Wednesday, 2/10/10 - SNOW DAY!

As most of you have heard, NYC got hit with "Snowpocalypse 2010," which was an exciting 8-10 inches. Nothing like Washington, D.C., but the city was practically shut down for an entire day. Follow me to my chalkboard:

Snow + (Work/School) - (impact of ice squared) x old people slipping =

NO WORK OR SCHOOL!

Considering I can't blog about how I didn't change out of my PJs until 3 p.m., I decided to share a freelance article I wrote for a large news corporation that ended up not being published, hence I have the rights back and can post it anywhere. Enjoy!

10 Shows That Will Get You Cooking

The home-cooked meal has gained recent popularity, thanks both to the economy and the plethora of enjoyable and entertaining cooking programs on television. Americans are finally realizing that, with a little guidance and some fresh produce, they too can create healthy, gourmet meals for their families.

While it might seem there’s a cooking show on every channel at every hour, the following shows standout as the best and most entertaining for the budding chef and home cook alike.

10. 30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray – Food Network

Marketed to the busy professionally who wants to “put great food on the table and still have time to…tackle that home improvement project…” Ray offers doable recipes for the everyday cook, and explains everything in understandable terms. However, I’ve tried several of her “30-minute” recipes and always find myself frantically plating the food and throwing it on the table just in time. Be wary of planning dinner if you don’t have the benefit of commercial breaks.

9. Down Home with the Neelys – Food Network

The Neelys are a wonderful couple, and their love for each other is evident. The spicy and Southern meals they share, straight from their famous Tennessee restaurants, are impressive, and they definitely seem to have a blast in the kitchen. One has to wonder about the Neelys, though. They seem a little too happy for a married couple that owns a business and works together - they must get on each other’s nerves eventually!

8. Chopped – Food Network

“Chopped” is a more intense, smaller-scale “Iron Chef”. Hosted by former “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” food and wine expert Ted Allen, four professional chefs are given three courses and a few required ingredients to impress a panel of judges. If they falter, they are “chopped” after each course and the last chef standing is awarded a $10,000 prize. Their inventive and risky creations are drool-worthy, but they definitely don’t make it look easy…this show stresses me out more than my 9-5!

7. Grill It! With Bobby Flay – Food Network

Bobby Flay is easily one of the most respected chefs in the industry. While this Renaissance man might seem unapproachable, he graciously invites unknown chefs onto “Grill It!” to highlight their specialties. Seen as a bit of a competition, Flay is challenged to create a similar dish, often an ethnic specialty, of which he’s not aware until meeting the guest. Flay’s Queens, New York setting gives viewers an amazing background view of NYC, and it’s nice to see such a culinary powerhouse spending time with his admirers.

6. Chef Academy - Bravo

Renown French Chef Novelli runs this culinary school experiment with the “3 Strikes and You’re Out” attitude, taking nine novices and attempting to turn them into professional chefs. In addition to the docu-series’ unending drama, “Chef Academy” is worth watching for the sole reason of seeing Chef Novelli at work creating fascinating dishes with the most amazing ingredients. His European sense of humor, such as faking vomit after tasting a student’s creation, brings comic relief to this reality series.

5. Worst Cooks in America – Food Network

When your pizza delivery man knows your address by heart, watching “Worst Cooks in America” will make you feel much better about your own skills in the kitchen. From an entire boiled chicken to a pan burnt beyond recognition, the blue team and red team, led by Chef Beau MacMillan and Chef Anne Burrell respectively, compete each week to prove that they are not in fact the worst cooks in America. With an opportunity to cook for a panel of esteemed culinary judges and a prize of $25,000, the “recruits” are thrown into often unrealistic boot camp situations, leaving you feeling terrible for them yet semi-inspired to test your own skills.

4. Good Eats – Food Network

Host Alton Brown is not only smart and witty, he is incredibly versed on many topics and realistic with his approach. With episodes like “Man Food” and “Honey I Shrunk the Cake,” Brown is good for both cooking techniques and general Pop Culture knowledge, appealing to a wide audience. It’s a cooking show for the geek in all of us!

3. Big Daddy’s House – Food Network

Aaron McCargo, Jr., or the namesake “Big Daddy,” is not only pleasing to the eyes; he’s a personable and laid-back family man. His recipes are easy to follow, and gives viewers alternates to his methods, like a low-impact/high-impact yoga class. Be careful though – Big Daddy brings the spice. As he invites family and friends into his kitchen, he makes you feel right at home.

2. Iron Chef America – Food Network

If you were a fan of the Japanese original, you will definitely love “Iron Chef America,” which uses Kitchen Stadium as the setting for a heart-pounding challenge between the reigning Iron Chefs and the contenders. Each must use the “secret ingredient” to create an impressive meal for the panel of judges, with only an hour and an assistant and wisecracking Alton Brown peering over their shoulders. However, “Iron Chef America” should be prefaced with “Do not try this at home!” – it is for the casual observer who prefers to sit back and watch the flame as opposed to spending actual time in the hot kitchen.

1. Sandra’s Money Saving Meals – Food Network

Sandra Lee is by far the most adorable and relatable personality on the Food Network. She is the guru of saving money in the kitchen, and turns her already low-priced meals into “Round 2 Recipes,” perfect for the average American family or college student. She combines prepared foods and fresh items to make some of the most inventive, accessible and delicious recipes on daytime television, yet one has to wonder where she buys her food. Her prices are skewed, and subject to a specific area – ground beef is definitely not $2.99/lb in New York City.

Monday, 2/8/10 – Poultry

I think I’ve decided that, like most people, if the animal is lying in front of me in its “original packaging,” alive or not, I have a really hard time imagining it as food. I just think back on my time in the animal ER, in a land far far away, when we would be scrambling to get the crash cart to save the life of a dog that had been critically injured. OMG we once treated a Chihuahua with one eye that was literally hanging out of his head. He was looking around with his tongue out, and I could just hear him thinking “What’s everyone laughing about??” Kibble…my favorite thing! Toys…my favorite thing! Eyeballs…my favorite thing!

Moving on…the chicken and duck were a little easier to handle than, say, my lobster friend that my station mate cold-heartedly murdered last week. With the head and feathers removed, they basically looked like a lump of fat and bones, although we had a while to go before pulling out the pristine breasts you buy in the store, cracking bones and breaking through the fat to extract the legs and breasts. We used the guts and bones to fortify our chicken stock, essentially making it double the flavor, and for the duck made a nice orange glaze/sweet and sour sauce. We braised the legs and sautéed the breasts, laying them out on the plate with orange supremes and draped with the beautiful orangey brown sauce. For the chicken, we made a chasseur sauce, which has a similar theory as a cacciatore (shout out to all my dagos), a rich and chunky country sauce. Chasseur has earthy mushrooms and shallots, flambéed in brandy, lots of fresh herbs and some tomato fondue. Like the duck, it is made with the fortified stock and reduced with the chicken juices. I finally remembered to bring my Tupperware to take home the goodies, and reheated the duck for dinner last night. I say, I simply cannot fathom one more night of braised duck for dinner!……

RANDOM TIP OF THE DAY

As a recovering EVOO cooker, I can now say with certainty that you should never sauté or cook at high heat with extra virgin olive oil! It has a very low smoke point (250˚F), and will actually burn and change the flavor of your food. Also, with such a distinct olive flavor, you should always be conscious of how you’re using it. Virgin olive oil and pure olive oil have higher smoke points (410˚F) and are less olivey, but it’s really best to cook with a very neutral and lean oil, such as canola or corn oil. Actually, it’s really best to cook your meat with the fat of the animal from which it came, but let’s be realistic, not everyone has suet hanging around, and if you did cook with it every day the suet would be hanging around your waistline (ha ha ha). Sorry.

Friday, 2/5/10 – Shellfish

It had never been clearer to me that I was not meant to be in the veterinary field than at that moment. I killed many innocent souls on Friday night, slurping them down like their one goal in life was to die and be dolloped with cocktail sauce. It was upsetting at first. I went so far as to make myself “busy” while we were supposed to be plunging our chef’s knives through the brains of live, squirming lobsters, nonchalantly saying “Hey can you do mine Chad? Little busy here…thanks man.” (Sorry Chad, the blood’s on your hands now.) It got a little easier, and I kept reminding myself of the chapter in that stupid and ridiculous book about FCI I wasted my time reading when the author is complaining to her chef about killing the innocent and cute lobster, and his silent response was to open the lobster’s claw and let him clamp onto her index finger. She screams, and is reminded that they’re not innocent little creatures with big doughy eyes and shiny fur. They’re dumb, sharp and delicious.

Speaking of delicious, we steamed our lobster in an herb/vegetable court bouillon, and covered them in a beautifully red/orange Sauce Americaine, made from sautéed lobster parts and shells with brandy, vegetables, herbs and wine. The sauce can be turned into lobster bisque, actually, by adding a thickened heavy cream….mmm. We butter crusted sea scallops and laid them in a pool of a parsley/mushroom/onion puree (a gorgeous Kelly green). It was a beautiful and elegant dish, and the scallops were just perfect.

So by dinner time I was over the whole, “we are murders” thing, and was able to proceed with the yummy bivalve delights awaiting us. We steamed some mussels in a butter/shallot sauce, and shucked some shu**ing (!) clams and oysters. I definitely prefer oysters, although they’re quite ugly and intimidating. My last and worst experience with fresh clams was in a seaport restaurant out on Long Island, where I consumed so many shell fragments and sand it felt like my teeth were crumbling. Having the opportunity to clean them fresh right before consuming was key, because I was able to rinse them to my own liking. See, OCD is good!

I left that night with saltwater/horseradish breath and a yellowish tint to my eyes, which I can only assume is jaundice from the hepatitis virus I caught from the copious amounts of shellfish consumed in such a short amount of time. I’ll eventually need to get a nice fat lobster and make ‘em bleed on my own, but for now I think I’ll take a break from the crusty crustaceans. At least until Valentine’s Day…

Wednesday, 2/3/10 – Fish Day #2

It was terrible, the most pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was what I imagine childbirth to be, only with more fire and less liquid. Definitely the same amount of screaming, though. Must have been my fault for trying to clean our stove top at the end of class, after 5 hours of heavy use and cooking…gee I’m sorry stove. I understand that you’re the boss and I promise not to touch you ever again. The gruesome image you see below is the aftermath of the worst burn in kitchen history. WARNING: this imagine is not suitable for children.

Loosely based on a true story

Before the disaster, Chad and I were doing really well! We butchered our flatfish, which are literally flat and produce four fillets: two from the top and two from the bottom. We made quite possibly the best breaded fried fish I have ever tasted, goujonettes, with a remoulade sauce (tartar sauce with herbs and capers) and a red pepper cream sauce. We presented them in a potato chip basket (little chippies fried using a mold to make them a basket) with a hollowed zucchini bowl for the remoulade and the sweet pepper sauce spread out in front. Absolutely amazing, it will be my go-to recipe this Lenten season. We then poached the other fillets in a mushroom/fish stock/white wine mix, and then reduced that into a cream sauce, poured it over the fish and baked it all in the broiler. Beautiful. I’m thrilled to be learning some great ways to cook fish, the one protein I was never entirely creative and confident with. I’ve learned that it’s not hard and it’s actually a very versatile meal centerpiece.

Class is getting so much more exciting, because we’re focusing on a few strong recipes each week and completing full dishes, as opposed to just practicing methods or small pieces of a meal. While every recipe we create is new to us, they are classic French dishes which we will be making over and over again in school.

P.S. I got a 98% on our second test! Points were taken away because I forgot to mention that you have to dry off potatoes before frying them in oil. Woops, that’s kind of a big deal. Luckily I will never ever forget that fact ever again.

Monday, 2/1/10 – Fish Day #1

As you know, my first experience butchering fish was warewolfy. (I hate when that happens.) Imagine my hesitation entering our first fish session, in which we would be learning how to properly break down a whole fish, as opposed to my prior experience of just hacking mindlessly.

I was borderline squeamish, which really surprises me. Perhaps I made the right decision to leave the veterinary field, because something about cutting a head off of a body gives me the willie nillies. I take that back - I’m not an expert, considering I never actually made it to vet school, but I’m not sure they teach you how to remove a lot of heads from bodies at Purdue.

I digress. We had a lot of “fun” dismembering our striped bass and trout and learned how to break them down into usable fillets. We used the bass fillets to make poisson en papillote, a yummy dish of sautéed mushrooms (duxelles), light tomato fondue with some carrots, leeks and celery, julienned, all wrapped in a pouch of parchment paper and baked until puffed. It’s meant to be served immediately, still sealed, so that the diner can open the pouch before eating and reap the benefit of the aroma. I would think this would be tricky, though – “Sure, I’ll pay $32.99 to hover over a steaming sack of fish vapor at the moment its cut open. My tears will aid the flavor of the fish!”

We then floured the trout fillets and fried them in clarified butter, topping them with a nice brown butter sauce with capers and lemon. The star of the show, however, were the handmade croutons, extremely buttery yet still crunchy. Hopefully you’re picking out the trend here: butter + butter = buttery butter.

So let’s review. Tearing the organs out of a poor little creature’s body as their lifeless eyes judge your soul can prove to be delicious, fun is subjective, and butter is like oxygen to a French cook – they need it to survive.