February 2013
2 posts
jellisfeingold asked: wait, did I miss the part about your externship?
ruth curry: and that's when I hit 'close tab' →
These truths + actual dates = why I just deactivated my profile (for the millionth time)
ruthcurry:
I reactivated my OKCupid profile last week because… . why exactly… ? Well, I know why, I am a human being who needs companionship and affection. But a few days in I am remembering all too clearly the feeling of hypersensitive aimless doomy resignation that accompanies scrolling through and...
January 2011
4 posts
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Graduation Day: a look back, and ahead
I’m not a typically sentimental person, but there are times when a moment demands a bit of mush and heartstring tugging. Not to mention a strong self-pat on the back.
Yesterday I graduated from the Institute of Culinary Education and I feel proud.
As noted many times and in many different ways in this blog, I have had conflicted feelings about attending culinary school. On the one hand,...
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Spinach and Goat Cheese Gnocchi with Sun-dried...
This Mario Batali recipe was a big surprise to many of us who did not think we much liked goat cheese or sun-dried tomatoes. Goat cheese makes for a surprisingly light and tangy ricotta-cheese replacement and the tomatoes and lemon provided a bright counterpoint to the creamy gnocchi.
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Mod 5: The Chef Chris Show
Image courtesy of Institute of Culinary Education
So much to report, dear readers, I hardly know where to begin (which is probably why one week off from blogging turned to four five in a flash).
By the end of Module 4, our class had garnered such a reputation for chaos—due squarely to the shenanigans of Big Bird and Bubba Gump, that ICE decided to send in the big guns. Chef Chris...
December 2010
5 posts
A week in 5 acts. Act 5: Dinner, finally!
Before work, I stop at the Union Square Farmer’s market to pick up 4 batches of swiss chard. I only wish I had taken a picture of the greens I bought. Bring me these in place of flowers any day (not that anyone brings me flowers, either, but that’s another story). That’s how lush and verdant they were.
Scored a ride home from work. My friend, Geri (also my doctor) and/or her husband Eric, are...
A week in 5 acts. Act 4: medical mysteries kind of...
Thursday: Re-visited the neurologist to get my MRI and blood test results early Thursday morning. My stomach churned the whole way there. I am so lucky to never have had any notable health issues and never did I appreciate that fact before this seemingly inexplicable tingling and numbness began. The weird burning sensation across half my back had diminished somewhat.
The doctor entered the...
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A week in 5 acts. Act 3: Food trends & dinner...
Long week, eh (she says, three weeks later)?
Wednesday: My day started with an 8am meeting, then at 9am we all gathered for the keynote presentation part of the event. Kara Nielsen was our speaker. Kara has the enviable job of being a “trendologist” at the Center for Culinary Development in San Francisco (where else?). Take a look at Kara’s culinary trends blog if you want to...
November 2010
5 posts
A week in 5 acts. Act 2: food editors descend on...
Tuesday: Fly to Des Moines for Meredith’s annual food editors’ meeting.
My employer, Meredith Corp., is in most regards a humble, 3000+ employee, family-owned business. The one bit of flash about the company is their ownership of a couple of 8-seater (if you consider the toilet a seat, which they do) Lear jets. I have never flown first-class, but I doubt it beats taking a...
A week in 5 acts. Act 1: medical mysteries
Sample week, November 2010
Granted, this would not be a typical week, but neither is it one embellished for dramatic emphasis.
Monday: Regular work day.*
*I saved this draft, got into bed, and remembered:
“Oh yeah, Monday. That was the day I got my second MRI and the blood test.”
I’ve been dealing with an assortment of medical annoyances since just before school began. I...
Pastry recap
Pastry is officially over next Wednesday. On the one hand, I am very happy about this. My body is crying mercy at the overload of gluten, fat and sugar. I don’t necessarily eat that much of any one thing, but there’s been a LOT of things to try and take home—I’ll say this: I’ve made a lot of friends at home and work lately (not a bad thing to tote pastries around...
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An unlikely Thanksgiving
Today is Thanksgiving. I’m sitting by the pool in Florida, visiting my newly-retired folks. It’s a strange setting for a New York City girl, used to the deep orange, burnished tones of the holiday, warming a fall chill. Instead I’m gazing at a peppy azure blue pool/sky twin set, fanned by gently blowing palm trees. The speakers channel 70s pop tunes, the soundtrack of my...
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Tarts, inspiration and double digits
Pastry began nearly two weeks ago. Sorry for the late report but I haven’t felt like “talking” much. In addition to being a huge time commitment, blogging also begs for insights, and frankly I’ve been a bit desiccated on that front lately. It’s not like I haven’t had any—my mind is not a quiet beast—it’s more that I’ve not had much...
October 2010
10 posts
gettinchai asked: have you decided where your externship will be? (do you get to decide?)
Practical exam: the end of mod 3
I’ll keep this brief because I have to get ready to head over to my ex’s for an early morning, pre-class, birthday breakfast with my big double-digit boy. Also because I have no pictures to share
Mod 3 ended much like it started and progressed: inauspiciously.
Wednesday was our practical exam. We were tasked with fabricating a whole chicken breast into a supreme, sauteeing it, making...
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Eggrolls, dumplings, sushi & a seriously bad taste
This was supposed to be the best class of the module, the one where I learned how to make sushi. Instead it was the devolution of my culinary school experience.
Things started off inoffensively enough. We finished our section on Chinese, et al, with dumplings, egg rolls and some other American Chinese favorites, like the Moo Shu Chicken with pancakes that I made.
Egg Rolls
Pork...
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Sunday supper: Indian feast, chocolate mousse and,...
I’ll get to last week’s classes eventually (finally, dishes most everyone liked!), but first I wanted to talk about Sunday’s kitchen adventures, which culminated in this swanky loaf of Cinnamon Swirl Bread, below (recipe at Food52).
My parents came for visit yesterday. I decided to make Indian food. They love it and don’t get to eat it much where they live upstate. It...
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I went to Italy and all I got was this crummy blog...
[AUTHOR’S NOTE: REREADING IT NOW, I MUST ADMIT—THIS IS MY SNOTTIEST, SNOOTIEST BLOG POST EVER!]
When I make my way to Italy, for reals, I hope it’s a more auspicious visit than the classroom trip we just took.
I’ve eaten a good amount of Italian food—and cooked my fair share, too. Growing up in Da Bronx I ate, with some regularity, Italian-American classics like...
Emilia-Romagna: The lost post
I just sat here for an hour, not getting ready for the meeting at Lev’s school before work, writing another post about last Thursday’s class. Instead of saving, I accidentally deleted it and don’t seem able to get it back.
Shoot me now.
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A Moderately Uninspired Trip to Northeastern Italy
It’s been harder and harder for me to blog these days. I’m still trying to get in a groove now that school’s started for the kids—Amira needs the computer we share for homework, something she never seemed to have much of in middle school. But also I’ve been feeling underwhelmed and burnt out.
I had hopes that exploring regional cuisines would be an immersive...
September 2010
13 posts
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Dinner Tonight: Tomato, Zucchini & Prosciutto Tart
My favorite dishes recently are the ones I’ve made using leftover parts from class projects. It’s pretty great to open up your fridge and see a Pâte Brisée pie crust, which I took home from one of our French regional classes, just sitting there waiting for me to make something awesome with it. Last night, I did just that.
My class project last week was to pick a couple of recipes...
Old School
Trout head - a gift on my cutting board from Bubba G
A friend of mine recently returned from her first trip to Burning Man, the weeklong art bacchanal in the desert. She described the “he said/she said” micro-dramas that arose between those in her “crew” as “like high school.” That struck a chord. For me, culinary school invokes an even earlier time: my...
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The Queen of Leftovers
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I am the Queen of Leftovers. The deep, abiding pleasure I get from turning one dish into another is immeasurable. Oh wait, it is measurable! Regarding tonight’s reinvention of Choucroute Garni and confit’d duck bones left over from class into White Bean Soup with Sauerkraut, Mixed Sausage, Potato and Mustard Greens in a duck...
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Lice lessons aka (she's) fried lice
I bolted awake at 4:51am this morning, anxious and itchy. Literally. I could no longer ignore the intense, crawling feeling in my scalp, the same feeling Lev and, to a lesser extent, Amira, had been complaining about the past few days.
I pretty much knew for days what it was, but kept avoiding it, telling myself that the creeping at the base of my neck was just seasonal dry scalp that would go...
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Tornadoes, actual and figurative
(from The Daily Green)
There was a tornado in NYC Thursday evening. I missed it. It wasn’t until I got home around 11pm, 5 hours or so later, that I realized the scope of the damage.
I believe there is some metaphorical significance here.
Texted my ex-husband to see how everything was by him. His response:
“[It was] Nothing compared to the back to school whirlwind.”
As...
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Tourne Homework
I’m pretty sure that of all the things about ICE that will stick with me years from now is how many g-ddamned times we’ve been made to tourne some vegetable or another. I’ve been to—I’m guessing—thousands of restaurants in my life and NEVER ONCE do I recall ever having had a tourned anything on my plate.
Chef L believes in assigning knife skills homework...
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Where am I going? First stop: Normandy and...
Sautéed Filet Mignon with Truffle Coulis, Potato-Onion Cake/Pommes Lyonnaise [made by me], Peas and Yellow Wax Beans [ditto]
Yesterday we finished up our section on plating and tech review and moved onto regional French cuisine. Chef L continues to cement her reputation with the majority of our class as a humorless nag, but this aspect of her personality does not bother me. What I do find...
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Vacated Mind, Full Plates. Happy New Year.
As previously stated, I was on vacation—which can really only be called such because I traveled mainly by bike, not subway, and didn’t sit in a uncomfortably chilly office all day. That’s not true: I shouldn’t diminish the value of The Vacated Mind. There was some restorative value in taking a respite from cranial activities (like blogging) for a brief time .
Then the...
The male mind, revealed
At my parents’ house for the weekend. My mom and I made Lev’s bed, after which he slid under the covers and settled in.
“Do you want me to tuck the blanket under you?” Grandma asked the boy, who was surprised by such attentiveness not typically granted by his own mother.
“Sure!” he said with a smile.
I quipped, ”Lev would do well with a harem.”
...
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Wounded knee and bruised pride
Yesterday, I wiped out on the ride home from the Red Hook ballfields. My bicycle—stressed as it was from the large soccer bag in the basket—did not apparently agree with my decision to mount the sidewalk and took a turn for the worse. As did my knee.
I did not cry, but Lev did for me.
“You’re brave, Mommy.”
The good part is he did not once whine about biking...
Module 3: New World, Ordered (pt deux)
We made a motley assortment of dishes for presentation Saturday. The fish/seafood dishes were tasty and fairly straightforward but, for some reason, the two meat dishes were ridiculous. Even Chef acknowledged that. There was at least one two many components that were unnecessary.
Only 6 dishes—albeit with multiple parts—were made between our three, 5-person teams.
This irritated...
August 2010
25 posts
Module 3: New World, Ordered (finally)
Dear Readers,
I am happy to report: there is a new chef in town and, if things continue apace, SHE is just what the culinary education fairies ordered (and I do mean “ordered”).
Chef L is no Nanny McPhee, but I daresay she may just be the type of person who can instill some discipline among our ranks.
She began by handing out a printed list of expectations, from us, our class...
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New World, Ordered: Are we there yet? (almost)
This posting two days after class thing is what passes for a vacation in my world. I’m off work this week and trying to grasp at one last week of improvisatory calm.
Bike riding to Red Hook for soccer camp with Lev
Camp is just a 1/2 day, and I have planned my free mornings around (what else?) breakfast. Today: granola and ice coffee at Prime Meats in Carroll Gardens. The perfect...
Girls v Boy: Girls, 1
I did dishes while Lev showered. By the time I was done, so was he.
Lev: “Mom, you can take a shower now. I’m done.
Me: “Wow, that was quick!”
Lev: “Mom, boys don’t need to do as much ‘stuff’ when they’re in the shower as girls do.”
Amira: “You mean, like, wash?”
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New World, Ordered: The Prequel
It was a refreshing break not to cook Wednesday and Thursday. It was equally refreshing to begin anew yesterday.
The day began auspiciously. I invited Russia—who was driving to school—to accompany me on a visit to the Grand Army Plaza Farmer’s Market before class. She picked me up at 6:55am on this glorious Saturday morning and we arrived minutes later at the market, while many...
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Too much of good bad things
Crispy Pork Belly and Watermelon Salad
I need a gastric intervention. Also, a good, swift kick in the ass.
My little 3-day culinary project, borne from an innocent little show-offy comment (not mine) about yellow watermelon, is officially over.
First off, it must be said that my kids are real troupers. They were totally into my whole cooking experiment and couldn’t wait to try it,...
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She's Fried on Eatocracy
It is nice to be noticed. She’s Fried was the featured blog today in Eatocracy’s Blogger Spotlight on CNN.com. That I happen to be a friend and former colleague of the Managing Editor, Kat Kinsman, I’m certain had nothing to do with the recognition.
NOTHING, I SAY. Ahem.
I’ll admit, I had a little extra dance in my step when I got home tonight.
I showed the kids the...
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Module 2. Done
I did not get any exercise yesterday. Unless, that is, you consider running for the train so I wouldn’t be late to pick my son up from his dad exercise (mid-sprint the thought did cross my mind).
Our final Mod 2 class ended at noon and a handful of my classmates and I went across the street to Limerick House for a celebratory lunchtime pop.
“One beer. I’ll be fine to run...
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Salads and Sandwiches. Putting it all together
Mod 2 comes to an end today, after our practical exam. We’ll each be making a strip steak with a red wine pan sauce, persillade potatoes and haricot verts with butter. Half-day class, so I might even get to enjoy some of what looks to be shaping up, at 6am, to be a lovely day. Thinking about taking my bike…we’ll see. .
I will say this about these last two classes of Mod 2,...
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Robicelli's Cupcakes: Flavors- August 19th/20th →
Me: not a big cupcake fan, but Robicelli’s cupcakes knocked me out when I tried them at the Unfancy Food Show.
