The morning at Fine Cooking 1 was wrapped around eggs. We poached, boiled, made French omelets and souffles with dozens of eggs. We had a new teacher, who is a teacher in the professional classes (as opposed to the recreational division) and she inspected all of our eggs and made us do another if the first one didn't meet her standards. There were many failures, but we all passed inspection after throwing out many sad looking eggs. The picture at the right shows the instructor, Chef Lorrie Reynoso, at the start of the poaching demo.
I managed a "terrific" with my first poached egg. Had to do several omelets (learned the difference between French ... no color, tri-fold.... and American omelets). We also did a Salade Nicoise with freshly grilled tuna (it has hard boiled eggs). This class was intense in a different way ... the exactness that the chef expected was strenuous, but fun.
Then, after a hour of putting my feet up, I went off the the 7 Moles class. I was in charge of re-fried beans (mash, mash, mash ), tortilla chips (fry quickly, salt immediately after they are pulled from the hot grease) and margaritas (2 parts tequila, 1 part lime juice, 1 part Cointreau, sugar to taste). Here is a picture of the final spread. We learned how to cut up a chicken ( something that I had wanted to learn while I was here!)Many of the moles had been started last night, so the intensity of last night's Mole class was not as tense. I am not much of a drinker, but had 3 or four margaritas and a beer and some wine. I wove my way home/hotel at 11:30pm.
I have loaded up all of the pictures from the day
here if you want to see all of the gory details. (the internet connection at the hotel is spotty and slow, so I am taking a shower while they load. Couldn't get on at all yesterday! The shower has its own weirdness ... only a millimeter of difference between just tepid and scalding.)
