|
Adventures in Culinary School - Management and Nutrition
I started in Oct 2002 at the Scottsdale Culinary Institute. These are my stories.
|
Management and Nutrition
|
Monday, April 07, 2003
Management, Week 1 Day 1. Management. First day initiations. Policies, new books, homeworks, overviews, introductions, etc. For management, we are united with our sister class so there are about 60 of us in class. We were also joined by three other students who need to complete management for one reason or another. We get out earlier, around 630pm. But what does that really mean? Less education? More time to do more homework. The teachers encourage us to highlight the book. This is one technique I have never found useful in my school career, but I'll give it a try. We have an interesting restaurant project in which we have to eat out at a restaurant and answer about ten pages of questions about it. Then we have to transform the information into a narrative like a restaurant review. We split up into groups of 6 or less. I formed a group with Eve, Manny, Jen, Molly, and Lara. We're going to Tutti Santi, an Italian restaurant that Jen had been to.Our instructor is Chef Pasquet. He has a lot of experience in business as well as in the restaurant industry. He has a lot of mannerisms like Rodney Dangerfield that makes
lecture interesting. But please don't compare him to Captain Kangaroo.
b> Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Management, Week 1 Day 3. Diversity lecture. Chef Pasquet was out today, so we had Chef Flynn. Diversity is a touchy subject. I think the lecture was geared more towards ignorant caucasians. I use the term ignorant in a non-negative way although to me it always has a negative connotation. Being an Asian-American, I feel I have a very open mind towards diversity. To me each person is different no matter what their race, culture, gender, or whatever. I try not to fall into the trap of stereotyping. Some may see this attitude as naive, others as open-minded. To me it's just my nature not to assume information that is not given. Maybe it's my scientific mind at work. Who knows?
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Management, Week 1 Day 4. First day of Nutrition. Our teacher for this part of the course is Regina Shadwick. A true Southern lady. She also works at a resort for a spa. She has a masters in nutrition, but is not a chef and requests us not to address her as one.
Friday, April 11, 2003
Management, Week 1 Day 5. I'm not sure how interesting these entries will be because I'm in the lecture portion of school. I hope I can make it through these classes and learn something.
Sunday, April 13, 2003
Weekend event: Scottsdale Culinary Festival. On Sunday April 13th, Eve, Gabe I did a demo of Bananas Foster in the Demo tent at the Scottsdale Culinary Festival. We gave away about 200 samples of Bananas Foster. There was a slight problem igniting the rum at the beginning, but it lit eventually. We were part of the Great Arizona Picnic at the Scottsdale Civic Center. There were lots of restaurants with booths selling tastes of their foods. There was also a Beer Garden(which I missed) and a Maragarita tent. Being a vendor, we got to go into an event called Cooks and Corks (normally $40) where there were wine tastings, cooking demos from top valley chefs and more food from different restaurants. I got to see Chef Brad Thompson give a demo involving gnocchi and a morel cream sauce. He is the executive chef of Mary Elaine's at the Phoenician.
April 14, 2003 - May 18, 2003
Recap of the rest of Management and Nutrition. Let me condense six weeks of management and nutrition down for you. There were some tests. We had about three to four hours of lecture each day. Throw in a demo from a traveling chef and a picnic at Chapparal Park and there you have it. I spent a lot of time doing other things like volunteering at a Bon Appetit event at the Greyhawk Golf Resort. There were a lot of famous chefs there but I didn't get to meet many of them. I was busy prepping and helping to make a cake with the Chef Bruce Tanner and Chef Robert Cacciola who has coordinated the past 11 James Beard Awards Galas. I got a chance to speak with Chef Chris Bianco. He is the owner of Pizzeria Biano. Coincidently he won this year's James Beard Award for Best Chef of the Southwest the following week. I had a chance to eat there with Molly, Jen, and Eve. Some of the best pizza I have ever eaten. That's a lot considering I grew on the East Coast chowing down on NJ and NY pizza. I also did some golfing here and there, helped out with graduation, and ran an 8K race at night.
|
|
![[Powered by Blogger]](http://buttons.blogger.com/bloggerbutton1.gif)