of wine to start off (very nice), and gave us a a more detailed look of the bottling process including how she sourced her wine.  She let us visited her office which had boxes of wine samples from all over California. Her job is to sample them all and decide what to buy.  These wholesale wines are for the "Bottle and Cork Your Wine" days.  Those are the days where people can bring their own wine bottles to fill the wines with at $5/750ml bottle.  Note to self again: start saving wine bottles.

After Jean and I each bottled and corked our own wine, we headed to the tasting room.  La Nebbia actually produces their own wine with sourced grapes.  We got to try 12 wines from white to sparkling to red to dessert wines.  Hiccups!

Jean and I left the winery all happy.  What a nice little outing for a different experience so close to home.  Try a little, live a little.  Appreciate the small things that make up each of our days.  Cheers!

The Gopher Day

Some gopher decided to make my front yard his home.  He's been digging holes here and there.  My lawn, already not so good looking, is looking even uglier.  Well, at least he was eating up the weeds and dandelions, but boy, is he messy!!

One of Dad's friends, Mr. Huang, suggested that I sprinkle some pepper in the hole.  He said it works like a charm.  I  didn't really believe him and I wasn't ready to grind fresh pepper in the hole.  What would the neighbors say?!

But I decided to give it a try yesterday because this gopher is now bold enough to poke his head out from the ground to say hello.  Cute little thing but he is supposed to stay underground.

So, I cranked the pepper mill over the hole and hope the gopher didn't sneeze too loud and the neighbors didn't see me.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  When I checked the hole 30 minutes later, guess what?  It's been covered up!!!

Did the gopher do it? What did it mean?  Is he ready to pack up, lock up the door and go?

Strange but true.   I just have to share.

Look, My First Tart!

Before I talk about my tart, I just want to say that proofreading is so important, especially for a cookbook.  Case in point, check out the picture of the back cover of a pastry bake book and you know what I mean.

OK, I made my point.  Let's talk about me making my first tart ever.

I always want to make a fruit tart because I love the presentation.  Colorful fresh fruits on top of a layer of custard/cream.  It looks so grand and so yummy. But, it seems too complicated to make.

Well, guess what? It's not that hard after all.  I decided to give it a try this past weekend.  It was easier than expected.  Making the tart shell was probably the hardest because it was a sticky mess.  But other than that, it was a very pleasant experience.

I found that one has to be organized when making fruit tart (or anything for that matter).  It can take a while because the shell and the pastry cream all had to cool down before piling on the fruits.  Probably best to make the tart shell and the cream in advance.  The recipe I used can make enough doughs for two tart shells so I only had to deal with the messy dough once every two tarts. Score!

I never thought that I could actually pile on fruits on a tart but I surprised myself.  I couldn't stop giggling looking at my creation. Who knew!  What do you think?

So, I guess I'll be making tarts instead of buying now.  I just have to remember to only make it when there are people around to eat it.

If I have inspired you and you want to give tart a try, here's the recipe I used: Spring Strawberry Tart.