Back to school...in the Kitchen
By Giff Recarte

Gone are those days when I would wake up early in the morning where I don't have to drag myself out of bed to attend a class.. on a Saturday morning (discounting the 10 instances where I tried pulling it off almost a year ago by enrolling myself in French class).

That all changed when the opportunity to attend a very inviting and (I think) interesting course came my way -- Cooking.

Last Saturday, I was given an opportunity together with some of my friends Jason, Giles, Fifi and Ruby to attend a Discovery Course offered by the one and only Center for Culinary Arts (CCA).

Just a brief background, CCA's Kitchen Discovery Course was initially exclusive and is a pre-requisite course to all those students who want to apply in any of CCA's diploma courses. It is a course geared towards verifying your interest in culinary arts. Building on that mantra of "discovery", they started offering it to the public to better introduce them to what culinary arts could do for them.

This was one perfect excuse to go back to school, for a day.. and get the chance to choose the best classmates I think I ever had at this day and age -- my friends.

******

Me and my friends met up at CCA at around 9am. A short registration and attendance check, and we were on our way to our classroom to begin:

The 8-page material we would be working on for the entire day.

A couple of brief self-introductions broke the class' ice and Chef Menoy Gimenez. "toque-ed" away with his lecture. Chef grouped us into 3 groups and were given the task to go over our recipe for the morning and discuss amongst ourselves how we were going to proceed. I was lucky to be grouped with Jason and Giles but later realized that we might end up with boils in hands or maybe ruin our recipe since neither of us can be called domesticated in terms of um.. cooking. Good thing though, we were with Ian, who's a mom of five, has a good working knowledge on our battle for morning --

Caramelizd Salmon with Orange-Shoyu Glaze with Sautéed Mixed Vegetables, Soba Noodles Lemongrass Beurre Blanc, and Balsamic-Soy Reduction


Chef Menoy "toque-ed" says food should be: Clean, Zen-like, Appetizing


We were grouped into three: The cooks (Left), The students (Bottom), The Newbies (top)


We the newbies were trying to figure out our strategy for our mouthful recipe.

To add a little more pressure, we were led to the kitchen into our working tables and were given the goal to prepare and complete our recipe before 12noon, just in time for lunch.

GULP! Ito na ang lunch natin? =( Galingan natin teammates!!

I felt like I was in a pressure cooker -- prepare and come up with an EDIBLE product by morning's end.


Chef Menoy demonstrates how to cut vegetable shillings correctly.


Our vegetable shillings cut to perfection. They ain't cooked yet, but they already look tasty.


Chef Menoy lectures the class in the most interesting way -- beside a knife and a boiling pan.


Giles prepares the Balsamic-Soy reduction sauce of our dish


While Laarni marinades our salmon in a ginger-sichuan peppercorn-OJ mixture


On other hand, Jason and Ian prepared the Lemongrasss Beurre Blanc sauce of our dish


After marinade, our salmon got a sugar-pepper treatment on top (meat side) to get that sugar-crusted look and taste


In between pans, and while waiting for our sauce reductions to finish, we can't help but satisfy some of the camera whores in us.


Jason points out to Laarni which side of the fish needs more frying.

Unlike any other instance where you would want to receive all the credit you can get, in this class, I lowered my expectations and at least hoped to hear and know that what we did was edible enough to be eaten.


Chef Menoy wrapped up and gave his evaluation in the dishes the different groups produced. For some of us who were first timers, not bad. The dish was really tasty and really good.

I love how the color of the vegetables compliment the color and the taste of the sugar-crusted salmon on top. This just brought my confidence level a notch higher and I can't wait to attempt and cook this on my own!

Next stop, dessert.

Read more at http://gipsterph.multiply.com/journal/item/133/Back_to_school.._in_the_Kitchen_Task_1_Salmon.

The one where I didn't burn anything
By Ian Galliguez


This woman apparently believes that I can cook to save my life. I'm not one to brag or anything but I can make a mean embutido, a lovely herbed bream cheese spread and a to die for roasted pineapple porkchop steak. So, when she asked me if I wanted to join a cooking class, I went for it.



Center for Culinary Arts offers Kitchen Discovery Classes every weekend at the CCA center over at Katipunan. Of course, it was really way too early for me (considering that I was still inebriated from that Friday night party) but I trekked and dragged Emster to join me in the class. I had full faith that Emster would save me from the flames of the stove, plus she studied HRM so I can fake my way through the class by using her. Once we got there, we were given uniforms that included this cure little hat (not really a toque but sort of a midget version of it). Can I just say that I loved it?! It was so tarush!


Our chef/lecturer/mentor was Chef Jimenez. He is one of the pioneers of CCA and was the founder of the Kitchen Discovery Class. He kinda reminded me of my favorite prof back in college. He was very realistic in setting the expectations when it comes to cooking. Now, I've always believed that cooking was an art as opposed to baking which was more of a science. There is some truth to that statement but cooking is actually more about the end result which is slightly pseudo hedonistic. It's all about the flavor. What we want is a contrast or a blending of flavors. Chef Jimenez put cooking and food in way that made me think of it as poetry.
It was perfect! My love for literature and my ravenous appetite apparently made a lot of sense! Now, honestly speaking, I still have a certain kind of insecurity in the kitchen. This is the reason why I never go in there when Christmas comes. Cooking, according to Chef Jimenez has three _object_ives. 1. You need to produce something that is edible. (Which when said, we immediately sniggered and scoffed) 2. You need to produce something that is visually appetizing (C.Z.A - Clean. Zen. Attractive) and 3. You need to gain confidence. I never did see cooking that way, but had I known this, I would've started cooking at age 13. You don't need a freaking shrink, you just need to cook! How beautiful is that?


We started class by talking about how we were going to go about the recipes and what our individual tasks were. Being a closet pyromaniac, I decided to volunteer for chopping and cutting the food. Mis en Place seemed much better than hosing down the place with a fire extinguisher. Laarni, Jason, Giff and Giles decided to take on cooking. The picture above was hilarious and I decided that the caption to this is "How many gay men does it take to turn on a stove?" We eventually figured it out and Captain Giles assumed stovetop ignition duties.


The class was very practical and straight to the point. Chef Jimenez was more of a realist chef. Of course, this is just a short class and the audience was a mixed bunch. He took us to the step by step process, giving us tips and trade secrets, making the class really entertaining, fun and educational. I was almost tempted to fry the salmon!


At the end of the day, we were able to meet our _object_ives: It was edible, it was visually appealing and it did build our confidence!
It wasn't just about putting cooking for me, well at least right after the class - It was more of making sure that the pleasures of cooking and the happiness it can give to other people seemed more important than just putting meat to fire.
Cooking is a hedonistic art - which for me is the best kind of art there is.


Our Finished Product:
Blackened Caramelized Salmon with Orange Shoyu Sauce and Soba Noodles

If you want to inqure about their Kitchen Discovery Classes, you can visit their website or call CCA Manila at 9942520, 9942530 and 9942540


More at http://devilredshoes.blogspot.com/2008/05/one-where-i-didnt-burn-anything.html

What's Cookin'
By Ree Prudente

I love food. I adore eating. I live to eat (as opposed to The Hubby, who usually eats to live). Consequently, I enjoy cooking and baking. Most times anyway.

So this love affair with food got me out of bed at 5AM last Saturday, and out of the house by 7AM, for a cross country trek to the Center for Culinary Arts (CCA) on Katipunan. My friend Ruby invited me to join her and a group of her friends for a Kitchen Discovery Class (KDC). Supposedly for cooking and baking enthusiasts and those who want to check out what happens in a professional kitchen or those who are thinking of going into Culinary Arts, the KDC is a 6-hour course that "introduces you to the exciting foodservice and hospitality industry".

As far as introductions go, it was like being introduced to a prince. Or maybe some mid-level duke (is there such a thing?). I mean, at the end of the day, we were supposed to have learned to make Caramelized Salmon with Orange-Shoyu Glaze with Sauteed Mixed Vegetables, Soba Noodles, Lemongrass Beurre Blanc and Balsamic-Soy Reduction; plus Saffron Panna Cotta with Citrus Caramel Sauce and Almond Tuile. As our chef-instructor Menoy Gimenez said, quite a mouthful. Then again, I don't suppose you'd pay P3,800 (the cost of the KDC, if I paid for it myself) to learn how to cook sinigang or fried chicken.

Speaking of the chef-instructor, I was hoping for Chef Rob from QTV's Chef to Go. Yummy! Unfortunately, he doesn't teach at CCA. Ruby said that Chef Tristan Encarnacion, he of the countless Alaska and pots-and-pans print ads, could be teaching (pretty acceptable). But we ended up with Chef Menoy, and I loved him. Just like our balsamic-soy reduction, he managed to reduce what felt like 20 pages of recipe ingredients and instructions into its simple, palatable essence.

For someone who is one of the founders of the first (I think) culinary school in the country, Chef Menoy reminds me of a big bowl of sundried-tomato-and-broccoli pasta: slightly exotic but very comforting; intimidating at first, but once you get used to him, very encouraging. He broke down the complex instructions into easy-to-digest steps, punctuated every now and then by "Does that make sense?" Explained the way he did, things did make more sense.

I won't go into a blow-by-blow (or bleu by bleu, if you prefer) account of our three cooking hours. But at the end, we had a fantastic tasting, beautifully plated salmon.



Fine, I'm not the best food photographer, but our salmon really did look nice. And it was yummy. As Chef Menoy says, the test to see if the dish is any good: would I pay for it? Hmm. If I weren't such a chennybopper, yes, I would.

I didn't stay for the afternoon Panna Cotta session (I heard that it was a blast) since I promised Raine I'd take her swimming in the afternoon. Would have been nice to learn how to make those fancy tuiles (can't even pronounce it).

I wish I was able to take home what we prepared though (each group of five had two salmon pieces--not enough to go around, especially if you eat the way I do). Oh, and I wanted to take home their knives! Such joy chopping up things with a sharp knife. What I did get to take home was my CCA shirt, a nice apron (perfect, as Ruby says, for preparing instant noodle soup), a hand towel and a skull cap (I guess you get the toque when you're seriously cooking). And I got a CCA certificate. Will have it _frame_d and hung in my kitchen.

I am looking forward to their classes in Serendra though, mainly because it's so much nearer (I can't imagine getting up and making the cross country trek on a regular basis). JB, who's on CCA's marketing team described some pretty interesting courses called "Chefs and the (Global) City". It isn't hands on, more like a cooking show type of thing--but you get to eat whatever's prepared. Oh joy.



I do hope CCA has more hands on classes somewhere closer to home. Here in my house, preferably. Their Kitchen Discovery Class has sure whet my appetite for more.

http://reethinks.blogspot.com/ and http://rheeya.multiply.com/journal/item/82/Whats_Cookin

Kitchen Discovery: Do you have what it takes to cook? (Part 1)
By Jason Doplito

My answer to that question is I'm not sure. While I've pretty much documented my incapacity to whip up anything edible from scratch -- not instant -- I've also had delusions of preparing something special for the family, such as a five course meal.

If you're in a similar bind (culinary delusions, that is), you can find out if you have the aptitude for cooking by taking Center for Culinary Arts' (CCA) Kitchen Discovery Class.

Last Saturday, CCA invited bloggers, including myself, to take the class. While I had trepidations, (mainly making an idiot of myself), it wasn't hard for me to accept the invitation when I discovered who my possible teacher would be:



Tristan Encarnacion -- Need I explain more?


Rosebud Benitez -- I love her! Too bad she left QTV's cooking show, Ka-toque, to host her own show.



Just to give you a background, CCA is a culinary school in Katipunan, right across the Ateneo Gym. (The school is also behind the restaurant, Cravings, and I don't just mean geographically.)

All CCA students go through an admissions test to find out if they have the aptitude, not only for kitchen work, but also for either of these two areas: cooking or baking. What CCA did was make this admissions test a class in itself, hence, the birth of the Kitchen Discovery Class. So yep, through the class, you also get to find out which of these two areas you enjoy more.

Call time was 9 a.m. After a quick registration, we were provided with our "outfit" -- a white shirt, blue apron and a chef's cap -- and our recipes.

For our morning session, which would run until 12 noon, we were tasked to make a Caramelized Salmon with Orange-Shoyu Glaze, with mixed Sauteed Vegetables, Soba Noodles, Lemongrass Beuree Blanc and Balsamic-Soy Reduction.

This dish had me at "caramelized."

For the afternoon session from 1 to 4 pm, we would bake Saffron Panna Cotta with Citrus Caramel Sauce and Almond Tuile.

It had me at "tuile" which was good because it meant I actually got through reading its entire name.

We changed into our outfit and proceeded to a classroom for introductions. We all got excited because it felt like being in school again and I had my friends and acquaintances as classmates -- Fifi, Giff, Giles, Ruby, and from Multiply, Jerome and Jerome. In total, 11 of us were bloggers and 3 were new CCA students, so you can just imagine if you have your whole barkada with you, it'd be a blast!

After a brief intro by Anne, CCA PR Manager, we were finally introduced to our chef. I held my breath as I was about to learn if it would be Chef Tristan (aaaaay!) or the lovable Chef Rosebud....

.... but of course, you'll have to wait until tomorrow for my entry on that

Plus!!!
-- who was the "repeat student," who naturally, got bullied for it by the entire class?
-- who reminded the chef of Bianca Lapuz and Beth Tamayo? (Bonus tidbit, they are guys, LOL)
-- and do I have what it takes to be a culinary student?

http://bluearden.blogspot.com/2008/05/do-you-have-what-it-takes-to-cook.html and http://bluearden.multiply.com/journal/item/214

Kitchen Discovery: Do you have what it takes to cook? (Part 2)
By Jason Doplito

Yesterday, I wrote about the Kitchen Discovery Class at CCA, which allows someone to know if he has what it takes to be a chef and thus, pursue culinary studies.

After a brief intro by Anne, CCA PR Manager, we were introduced to our chef. I held my breath as I finally got to learn if it would be Chef Tristan (aaaaay!) or the lovable Chef Rosebud....

... it was Chef Menoy Jimenez.

My brain had a 3-second blackout before it resumed normal operations.

Now, Chef Menoy, as I later learned, is the founder of the Discovery class and an institution at CCA. And he doesn't teach anymore, but when he used to, students would line up to register for his class, so you can say we were honored to be "discovering" the kitchen with him. (I just prayed he wasn't what Douglas Nierras is to dancing -- you know, the terror teacher.)

Chef Menoy talks fast, breaks down concepts into relatable analogies, and is funny. It wasn't hard for me to relax after the first minute especially when he explained that one of the _object_ives of the Kitchen Discovery Class was confidence-building: that there's nothing to be scared of about the kitchen and cooking is a joy to do again and again.

The class was divided into three groups, and I was paired with Giff, Giles, blogger Ian and Laarni. We had a mother in the group (Ian) so that was a relief. The normal Kitchen Discovery Class requires 15 students to be divided into groups of five.

We proceeded to the kitchen and saw the ingredients laid out before us. While I recognize some of them by name on paper, I certainly couldn't recognize them in real life



Here's a funny story:

Laarni and I are admittedly "beginners" in the kitchen, to put it mildly. I was tasked to chop the cilantro for garnishing.

It looked like this:

I turned to Laarni and asked, "Sinasama ba yung tangkay?"

Laarni turned to the sous chef and asked, "Sinasama ba yung tangkay?"

The sous chef said no and gave us a look which I can only describe as... sympathetic.

The morning dish had five components: (1) Caramelized Salmon with Orange-Shoyu Glaze, (2) mixed Sauteed Vegetables, (3) Soba Noodles, (4) Lemongrass Beuree Blanc and (5) Balsamic-Soy Reduction. Since the name of the recipe was a mouthful, Chef Menoy summarized it as "masarap na salmon." We would make all of these, except for the Soba Noodles, which the sous chefs took care of.

What can I say -- it was very easy! Granted that some of the ingredients weren't staple wet market fare (I think), e.g., Grand Marnier, zucchini, shallot, lemongrass, you basically just mix these ingredients, fry the salmon and thicken the liquid mixture through boiling (which is what reduction means). Chef Menoy also shared that you can do mistakes in cooking -- sometimes, accidents make the dish even better. This is as opposed to baking, which call for exact measurements and timing.

From this:

To this, By Team Fierce:

So watch out, I can now do a mean, to-die-for salmon in a Zen-inspired plating! (Chef Menoy offered a tip on plating; remember the acronym CZA -- Clean, Zen-like and Appetizing.)

We took a lunch break and I delved into The Mystery of Tristan's Non-Appearance. Here are the facts that I unearthed from highly and well-placed sources, whom I shall not name:

a) Tristan is either a flirt or just too charming
b) Tristan calls everyone "baby"
c) Tristan is ALWAYS there every Saturday... except that Saturday!!!

Hmp.


I am taking comfort in the fact that it took years for me to meet Piolo, but eventually, I got to meet him face-to-face in his dressing room.

The afternoon session was devoted to baking under Chef Anne Atanacio, simply the funniest teacher I've ever met. We were doing Panna Cotta, a desert that would be hard for us to go wrong with, according to her.

Since the environment was more relaxed -- we had a funny teacher and the group was down to nine from the original 14 -- we had a "friendly" competition: Who would make the best Panna Cotta?

It was me, Giles and Laarni; Giff and two CCA students; and Fifi, Ruby and Penny, a professional blogger.

Logic would have it that Fifi's group would win this one -- she bakes! But at this point, I was so comfortable around the kitchen (class _object_ive met!) that my ego inflated like dough on a 85°F oven.

While the recipe called for relatively easy tasks, it was the orange-segmenting job that got me stumped: I couldn't cut the orange into smaller segments without mutilating the whole thing. Eventually, I tossed my horrendously shaped orange segments into the citrus caramel sauce -- with the seeds still in them, which I learned, I should've taken out in the first place!

Now the citrus caramel sauce proved to be a little tricky -- we were supposed to bring the sugar mixture to a boil until it turns amber in color. While waiting for the flawlessness to happen, Chef Anne began to spice up the conversation. We reminded her of certain people, apparently. For example, she said Giff looked really familiar ("Lord of the Rings?" I offered), but never got to come up with a name. I apparently look like Beth Tamayo. (Great.) But here was the clincher, she said Giles looked like Vhong Navarro and Dingdong Dantes's ex: Bianca Lapuz.

Ibang level!

Since we were bloggers, we also exchanged sites that are heavily clicked in our bookmarks, traded gay lingo (Shaider for "shy") and got a lesson from Chef on how to be in the running towards becoming America's Next Top Model:



Top Chef meets Top Model. Chef Anne strikes a fierce pose with Giles, me, the very cute in an anime way sous chef Miguel and Lalaine.


Amidst all the chaos, we almost burned our caramel sauce that Chef had to step in and rescue it from utter mess. Naturally, we were jeered by the entire class -- until Giff's group actually burned its sauce. They were thus coined, "repeaters."

Fifi, Ruby and Penny were practically yawning at us -- not only did they finish first but they actually made a perfect panna cotta, with perfect sauce, topped with perfect orange segments, and accented with a perfect tuile (it's like apa, those sold outside church every Sunday). Hmp.


Our team's Panna Cotta topped with mangled orange segments (photo by Giff)

In the end, we managed to make not just edible, but actually, delicious panna cottas, so yep, I now have a desert up my sleeve in case the need arises.

So do I have what it takes to cook? I think everyone does; we just need a little coaxing out of our shell. From Lucky Me Pancit Canton, I can now do salmon and panna cotta -- that's quite a transformation.

CCA's Kitchen Discovery class are held on Saturdays from 9 am to 4 pm. Fee is P3,800 inclusive of all food ingredients, access to facilities, utensils, certificate of completion and "costume" -- comprised of a shirt, skull cap, side towel and apron. Check out the CCA website or call (+63 2) 994.2520, 30 & 40 for more information.

http://bluearden.multiply.com/journal/item/215 and http://bluearden.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html

Dish It
By Felice Capicoy


Last Saturday, I did something I thought I would never do again -- I went back to school. Ruby invited Jason, Giff, Giles, and I to participate in a CCA cooking class. I love experimenting inside the kitchen so instead of dreading being inside an educational institution once again, I actually was excited for the day's events.

The group arrived on time. Our promptness, I'm guessing, is something that we would've found a challenge if this were a real class. We were introduced to other bloggers and given our outfits for the day -- a white shirt, an apron, and a toque.

The first dish, care of Chef Menoy Jimenez, was Caramelized Salmon with Orange-Shoyu Glaze. Cool. Salmon. I love salmon. If I could eat salmon everyday, I would.


Chef Jimenez is one of CCA's founders and from him we learned that cooking fish is way different than cooking meat. The goal is "not to tenderize but to set" and because we needed to retain the fish's moisture, we had to know how to control what we were cooking. He said that our final product should be, of course, edible and should fall under these three adjectives: clean, zen-like, and appetizing. If we were a paying customer, would we pay for what we've cooked?

marinating the salmon in orange, ginger, cilantro and Sichuan peppercorns

Soon we were inside a lab (or kitchen), broken into three groups of five. We started off with slicing the veggies then marinating the salmon followed by preparing the sauces. Since the dish had four different components to it, the tasks were delegated among the members. In no time, we were tossing and sauteing and reducing and plating what we've finished. The outcome was a plate that looked so pretty, I just wanted to stare at it. But since it was lunch time, and all of our stomachs were growling, we dug in and had a taste of what we made. The fish was so flavorful and perfectly moist, seamlessly balanced by the vegetables and soba that accompanied it that it pained me to share the dish with the group. Haha.

Caramelize Salmon with Orange-Shoyu Glaze

I almost didn't make it for dessert because after the morning's activities, I felt I had no more energy left to make panna cottas. It was a good thing then that I was persuaded to continue on with the afternoon session because I would've missed a lot if I went ahead and skipped it.

Chef Anne explains the recipe

Chef Anne Anatacio was our instructor for the afternoon. I never had so much fun in a class before. Maybe it was because of the fact that the alkies dominated the kitchen? Or maybe it was because Chef shared our penchant for gay linggo? Or maybe it was because there was so much trash talking going on between the groups, _base_ball p_layer_s would shrivel in a corner if they entered the room.


a couple of mentally challenged students terrorizes CCA

I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of panna cottas because I have tasted some cringe-worthy ones from reputable restaurants in my twenty-four years of existence. Chef Anne's recipe though made me look at it in a new light. Our finished product is how panna cottas should taste like (at least according to my tastebuds). The preparation was easy, breezy and the dessert turned out rich and yummy.

Saffron Panna Cotta

This two-part session is part of CCA's Kitchen Discovery Class wherein the _object_ive is to help those interested choose between culinary or baking classes/courses. If you really have a passion for it, CCA can get you geared towards becoming a top chef (not model... although Chef Anne can give Tyra's girls a run for their money. lol). http://www.cca-manila.com/

*photos by Giff Ricarte

http://noguarantee.blogspot.com/