Changes in Class

My time at the PCI has been going quite well thus far.  I have been receiving reasonably good grades, and more importantly, I am learning much.  Just this week, we have had a bit of a transition in both our curriculum and our class dynamics.  While our chef-instructor’s original plan was to begin on the study of the physiology of taste and smell this week, a change of plans has meant that we are now delving into international cuisine first.  While each student would previously work primarily from their base station for the completion of all dishes, we now rotate work stations so that each station may be affixed to the preparation of a specific dish.  Additionally, the chef is now beginning to  demonstrate more extracurricular dishes.  Those he has covered in Chinese cuisine are hand-pulled noodles and Peking duck (my workstation partner, Andy, brought the air compressor).  To maximize my education value, I am continuing to frequent my chef-instructor’s night class on Monday through Wednesday.  I usually practice dishes or techniques I have learned during my regular class, with my chef-instructor’s oversight.  We will, however, occasionally work on something outside of the curriculum (N-ZORBIT M maltodextrin was interesting).  Sometimes I also help out at the PCI with special events.  Yesterday I had to turn down the opportunity to work at a banquet from 2 pm to 10 pm, from the 17th through 22nd, at $15 per hour, not only because of scheduling issues, but also because I will not work on Sundays.

This Wednesday, chef Marc Bauer from the FCI (who was once chef-instructor to Wylie Dufresne) gave a demonstration garlic soup with rock shrimp and pesto, duck breast with pomegranate, brussels sprouts, and parsnip puree, and mango and apple tart tatin with coconut and lime sorbet.  During the demonstration, he demonstrated the use of the Vita-Mix blender for garlic soup as well as the pesto and sorbet.  All three dishes where quite good.  The element that particularly interested me was the dark baked strip of coconut meat he used to garnish the sorbet.