So, aside from working the line at a seafood restaurant, I from time to time do special events at the San Diego Wine & Culinary Center. Depending on what a client wants/needs, there are a number of different things that we do. Most of the events that I'm involved with are corporate team-building exercises. Classes usually are centered around one of the following activities:
-A cooking demonstration: I cook. They watch. They eat.
-"Iron Chef": They receive mystery baskets and have to come up with creative dishes.
-Cooking competition: Teams make the same series of dishes and are judged on a number of criteria.
-Hands-on cooking demonstration: I show them how to cook a series of courses, then they (both individually and as a group) re-create the dishes and eat them with wine pairings.
That's what I did recently: taught a hands-on cooking demo.
This particular class: 18 female attorneys.
Alright, I'm done with colons. That didn't sound right.
Aaaanyway, the dishes we prepare for these events aren't usually all that complicated. First off, there are time restrictions and some things just cant be made on the fly. Secondly, rarely do the participants have any experience in the food industry and it probably wouldn't be a great idea to make them tourne carrots and then sous vide them.
A lot of the time, the participants of these classes are from out of state and aren't always super excited to attend, since it's technically a work-related activity. A combination of me being extremely witty and charming and copious amounts of wine tend to change most people's attitudes. The majority of the fem-torneys were pretty willing to learn and seemed genuinely interested in what was going on. All-in-all, the class went smoothly and as planned. Our menu was the following:
First Course- Grilled Hearts of Romaine with Blue Cheese Balsamic
Second Course- "New Orleans Style" Shrimp with Grilled Baguette
Third Course- Parmesan-Panko Crusted Paillard of Chicken
Fourth Course- Classic Creme Brulee with Faux-Macerated Berries
Like I said, nothing ground-breaking. All the dishes turned out well, though, and a lot of techniques were new to many people there. Not many people had grilled lettuce before. And surprisingly (to me), almost no one had made a vinaigrette before. I really like teaching people fundamentals they can really use, so that was cool. The shrimp dish was a saute of shrimp and vegitation mixed with a sweet and spicy spice mixture (there was literally like 18 ingredients in it), that was deglazed with wine and vinegar and then mounted with butter to form a sauce. I'd never made this exact dish before and was pleased with the result. The chicken was a pan-fry, and was a basic dredging. We served it with a locally-made strawberry-based barbeque sauce. Simple, but still new to some people. Lastly was the creme brulee. I showed the technique for properly brulee-ing (aka burning) sugar and we made the berry topping by mixing fresh berries with wine and sugar and tossing. Not quite maceration, but a decent facsimile in 30 seconds.
Sadly, I forgot my camera that day, so I didn't get to chronicle everything, but hopefully my words are a literary masterpiece and you can see it all in your heads.
After the class, we cleaned down and I was hungry, so I did a pantry raid and found a couple random things (arborio rice, chicken stock, roasted red peppers) and we had a decent amount of leftover shrimp from that course, so I made the staff of SDW&CC shrimp risotto. I'm pretty sure I scored points with that one. I'm trying to do a lot more events, mostly because then I'll make more money, but also because I really like working one-on-one with people and working the line 5 days a week can drain your energy pretty fast.
So, if anyone wants to sponsor a cooking class or wants to do a dinner party, I'm the guy to go to. Help a brother out.
Random: I went out to eat at Arterra the other day with some friends and had one of the best meals I've had in a long time (foie gras, bone marrow, beef short ribs and sweetbreads... in one course), but my camera wasn't taking the best quality pictures, so as soon as I get some of the pictures my fellow diners took, I'll be writing a quite lengthy post about that. Stay tuned.
-A cooking demonstration: I cook. They watch. They eat.
-"Iron Chef": They receive mystery baskets and have to come up with creative dishes.
-Cooking competition: Teams make the same series of dishes and are judged on a number of criteria.
-Hands-on cooking demonstration: I show them how to cook a series of courses, then they (both individually and as a group) re-create the dishes and eat them with wine pairings.
That's what I did recently: taught a hands-on cooking demo.
This particular class: 18 female attorneys.
Alright, I'm done with colons. That didn't sound right.
Aaaanyway, the dishes we prepare for these events aren't usually all that complicated. First off, there are time restrictions and some things just cant be made on the fly. Secondly, rarely do the participants have any experience in the food industry and it probably wouldn't be a great idea to make them tourne carrots and then sous vide them.
A lot of the time, the participants of these classes are from out of state and aren't always super excited to attend, since it's technically a work-related activity. A combination of me being extremely witty and charming and copious amounts of wine tend to change most people's attitudes. The majority of the fem-torneys were pretty willing to learn and seemed genuinely interested in what was going on. All-in-all, the class went smoothly and as planned. Our menu was the following:
First Course- Grilled Hearts of Romaine with Blue Cheese Balsamic
Second Course- "New Orleans Style" Shrimp with Grilled Baguette
Third Course- Parmesan-Panko Crusted Paillard of Chicken
Fourth Course- Classic Creme Brulee with Faux-Macerated Berries
Like I said, nothing ground-breaking. All the dishes turned out well, though, and a lot of techniques were new to many people there. Not many people had grilled lettuce before. And surprisingly (to me), almost no one had made a vinaigrette before. I really like teaching people fundamentals they can really use, so that was cool. The shrimp dish was a saute of shrimp and vegitation mixed with a sweet and spicy spice mixture (there was literally like 18 ingredients in it), that was deglazed with wine and vinegar and then mounted with butter to form a sauce. I'd never made this exact dish before and was pleased with the result. The chicken was a pan-fry, and was a basic dredging. We served it with a locally-made strawberry-based barbeque sauce. Simple, but still new to some people. Lastly was the creme brulee. I showed the technique for properly brulee-ing (aka burning) sugar and we made the berry topping by mixing fresh berries with wine and sugar and tossing. Not quite maceration, but a decent facsimile in 30 seconds.
Sadly, I forgot my camera that day, so I didn't get to chronicle everything, but hopefully my words are a literary masterpiece and you can see it all in your heads.
After the class, we cleaned down and I was hungry, so I did a pantry raid and found a couple random things (arborio rice, chicken stock, roasted red peppers) and we had a decent amount of leftover shrimp from that course, so I made the staff of SDW&CC shrimp risotto. I'm pretty sure I scored points with that one. I'm trying to do a lot more events, mostly because then I'll make more money, but also because I really like working one-on-one with people and working the line 5 days a week can drain your energy pretty fast.
So, if anyone wants to sponsor a cooking class or wants to do a dinner party, I'm the guy to go to. Help a brother out.
Random: I went out to eat at Arterra the other day with some friends and had one of the best meals I've had in a long time (foie gras, bone marrow, beef short ribs and sweetbreads... in one course), but my camera wasn't taking the best quality pictures, so as soon as I get some of the pictures my fellow diners took, I'll be writing a quite lengthy post about that. Stay tuned.
