Sweet River Studios

The last chef we're discussing in class is Daniel Boulud. Our instructor met him through friends at his restaurant and she remembers that time fondly. She even said that he gave her a tour of the kitchen. Our lunch for the class consisted of parmesan baskets with herbed goat cheese, wild mushroom and barley soup, spaghetti squash, alsatian potato gratin, marinated lamb chops with two sauces, grand aioli served with vegetables and shrimp, bacon wrapped belgian endives, waldorf salad and chocolate ginger pound cake with ice cream.  Our starters was the parmesan baskets and aioli with vegetables and shrimp. The parmesan baskets were easy, mild and tasted great. The grand aioli is basically homemade mayonnaise but done a little differently then just mixing some oil into your egg yolks. Garlic cooked in water until soft and you also poach an egg (the whites are set but the yolk isn't) and then add everything to the blender and drizzle in the oil. So a little different but th...

I haven't blogged about any food recipes at all yet so its time I started. I wouldn't classify myself as a great cook but we have several cook books from Julie Child (who doesn't?), Jacques Pepin, Alton Brown just to name a few and I watched Food Network for years until we got tired of the cable monkey on our backs and cut him loose.  Oh, Ina how I miss you but we survive without cable just fine. I have never deep fried foods.  Ever. I've never wanted to dump my Thanksgiving turkey in a vat of superheated peanut oil and I've never tasted the deep fried goodness. I'm sure its good but that's just too much for me to consider. Whenever I see that much oil, I can feel my heart tighten and not in a good way. But sometimes my massive sweet tooth gets the better of me and I want to try to make cream filled doughnuts at home. I buy doughnuts only a handful of times per year but I'm always thinking "I could make a lot more doughnuts at home and they'll...