plat du jour

Peach "Caviar"

I've had some Calcium Chloride and Sodium Alginate sitting in my home kitchen for a few months now.  Today I dug them out and had some fun.  You may be wondering why I have chemicals in the kitchen.  Cleaning?  Nope.  Preserving?  Nope.  These two chemicals are used for a process called Spherification.

Moxie Short Ribs

A couple months ago, I was inspired by a post on Alex & Aki's blog Ideas In Food.  They made a marinade for beef short ribs using Dr. Pepper, Red Miso paste and Coffee.  Instantly the light bulb went off in my head to try making a marinade using the official soft drink of Maine, Moxie.

Sous Vide

Sous Vide cooking.  The term is becoming more and more familiar with people nowadays, thanks to Thomas Keller and cooking related reality TV.  In order to really understand what it is, you have to try food cooked Sous Vide.  Another option is to continue reading, and I'll do my best to describe it.

Yep, still here

Wow!

I haven't posted anything here in quite some time.  I actually have 3 posts I've been working on, which are not complete yet.  One is on Sous Vide cooking, another about my visit to the French Laundry, and another on some fabulous Beef Short Ribs that I marinated in a mixture of Moxie and Five Spice.

I was hoping to get the Sous Vide post completed during my "weekend" this week (Weds&Thurs), but the weather had other plans for me.  I did work on it a bit and hope to have it up within the next week.  Just a lot of editing to do, I tend to ramble quite a bit if you haven't noticed.

Stay tuned!

Food & Wine Pairing for Chefs @ CIA Greystone

 

Last week, I attended two courses at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in St. Helena, California.  One of the courses was "Food and Wine Pairing for Chefs".

Back Home

I'm back in Maine after returning from California around 12:30AM.  Overall, it was an amazing trip.  I cooked a lot of great food, met countless interesting people, took a boatload of pictures, did some shopping, and many other things I'm either forgetting or can't really discuss here.

I wrote a ton in my journal while traveling around, practically enough for a small book.  Over the next couple weeks I'll try my best to gather my scribblings and pair them to pictures, quotes and other thoughts.

For now, some random notes and pics:

CIA Greystone

Its 6:45 AM and I am just about ready to head off to San Francisco.  Heading back to the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone to take two courses, Sous-vide cooking, and "Food and Wine pairing for Chefs".  It will be a great experience, although classes from 7AM - 8PM will be rough for a week.

Luckily I have four days to do whatever I please when my classes end.  Planning on exploring San Francisco, since I didn't get to see much of the city last I was there.

I plan on keeping a journal of my experiences, so hopefully I will be able to share some of them here.

Wish me luck!

Chai Tea

For years I was a huge coffee drinker.  There's this new thing for me called "getting old-er", which doesn't agree with coffee so much.  So I needed a replacement...

Portland Excursion

Every once in a while we need to do something different.  To climb out of from the trench that is our daily routine and mix things up a bit.  This week on my days off, I decided to visit Portland, Maine.

"Portland (Maine) is the new Portland (Oregon)"

Thanks to the folks at Maine Food & Lifestyle for pointing out the "Top 10 Food Trends for 2009" at Epicurious.com.  I've been meaning to visit for some time now, but decided this was the week to experience what is going on in Portland.

I have reservations at Five Fifty-Five Wednesday evening.  Also planning on stopping by Duck Fat, Fore Street, Hugo's, and Evangilene.  Not sure how much food I can fit into two days, but I'll do my best.

Add lots of shopping and exploration, and it should amount up to a good time.  Aside from the food, I especially need some new threads for my trip to California in February!