Bean there, done that

Monday, September 18...

This afternoon we had a session on beans and grains with Seinfeld's former personal chef Guido Magnaguagno who has recently started teaching at the school. He was impressed by the fact that all of the students are here to help themselves and others through food and healing, and said that the vegan cuisine that they will teach us at the school is really gourmet and the best he's tasted anywhere - there's no place that's better in NYC even. It was actually interesting to find out the properties and cooking techniques for a never ending range of grains and beans. However, we were most interested in finding out what it was like to cook for the Seinfelds.

Before that we learned all about herbs and another chef had us play a game where competing teams had to identify over 60 herbs and spices and answer questions such as 1) what spice is in Listerine 2) what spice oil can cure a toothache 3) What is the pungent Indian spice smelling like evergreens 4) What is a hallucinogen if eaten whole ... answers at the end of today's blog. I was not bad on naming many herbs, though many of the questions were tough, and our team came in second place.

We started the morning with a sanitation quiz. It was pretty grusome to be cramming about things like botulism, samonella and rodent control over my morning brekkie. And that's why I leaving this at the end of the blog...

Answers: 1. Thyme 2. Clove 3. Hing 4. Nutmeg