Foie Gras Sliders: Sun Winefest 2010

This weekend I was given an incredible opportunity through Johnson and Wales to attend the 2010 Sun Winefest at Mohegan Sun for their celebrity chef night.  Around 38 students boarded the special functions bus yesterday afternoon to head down to Connecticut, all carrying our perfectly pressed chef's coats on hangers so they wouldn't get wrinkled on the way there.
 

Upon arriving, we were escorted down a long corridor behind the scenes at Mohegan Sun.  Servers and kitchen staff with carts of mis en place hurriedly shuffled around us.  We were each craning our necks trying to peek into the kitchens to get a glimpse of the chefs we had come to see.  But first things first.  We were taken to an office where we were asked to drop off our coats and put on our chef whites.  And afterward, more waiting ensued.  To ensure that we wouldn't eat all of the delicious food that the celebrity chefs were preparing, the coordinator wisely satiated our appetites in the employee dining room which was nothing more than a mediocre cafeteria. 

Finally, the moment had arrived.  We were brought into one of the wings of the banquet hall where we were greeted by the executive chef of Mohegan Sun, Michael Luboff, and the executive pastry chef of Mohegan Sun, Lynn Mansel.  (Fun fact about Chef Mansel - He currently holds the Guinness World Record for the largest wedding cake.  It was large enough to serve 59,000 people!)  They were both very welcoming and seemed happy to have us there to help.  Assignments were then handed out.  With 17 celebrity chefs and 38 students, we were grouped into twos and threes to be sent to various chefs.  Luckily, I was grouped with my friend Amanda who I've known since early last fall.  The two of us were placed with Chef Ben Ford of Ford's Filling Station in Culver City, CA.  Oh yeah, and he's Harrison Ford's son.  Pretty cool, right? 

Amanda and I were the only assistants that Chef Ford had at his station in the main banquet hall, so we spent around 3 hours assembling and plating his dish: foie gras sliders.  The foie gras was seared off before being placed onto a french-toasted brioche bun with candied leeks, caramelized onions, micro greens and a special tomato jam from Maine.  We prepared and assembled several hundred of these for the guests, and many of them came back for thirds and fourths.  I tasted one, and it was absolutely delicious.  The flavors melted together perfectly.

Since Chef Ford did not have any other help at his station, Amanda and I had little time to wander around, but in my few spare minutes, I made the rounds.  I spotted Bobby Flay, Govind Armstrong, Chris Schlesinger and others.  If I had known that was going to be my only time to mingle, I would have taken pictures with them.  But alas, when our bus arrived, we were given little notice and were quickly herded together for one last group picture before being sent out the door.  Along the way, Amanda and I were able to swing by Robert Irvine's station for a quick photo.  (Robert Irvine is host of Food Network's "Dinner: Impossible".) 

It was an incredible experience being in a room with chefs of that caliber, and it is a memory that I will treasure.  I just hope that I'll be lucky enough to attend another event of that nature soon!

More Pictures

I forgot to mention that I added a new album link on the right sidebar titled "Where can I find the frozen peas?"  There are a few additional pictures from my labs which are not included in the blog.  I will continue to update pictures there so check back often!

Taste Everything.

It's been over a week since I've given an update on my classes. As you may recall, I have been in Principles of Beverage Service. Or perhaps I should say that I was in Principles of Beverage Service. I completed the class yesterday and was not sad to say my goodbyes. I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but here's an interesting fact about Johnson and Wales: the campus is a dry; however, alcohol consumption is allowed in certain Johnson and Wales classrooms by law in the state of Rhode Island. This means not only is the classroom the only place where drinking is allowed, but it's also legal for the 17-year olds in my class to drink.

 

We devoted one class period to coffee, one to white wine, one to red wine, and the last class day before our practical focused on beer.  After sitting through a lecture for several hours on the production of the aforementioned beverage, we set up our tables to begin tasting.  As you can see above, we had a few cheeses, crackers and fruits to sample with our beverages so that we could learn how to pair food with wine.  For each varietal, we had to describe it's clarity, aroma, and taste in great detail.  Although I don't care for really sweet wines, it was interesting to see how well the sweetness of a riesling paired with the creaminess of goat cheese or the intensity of bleu cheese. 

Now I'm sure that sitting around sipping on wine doesn't sound stressful, and of course it was far from that.  The nerve-racking portion of the class took place on our practical day.  Each of us was required to make 12 drinks randomly selected drinks in 12 minutes from memory.  For an experienced bar tender, that's a joke.  But for us it was fairly taxing.  Our instructor watched and took notes if a martini was shaken instead of stirred.  After finishing the drinks, each of us was called individually to our bar station for questioning.  The instructor came around and asked "What are the ingredients in your Mai Tai?", "What's the procedure for preparing a Brandy Alexander?"  I hate being put on the spot, so I was impatiently waiting for it to end.  Next on the practical agenda was wine service.  We were called into the beverage lab in pairs to serve wine to an empty table.  I thought that I had performed well, but apparently when I presented the bottle to my invisible host, the bottle was higher than his invisible head.  I think I would have done better had there been people at the table.

Yesterday was my first day of what I think will be my favorite class, Nutrition and Sensory Analysis.  Here we will be primarily poaching and steaming, but more importantly, the instructor wants us to focus on developing complex flavors without adding fat or salt.  How do you do that?  "Taste everything.  Even your ingredients."  That sounds simple enough, right?  Then he through us a slight curve ball.  He asked, "How many of you know what pink peppercorns taste like?  Or better yet, how many of you have eaten a plain pink peppercorn?"  Not surprisingly, no hands were raised.  He passed around the container of peppercorns, and as a class, we each ate plain pink peppercorns.  They were surprisingly sweeter than I thought they would be which is exactly the point he was trying to make.  Just because you've tasted an ingredient mixed with other ingredients does not mean that you know what it tastes like. 

For our first day of production, we split up into groups, and he assigned each group one ingredient and a dish to prepare, but we were give no recipes.  Our group had black beans so we made a black bean dip.  I wish that I had written down amounts of ingredients so I could recreate it because it was delicious, and our instructor agreed.  And as I said before, we weren't allowed to use salt.  So at the end of production, we tasted each of the dishes with and without salt.  Unpredictaly, nearly all of the dishes tasted better without salt because the salt masked some of the other flavors.  My new mission is to prepare all of my food this way.  I will only add salt as a last resort when the flavor cannot be improved any further.