Patty cake, patty cake...

Thursday, November 9

...bake me a cake as fast as you can. And that's what we did today. Each person baked a cake as fast as possible, and the icing as well. It was the first time we did individual work I believe, each person producing a different varietiey of cake and icing, and it felt a bit strange at first not to have a team mate to work with. To make it interesting, the chef had a lotto with class names and there were about 20 different cakes to be made (such as carrot, vanilla, carob, pineapple, almond torte, ginger, etc. and a very interesting steamed fruit cake that was made in a pressure cooker) with icings (coconut cashew, carob, cocoa cream, nut butter, chocolate fudge, almond ganache, Swiss buttercream, tofu cream, etc) that we could choose from. We went in the order that our names were picked to select the cake and the icing of our choice to make. My name was chosen fairly early and I was able to select one of my favourites, a light lemon cake, but made vegan with no eggs or milk and made with ingredients such as almond milk and maple syrup. I made a very interesting lemon tofu cream for the frosting, vegan again, which was made up of a tofu - maple crystal mixture combined with an apple juice and agar flake mixture that was boiled together and put into the tofu-maple crystal mixture (agar is called kanten in Japanese and is used like a gelatin but is much better for you and vegan). Today, the only thing we were able to taste were the icings as we had to let everything set - the cakes wrapped and the icings refrigerated - for cake decorating class tomorrow. This should be an interesting cake decorating class using all natural ingredients, mostly vegan, to frost and decorate the cakes, and we get to try out our decorating sets complete with pastry bags and several different tips.

In the afternoon, we had a class on possible careers and one of the most popular is personal chefing, especially for NY as there is a big demand for chefs that can cook natural and healthy food in particular and there is a good mass of people with lots of money and little time. Several chefs from the school have travelled with business people around the world to cook for them, gone aboard yachts on vacation trips with a group of friends or family members (actually I saw this request posted when I first arrived at the school) to cook for them, cooked for and travelled with celebrities, and there are constantly new and interesting possibilities as a personal chef and other career lines seem to be opening up all the time, including teaching children in schools about healthy food and eating, product development, writing about food and health, producing cook books, catering, etc. And, of course there are lots restaurants, cafes and health food and related stores especially in NYC, that are looking for chefs with natural foods experience to help them with the selection of food and cooking. You never know what people will be looking for and this is NYC so anything can happen. For example, I saw a posting this week on the board that the world wresting organization is looking for chefs that know about healthy and natural foods and who love wrestling as they would like to interview them as part of a series they are filming. I didn't read beyond this so I don't know more but it seemed like an unlikely match... wrestling and natural foods? On a more interesting note, I am assisting with a very high profile art auction at the Chelsea Museum on Monday night as the school has been asked to cater an event, which they take on sometimes because it is good profile and exposure for the school and its students. I've always seen these auctions on TV and in movies and am excited that I'll be able to partake in one (so to speak), though like in those movies, I hope I don't raise my arm at the wrong time to roll up my sleeves or direct someone and end up responsible for buying a Manet art work for $1 million.

Trying to catch up on the busy week to date and sharing with you anything I've missed, on Monday, (November 6) we learned all about pasta and had the chance to prepare a variety of fresh pasta such as gnocchi (that's what I did) , fettucine, spaghetti, ravioli, buckwheat soba noodles, and tortellini. We used natural colours and flavours for the pasta, for example turning one of the ravioli dishes red and pink with beet juice, making fresh spinach pasta, tomato pasta, black pepper pasta, putting a variety of fresh herbs in to pasta to increase flavour and appearance, and creating vegan pasta with no eggs. We also made a variety of fillings and sauces for the pasta such as a delicious pumpkin, sage and pecan stuffings for the ravioli (this is delicious), basil walnut pesto, swiss chard and tofu "ricotta", porcini mushroom pesto and tofu ricotta, butter-poppy seed sauce, almond cream sauce and the traditional traditional sauce. It was fun, but time-consuming, to use the pasta machines and attachments, and other pasta tools, to make a variety of pasta shapes and sizes. I made the gnocchi recipe with baked potatoes (the chef prefers to bake the potatoes as he says the taste is better) and fresh herbs and created with my colleague a simple traditional fresh tomato sauce. Creating the small formed pieces of gnocchi was time-consuming but I started to get the hang of it by the end (doing hundreds will do that to you) and enjoying myself. After boiling them, I served them hot with our fresh tomato sauce... yummy!!

On Tuesday night, I attended a fascinating lecture on mind body illness and why we get sick from the founder of the school, Anne Marie Colbin. She is not only very knowledgeable, conducting research constantly on the natural foods area, and extremely bright but is also a very interesting teacher, asking the group questions all the time, adding in commentary about experiences in her life and the latest research, and just showing so much passion for the subject. More on this later...