Epiventures

And so it seems I’ve finished my third term at the Midwest Culinary Institute. And now I’m sitting at home feeling a tinge of whiplash.

It’s funny the way time moves. You don’t notice when it’s happening but all of a sudden you look across the room. The chair you have always known has changed neighborhoods three times since you bought in the thrift store, virtually weaseled it out of someone’s hands who didn’t know it was a vintage Eames.

All the junk that bothers you, that’s not put in its place—the shoes hastily thrown in the corner. The mail that got dropped from the table. The empty coffee cups on the sink. Suddenly you let yourself realize that it’s the stuff that you’ve built your life around. And then suddenly it’s not junk anymore.

(more…)

Fish out of water, as the saying goes, brings to mind a big, crazy looking creature, thrashing from side to side on the beach, struggling for his next breath. This, people, is why I hesitate to compare myself to one. I really much prefer you imagine me strutting around in the kitchen, chopping things here, saucing things there, earning the respect of everyone around. But I’ll be honest — that big, crazy fish? That was me the other night. That big crazy fish? That’s me all the time lately.

I wrote a feature article about Chef Julie Francis a few months back without the slightest inclination that I would later be asking to work in her kitchen. But that’s just what happened. Last week, I took my first stab as a restaurant cook.

(more…)

I was running hard against the dirt, my feet were pounding the ground, my fists were clenched. Everywhere behind me, dust was unearthing itself, flinging in the air and then falling back down in my tracks. My heart beat against my chest, steady like a drum, and then I heard white noise — static — and then nothing. I had been running but I hadn’t moved at all. I was wrapped in my own fuzzy blanket and the clock by the bedside blinked 6:30 a.m. It was time for another day.

Maybe the strange dream was an omen. When the evening rolled around and I was in my full culinary school uniform, my instructor delivered some stunning news. We’d be making chicken chasseur, sole au vin blanc, orange glazed carrots, parsley potatoes and spinach concasse. They’d all have to come out together and when we presented our dishes, our entire stations had to be clean. It was twice the amount of work we usually do and it seemed almost cruel. All at once, I became very aware of my hat and how hard it was squeezing my head. My coat felt thick and heavy.

(more…)

You never forget your first fire. I set my first one in a microwave when I was ten by exploding a loaf of bread, which was innocently pre-sliced and still wrapped in plastic. In my defense, I was only trying to set the microwave timer.

I was attempting to time thirty minutes of reading — an assignment from my fourth grade teacher. How was I supposed to know my mother used the microwave as her own personal bread box/storage compartment? And certainly it wasn’t my fault when I hit “time/cook” instead of “hold/timer!”

(more…)

What I really didn’t want to do was squeeze into a bathroom stall and change from work clothes into a pair of checkered pants. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine how I was going to pick up my heavy, tired legs or how I would truss a chicken or make up a marinade or tourné five kinds of vegetables or do a sink full of dishes. Read: I was tired and I wanted to watch Bravo with a glass of wine. In the interest of keeping it real, I want to tell you I was having a moment. Please forgive me.

Except, I’ve signed this imaginary contract with myself and I’ve committed to doing this thing and you don’t just bake a cake half way now do you? No, you finish it with a big, thick layer of icing and then you eat it. Which, I guess, is just a strange way to say that I went to class.

(more…)

When I was a kid I used to love a certain amusement park roller coaster that, in retrospect, did little more than beat my head against a padded seat harness. But what about the anticipation of slowly chugging up a wooden mountain? What about cutting through the wind and roaring down the other side? Yeah, there was that too.

I’ve just started my third term at Midwest Culinary Institute and with seven students in my class and my bigger, badder, hotter, six-burner range, I’ll be focusing on meat, fish and poultry. In some ways, I do feel like I’m beating my head up against something. There’s still that scurry from work to kitchen to contend with. There’s still heat and frustration and the occasional slip of the knife that yields both embarrassment and pain. And then there are frustrating technical things …

(more…)

At first there is only the sound of 11 knives beating against a board. Then there is the smell of butter melting in hot pans throughout the room, followed by the crescendo of whisks smacking stainless steel bowls. We don’t talk. We’ve been instructed not to speak unless our words are guttural sounds proclaiming, “I can’t stop the bleeding.”

With crazy structural changes at work, hospital trips visiting family members and out-of town-company, I’m running a tad on the emotional side. (Gasp, can you believe it?) But no one wants to be that guy complaining about backaches and bruises when the fate of our final practical looms ominously overhead.

We are asked to cook a cream of mushroom soup, asparagus with béarnaise sauce and a bordelaise sauce. And from the moment the clock starts ticking, I enter an alternate state. My mind and body move like a shotgun.

I jockey five saucepans on the range as if I’m playing an elaborate game of chess. I react without thought, leaving all major decisions to instinct and reflex. Vegetables are sauteed, roux is assembled, stock is added, butter is clarified, cream is heated, demi glace is thickened. Mushrooms are sauteed, vinegar and tarragon is reduced until au sec, eggs are beaten into submission, an orange is supremed.

(more…)

A consommé is a highly regarded, clear, rich stock and is virtually rid of impurities. You and I have both enjoyed consommés in French restaurants — sometimes as a base for French onion soup, other times straightforward with added leeks and carrots. In a classic sense, a consommé is one of the greatest luxuries in French cuisine.

The thing is, to make it, you have to construct one of the most disgusting floating objects in culinary tradition.

The floating object I am referring to is a mixture of egg whites, ground meat, lemon juice and chopped vegetables. After adding these ingredients and stirring vigorously with a whisk, this hideous combination rises and foams, forming a “raft” on the top of the surface. The purpose of the proteins and acids in the raft is to attract impurities in the stock so that they can be later strained off.

Of course, to me in the moment, the inflated, puffed up thing just looked like a grotesque mess. Maybe I’m not supposed to admit this readily but the process sort of caused the back of my throat to close up. Standing further back from the pot than usual, I was having difficulty accepting the fact that the clearest, most beautiful soup in the world was made by erecting the swamp monster.

(more…)

When I was a kid I thought I’d probably own an advertising agency like my dad. I imagined a closet full of very trim looking blazers and lots of leather heeled shoes. I still remember promising my mom that I was going to be someone very important one day, thank you very much. Now, as I stand here in an apron splattered in tomato sauce, it all seems ironic. It wasn’t my dad’s career I was chasing after all. It was my mom’s.

A lot of what she cooked at home wasn’t fancy. She’d make chicken pot pie or meatloaf and we’d eat it in front of the TV on some nights, oafishly ignoring the work that she put into it. But a lot of what she made was pretty spectacular. There were deeply flavored mushroom soups and twice baked potatoes and steaks smothered in bérnaise sauce. To this day, that woman can peel a potato with a knife faster than I can reach for the peeler.

I’m thinking about her tonight because we’re learning two of the five mother sauces. Espagnole sauce happens to be the bubbling mess you see up and to the right. And it really thrills me. I don’t mean to say thrills in a way that fills up space or falls flat and soon turns into vapor. I mean, if I could hire a plane to write it in the sky, I would.

(more…)

A few weeks ago I singed the flat of my thumb on a 500 degree sheet pan. Since then I have watched my skin regrow over the raw area — stretching, covering, wanting so desperately to self preserve. It dawned on me, recently, that my fingerprint has been growing back in a different shape. Those swirling lines, those patterns that have defined my thumb and my identity all my life have been forced by the burn in new directions.

In class, I have to cover my wound with a bright blue band-aid and a rubber glove. I feel like a less coordinated, blue collar version of Michael Jackson. But fashion is the least of my concerns as I grip a chefs knife in one hand and a steel in the other.

“You look like you’re playing a fiddle,” my instructor shouts from across the room. He approaches, takes my two utensils and clangs them together in eight deliberate motions. “Like that,” he says. “Basic knife skills. Cooking 1.” I take the two objects from him and feel a surge of pain from under my glove. “Thanks,” I say.

(more…)

Maybe some people have it all figured out. I’m not one of them. Maybe you aren’t either. I was just browsing old emails and found this one, which made me laugh out loud. (Yes, I laugh at my own jokes.) The following is an actual email I wrote to my husband in early February, shortly after I started culinary school (while also resolving to keep my full time job). I post this hoping you might take comfort in the fact that we’re really all just trying to figure it out — one day at a time.

Dear loyal blog reader,

(more…)

The difference between a simmer and a boil is the slight turn of a dial. One will produce a beautiful stock, rid of any impurities and another will make a dull, cloudy water. Just the slight turn of a dial.

Two weeks ago, as I finished up Cooking 1, I was worried about flipping an egg. But in Cooking 2 we’re expected to have fundamentals down. Claiming blind ignorance is no longer an option. All of this has occurred in two weeks. Just the slight flip of a calendar.

In my new kitchen classroom, we stand spread out in rows. Each of us has our own oven, or own set of burners, our own collection of pots and pans. We are no longer the freshman, the bottom of the line omelet-makers. We are the stock, sauce and soup makers.

When we stand up at the beginning of class to introduce ourselves, most students know exactly what to say. “I’m a pharmaceutical rep who wants to learn how to cook,” one says. “I work at McDonald’s and want to own my own restaurant,” another claims.

(more…)

There are two parts to every story — an end and a beginning. In the beginning of this story, I sit on a long bench outside my classroom on the first level of Cincinnati State’s ATLC building. I am holding a green bandanna and though I know nothing about how to tie it around my neck, I am pretty sure the woman next to me does.

She looks seasoned, ruffled and a bit tired but despite these characteristics, she is friendly. “Like this,” she motions and her hands move briskly in the air. “You’re going to like class,” she promises. She must sense my hesitation. “Famous last words,” I laugh.

In the end of this story — this tale of my first term in culinary school — I am finishing a stuffed, two-egg omelet for our final practical. We are being graded on how well we season, on how clean we keep our stations and on how many trips we have to make because of a forgotten piece of equipment. We are being timed, we are being observed and the energy in the room is heightened.

(more…)

I’m two weeks away from finishing my first term at Midwest Culinary Institute. I’ve learned knife skills, cooked eggs, confronted vegetables and wrestled potatoes. But I’ve also learned a few things about surviving in a teaching kitchen. Well, actually I’ve learned ten things.

1. I always thought a good chef was a good cook. Now I know that a good chef is an effective multi-tasker. Yes, it’s important to be creative. But for now, I concentrate on not setting the potatoes on fire. The fastest way to feel like a culinary misfit is to forget the anna potatoes in oven #1 while browning the scallop potatoes in oven #2. (Note: someone’s quiche did not fair so well in the combination oven. Forgetting is easy to do.)



2. Cooking is a little painful. 20 minutes over a red-hot commercial range is all it takes to turn beet red and start sweating. When constantly flipping contents of a sauté pan, your wrist starts to ache too. Now imagine line cooks who do it all day long.
3. There is inexplicable loyalty in the kitchen. Kinship in the kitchen occurs because your classmate grabs you a potato out of the bin when you forget one. You return this favor by rescuing their burning dish in the oven. This is the brotherhood that Anthony Bourdain writes about so frequently and I’m happy to report that it’s true and it extends to the females too.

(more…)

(Or How to Fake Confidence)

If I’m gonna’ stand here in checkered pants that look like my grandpa’s couch cushions, I’m sure as hell going to cook this fried egg right. I’m gonna’ sizzle it on it’s back in some clarified butter and then I’m gonna’ take the whole thing and flip it into the air and catch it on the other side.

It’s gonna’ be amazing, it’s gonna’ stop the show, its got my name on it. This egg spells Courtney Tsitouris.

Or at least that’s what I want to be thinking. In reality, I’m standing hunched over the range doing circular motions with the sauté pan, trying to convince myself to make the move. The egg whites are set and it’s time. We’re not allowed to use a spatula but didn’t Julia Child say that it’s all about confidence?

Just flip it.
Do it.
Man up.
Flip the egg before it overcooks!

(more…)

Cooking school, I imagined, would be like the secret door in Alice and Wonderland. Once inside, the culinary world would reveal itself to me in the form of invaluable tools and techniques — the ones that the Food Network didn’t want me to know because they would make me too powerful.

Cooking school, indeed, is a little bit like that. It involves a lot of myth dispelling (hard boiled eggs should be slowly simmered), historical background (Escoffier is the father of classical cuisine) and hand holding (recipes from our text book guide us as we cook).

But the big surprise is that we are encouraged to rely on our own experiences and tastes. Take onions, for example. While the proper way to cut one was demonstrated, our instructor encourages us to cut it however we can do it with the most comfort and efficiency. Or take the egg salad we made — we are asked to taste along the way and adjust seasoning and consistency according to our own common sense.

(more…)

I whisked the egg yolks as if my life depended on it, as if I were one separated mayonnaise away from death. But it’s not that it really mattered if my emulsion broke. If it did, there would be no lighting bolts thrown down at me, Gordon Ramsay would not scream at me standing two inches from my face, I would not be cast off like a demoralized reality show wannabe. I would simply have to start over. Still, this was the first actual cooking assignment in Cooking 1, and so I felt the weight of my success heavy and strong.

I asked my instructor if it was thick enough — which it was not — but it only took a second to add some oil and get it up to snuff. I looked around the room to see that most other student’s had also squeaked in with a victory. We were red in the face (no blenders allowed here folks, only wire whisks) but in general we were successful.

My next mission was to create a tuna salad with the mayonnaise — a dish that I had probably tasted twice in my life and hated both times. I took my sweet time playing with it since it would be the first one I would ever present to my instructor. We have recipes but are encouraged to stray from them and so I added relish, I tinkered with the spices a bit and then I scooped it up and walked it over for sentencing.

(more…)

My nephew, Jack, was one when he took his first step and I was lucky enough to be in the room when he did it. I watched the flash of excitement in his eyes and the brilliance of his expression as he forged ahead into the unknown. He didn’t know quite what was ahead of him, he didn’t even know how he was going to get there, but he stepped anyway. Wabbly, yes — but he stepped anyway.

By the time we’re adults, of course, this kind of adventure seeking wears off a little. We’ve learned to settle into routines that help us avoid danger, complication, and if we’re lucky, regret. The downside, of course, is that we inhibit new experiences — experiences that might thrill us, teach us or change us.

These are the thoughts racing through my head as I stand in the middle of the classroom kitchen. I’ve been standing here for the better part of an hour chopping random vegetables and trying to achieve the perfect batonnet, julienne and brunoise. I’m surrounded, of course, by a dozen or so other culinary students who are doing the same thing. We’re all stepping forward, each of us has a different reason, but we’re stepping forward.

(more…)

It took me a moment to absorb the image that was reflecting from the mirror. I was standing in the ladies room at Cincinnati State and was looking at myself for the first time in full uniform. I had known for a year that this moment was coming, yet I couldn’t quite identify the person looking back.

In my own corner of the world, I was already a good cook. I started a food blog that centered around this very idea. So, was I seriously about to walk into a room and subject myself to the possibility of failure? Standing there, trying hopelessly to tie a “neckerchief,” I wondered what exactly I was doing.

I made my way down the hall to a small, industrial classroom and sat down. I realized, suddenly, that there would be no more wondering about how this experience was going to shake out — it was all right there in front of me. 9 men, 7 women, 1 instructor, 8 tables, 1 large television, and 16 knife sets. Once I swallowed my nervous gulp, I became filled with the overwhelming feeling that I was in the right place.

(more…)

Hey, you! I hope you’ll indulge me today. I don’t like to use this site as a personal diary but I did feel it appropriate to share the news that that my culinary school journey has begun. My morning routine now includes packing a bag with my chef’s jacket, knife kit and text books.

I promise you, I’ll never use this blog to regurgitate culinary school details. But I will try to translate the techniques I learn into home cooking tips for you. I’ll also continue to post my impressions of Cincinnati restaurants and share recipes. In the end of the day, what I’ll really try to do is provide meaningful content.

(more…)