Foods You Can Cram into Your Gullet - With Nasturtiums

[Nast]

My cheese was the opposite - it was too strong. I used Valdeon, and it sort of overwhelmed the delicate squash flavor.

[Triple Zero]

Nast, your food looks absolutely gorgeous! Just wanted to say.

[Jenne]

Hm...persimmons...interesting choice for that salad!  I will have to try, though I'm not a total 100% persimmon fan, per se.

[Nast]

Bump!

I started a new food blog - http://iateitwithmyface.tumblr.com/

I know I haven't updated it in a shamefully long time, but please take a look anyway.

So I joined the culinary program at my local city college. I have no grand illusions of becoming a chef (we all know where grand illusions end up: flipping burgers at Denny's during the night shift), but I did want to learn all the "proper" techniques and things you can't very well teach yourself at home, like how to butcher a pig.

[Nast]

This was the first thing we made for our baking class at school - a pineapple upside down cake! As you can see, mine turned out hilariously lopsided. 
Since it was my birthday that day, I took it home, stuck a candle in it .



And then this is a Thai beef salad I made for dinner one day. You can't tell by looking at it, but I assure you it was a sensual smorgasbord of fragrances and flavors. Unfortunately I don't have the recipe anymore, but I recall that the dressing was something like fish sauce, palm sugar, lime juice, garlic, and cilantro.

[Pæs]

Oh dear, DECI4 isn't going to like this ONE BIT.

[Pæs]

I would eat the fuck out of that cake, though.

[DECI4]

Bump!

I started a new food blog - http://iateitwithmyface.tumblr.com/

I know I haven't updated it in a shamefully long time, but please take a look anyway.

So I joined the culinary program at my local city college. I have no grand illusions of becoming a chef (we all know where grand illusions end up: flipping burgers at Denny's during the night shift), but I did want to learn all the "proper" techniques and things you can't very well teach yourself at home, like how to butcher a pig.

You aren't going to learn how to butcher a pig in Culinary school. Butchering is a very specialized technique that you are not going to become competent at by simply watching someone and taking notes. There are very few chefs in the world even in 3 star restaurants that butcher whole animals in house. If you really have the money and time to burn, by all means enjoy your classes, but the fact is, without years of practice and repetition a semi-competent home cook is all you will ever be, and you can attain that rank without spending thousands of dollars on school. You can find any information or technique on youtube for free, spend the money on ingredients, cookbooks, some decent knives and kitchen tools, not to mention eating well at respected restaurants in your area.

Alternatively you could use your schooling to land an internship at a decent restaurant and spend a year working part time in a real kitchen. You will learn more doing prep and making salads in the kitchen of a good chef than you will in culinary school.

[Nast]

Bump!

I started a new food blog - http://iateitwithmyface.tumblr.com/

I know I haven't updated it in a shamefully long time, but please take a look anyway.

So I joined the culinary program at my local city college. I have no grand illusions of becoming a chef (we all know where grand illusions end up: flipping burgers at Denny's during the night shift), but I did want to learn all the "proper" techniques and things you can't very well teach yourself at home, like how to butcher a pig.

You aren't going to learn how to butcher a pig in Culinary school. Butchering is a very specialized technique that you are not going to become competent at by simply watching someone and taking notes. There are very few chefs in the world even in 3 star restaurants that butcher whole animals in house. If you really have the money and time to burn, by all means enjoy your classes, but the fact is, without years of practice and repetition a semi-competent home cook is all you will ever be, and you can attain that rank without spending thousands of dollars on school. You can find any information or technique on youtube for free, spend the money on ingredients, cookbooks, some decent knives and kitchen tools, not to mention eating well at respected restaurants in your area.

Alternatively you could use your schooling to land an internship at a decent restaurant and spend a year working part time in a real kitchen. You will learn more doing prep and making salads in the kitchen of a good chef than you will in culinary school.

Thank you for your advice. 

[DECI4]

This was the first thing we made for our baking class at school - a pineapple upside down cake! As you can see, mine turned out hilariously lopsided. 
Since it was my birthday that day, I took it home, stuck a candle in it .



And then this is a Thai beef salad I made for dinner one day. You can't tell by looking at it, but I assure you it was a sensual smorgasbord of fragrances and flavors. Unfortunately I don't have the recipe anymore, but I recall that the dressing was something like fish sauce, palm sugar, lime juice, garlic, and cilantro.

That salad is a plate of fail if I've ever seen one. Where do cherry tomatoes and romaine fit into Thai food? That steak looks like you "sliced" it with a dull bread knife. Please tell me that isn't the kind of shit they are teaching you in class.

[DECI4]

Just to be clear, I understand using ingredients in non traditional ways when cooking for yourself, your salad may have been truly delicious, but if that is the shit they are teaching you in culinary school get out of there fast.

[Nast]

I'll have you know I spent a good long time working at that meat with an icepick, thankyouverymuch.

[Nast]

Just to be clear, I understand using ingredients in non traditional ways when cooking for yourself, your salad may have been truly delicious, but if that is the shit they are teaching you in culinary school get out of there fast.

I learnt it from a library book.

[Don Coyote]

I'll have you know I spent a good long time working at that meat with an icepick, thankyouverymuch.

I am so glad Nast is back.

[Pæs]

Um, just to be clear, those aren't actually cherry tomatoes.

That's a Siamese tomato from the northern coast of Thailand.

The cherry tomato evolved from that Siamese tomato some time after it was introduced to Russia by Thai explorers in the 16th century.

I'll have you know I spent a good long time working at that meat with an icepick, thankyouverymuch.

I am so glad Nast is back.

Also this. I actually love Nast.