Autumn has finally arrived in New York, bringing cold weather and the cold season. I've been in bed off and on for a week, and I can't seem to shake the sniffling nose and scratchy throat that has afflicted so many others. If you're part of the sniveling, red-eyed lot, your appetite has probably decreased. But given the number of food cures surrounding the common c... Read More

It is the last four days of this lab and is now our finals week.  Each day we have several items that our group has to make and at the end of the day we are graded on how well we did.

Day One
We came into class and immediately started our day.  This is unusual for us, normally starting out class with a long lecture that results in me fa... Read More

One thing about culinary school - you forget the beauty of simplicity. Not that you never learn about simple dishes, like how to properly prepare a hard boiled egg or make fresh whipped cream. But a lot of emphasis is on the more complicated meals. Why go to culinary school if you were taught to make PB&J sandwiches instead of roasted venison with huckleberry jus... Read More

Lamination, its not just what you can do to paper to make it last longer.  Laminated breads and pastries is dough and fat layered to make a fluffy and flaky bread.

Now that my Production of Breads and Rolls class is nearing the end, it is time to move on to the difficult breads.  This week we started laminated doughs and sweet breads.  Our first day of this ... Read More

It was doughnut day in class this week.  Other teachers and staff would ask, “are you making doughnuts today?” as we walked into class at 7 AM.  Everyone was already greatly anticipating fresh doughnuts.

We started out the day like any other.  Scaling out all of the ingredients for our mis en place and mixing it off to be set aside to rise.

Shana Tov! It's the Jewish New Year! I'm a practicing culinary Jew, meaning I spend more time connecting with my Jewish roots in the kitchen than the synagogue. As a result I tend to do more recipe searching than soul searching during the High Holidays (bad for my place in Olam Ha-Ba, good for my dinner guests).

This Rosh Hashanah was my first in New York, and ... Read More