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| Critique of our food |
I knew that this day was going to be epic from the time I woke up. This was day 4 of the culinary boot camp and our reservations for The. French. Laundry. Day 4 was also our group lunch at The Wine Spectator Restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America. It was great to spend time with classmates at a large table and hear about why they love to cook. The food at The Spectator was expertly prepared and served and also included two of the CIAs wines that are only served there.
Our mission today was grilling and “seed” and rice cooking. Grilling seemed to be all of our natural strength as we collected our provisions (our par) and worked on the meal. We learned the proper way to fillet a whole salmon and portion it for the grill. I would say that today’s class was the most organized and well run by all of the teams. The food service was beautiful but we didn’t partake in any of it as our 8:45 PM reservations awaited us.
The French Laundry is located in Yountville just north of Napa. The restaurant is quaint and is located in a house with large gardens and green houses across the street that provide a source of the food for the restaurant. Our party was seated upstairs in a dining room with three other tables. Our party of three was by far the smallest upstairs. The other tables had 6-8 diners. (A side note: doesn’t it seem strangely rude that it is commonplace to see people use their phones at the dinner table? I noticed the table of eight next to us that four of the patrons were using their phones!)
The menu is divided into two parts, vegetarian or omnivorian tasting menu. The NINE-course! meals had some choices to be made for the course but mostly it was choosing one side or the other. Unfortunately, they don’t pair wines with the meal so you are on your own to choose. Luckily our new best friend, David Cahn, from Boise came to the rescue and selected two exceptional wines from France. The white was Sancerre (Sauvignon blanc) and the red was Burgundy (Pinot Noir).
Course number one wasn’t the course on the menu but an “amuse buche” that you receive gratis at many restaurants these days. Clever, it was a micro sized ice cream cone with a savory cone and a scoop of what I think was a savory ice cream the size of a marble and some sashimi grade salmon as the second scoop. Beautifully presented, it was on a stand with a little paper lining. We also had a melt in up your mouth cheese croquet, something I learned about earlier in the week at CIA.
So we’re on to course one (really two), a combination of caviar and two small Maine oysters in a pearl tapioca. Hmmm…not entirely fabulous as the caviar taste was hidden by the cream sauce and it lacked the “pop” that should feel in your mouth when you bite it. The same with the oysters, lost in sauce.
Onto course two (3), the choice here was a fennel and pine nut salad or a porridge that was topped with shave truffle. I chose the salad due to the porridge mention that took me back to university dorm living. The salad was simple, small slices of fennel with toasted pine nuts on the top with some sorrel and a tiny, tiny piece of Meyer lemon. All I can say is, “not memorable nor creative”. The same can be said about the porridge covered with black truffle. The staff make a big scene by coming with this wood box that contains the special truffle. Gobs of truffle are shaved over the top of the porridge; enough so that you don’t care you are eating porridge.
Course trois (4) was a small piece of monkfish with some small mussels, a bit of sausage and some saffron. I am not a big monkfish fan and had a couple of bites and was done with it.
The fourth course (5 if you are counting correctly) was the first home run of the night: you know the small bits of succulent lobster meat in the tip of the claw? They were served with some small pearl onions, a bit of Tokyo turnip, with an onion gastrique that made the dish memorable.
Course cinco (6) was a choice of rabbit sirloin sunchokes, spinach, and truffle or “pigs head” that I chose that was the pig cheek meat that was breaded and deep fried and served with pickled beets, celiarac and their spiff on “thousand island dressing.” Another incredible course. My mates ordered the rabbit and I did hear many “oh mys” and wows.
After course six (7), I was completely sated (being a heady experience I chose this word over “stuffed”). It was a small piece of Idaho beef seared on all sides and then rested in clarified butter. It was served with a pomme maxim (a potato chip or crisp), maitake mushroom, carrot and mushroom. Out of this world beef prepared expertly and paired with the Burgundy we were drinking.
Course 7 (8), please make it stop!, was a…cheese something or other, I don’t remember this one too much but it had something to do with Comte.
Course de eight (9) was ruby grapefruit in a small narrow shot glass, some marshmallow sauce and bread; a grapefruit bread pudding, but they dare not say that.
Course niner (suppose to be the last course) came out around 12:30 PM and was a dessert of a peanut nougatine mixed with cornmeal, some chocolate ice cream and pop corn that was converted into a dust.
We thought we were done when they brought out another wood box containing beautiful shiny chocolate truffles in many different flavors. Also on the table were fresh donut holes that were “to die for”. So if you are counting properly there were ELEVEN courses to this epic meal.
Thomas Keller did well by creating The French Laundry. He overdid it to a degree, however. The best analogy I can give is the spoiled, rich child at Christmas who receives everything; the pony, the train, the puppy, the bike, the Legos and on and on. The kid is so overwhelmed that he gets frustrated and cries. This was my (sort of) feeling at The French Laundry, a delightful yet frustrating experience. I know that Thomas Keller is an exceptional chef. His downfall is that he is intent to prove that by beating you into culinary submission with his many coursed and Faustian meals. I know that the word pretentious is one used to describe The French Laundry. There is truth to that.
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| Chef Bob-o-R-D! |
My table mates summed up the perfect dining experience: it is the perfect food at the perfect time in the perfect place with the perfect person or people. It is memorable for all time.
This morning as I write this blog I am struck by two things: my week’s experience at the CIA gave me a new prospective, a new way of looking at food that I hadn’t known before. It’s kind of like driving a car and knowing what the engine in the car does. I just get in my car and turn the key and it runs. Mechanics turn the key and think of all of the parts of the engine that are running. They have a more intimate nature with the under workings of the car. (I don’t think I have yet seen the engine of my car.)
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| Salmon…it’s what’s for dinner! |
Learning food preparation and cooking science has given me this new prospective that I didn’t have a week ago. It is the wizards curtain that was pulled back to reveal the chef creating the work. It is the brunnoise and plank cuts, the proper application of heat to expertly brown and cook proteins, and the other parts that make up the served dish in front of you at your favorite restaurant. Jaded? Nah, eyes open wide. Our chef-professor, Rebecca Peizer, gave us I this new prospective in the jam packed week at the CIA. She cut through the frustrating parts of fine cookery that we all struggle with in our own kitchens. It is the goal of any professor to get her students to look at the world differently. In the short five day intensive boot camp course at CIA California, Professor Rebecca Peizer succeeded. I owe her a debt of gratitude for her dedication in her commitment to teach rank amateurs the inner workings of the professional restaurant kitchen.
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