Thinking of Nice...

I admit the posts have been few and far between, but it seems second quarter go the best of me, and I am finally settling into the 3rd quarter, albeit, we are now 4 weeks in. I must admit I was very excited about hitting the 3rd quarter. It is the quarter we move into a "restaurant" kitchen and start working the line. In addition, the instructor for theory and practicum is a local chef who I was familiar with prior to the program, and even have one of his cookbooks - Chef Greg Atkinson. His style is Northwest cuisine grounded in a fairly classic French and Italian methodology. I have tried a couple of the recipes at home that we are making or will make in the school kitchen, and they have turned out spot on. One of the things I am looking forward to is making recipes come out the same way each time. With that said, I had to try one of the recipes over as I neglected to include one of the ingredients - it was for a genoise style cake and I left out the butter. Thus I ended up with more of a souffle than a cake after all was said and done. I should have known as we have been reading "On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee. This is a must for anyone interested in knowing why things happen the way the do. It is Alton Brown to the Nth degree in level of detail. Although I am retaining more about food science now than as a couch potato watching the Food Network. But what does this have to do with Nice? I have a report due on Nice tomorrow and was just looking through pictures from our trip about 3 years ago. My how the kids have changed, the careers, and fortunes, not where we were 3 years ago, but feeling pretty good about how things are. I am looking forward to sunnier days ahead with summer approaching, cooking and eating outdoors, and spending time with friends that I have not seen for a while. These are some of my lessons from Nice which I want to apply with some of my lessons from culinary school. If you have a chance, check out "Entertaining in the Northwest" by Greg Atkinson - he has a recipe for sponge cake (genoise) in the Winter Solstice section of the book which he uses for a a Yule Log. It is quick to make, and goes down quickly too. Cheers!