Month: January, 2008

Slicing and dicing at the ICE

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 | All Things, Classes

Two Christmases ago, I received a gift certificate to the Institute of Culinary Education in Chelsea, but it was not until this week that I finally was able to make use of it. Although I’d decided almost immediately on the particular class I wanted to take from among the 1700 Recreational Division offerings, the small class sizes made finding an open evening session that fit into my schedule a bit of a challenge. But at last, here I was.

ICE sign

As I waited for the session to begin, I checked out the Institute’s glass case exhibit of antique kitchen implements. The cookbooks and coffee mill I recognized, but a few of the other items…?

ICE display

Description of Knife Skills I:

Knowing how to use knives skillfully is critical for cooks, yet many people have never mastered proper technique. Similarly, good knives form the foundation of a well-equipped kitchen, yet even some accomplished home cooks don’t know how to select and care for them. In Knife Skills 1, you’ll use Wüsthof-Trident knives to slice, dice, and chop in the safest and most efficient manner. You’ll also learn the proper way to sharpen your knives.

Living on my own, I do a fair amount of cooking at home — which is perhaps not evident from this blog — so naturally, I’m no stranger to using knives in the kitchen. At least I was probably in a better position than one of my fellow students — dragged to tonight’s class by his girlfriend — who when quizzed about his home kitchen knife collection, sheepishly admitted, “I have a butter knife.” Up until now, I’d managed to get the necessary jobs done without causing any serious injury to myself or to others, but I’d always had the nagging suspicion that there were ways I could improve my technique.

Tonight’s class was led by chef-instructor Norman Weinstein, who has been teaching essential techniques for more than two decades. In addition to the four knife skills classes at ICE (from “Basics” to “Decorative Garnishes”), Weinstein leads two Chinese cooking classes (Sichuan and Cantonese). His book on Mastering Knife Skills is due out in March 2008.

Our group of 12 was made up of 6 men and 6 women tonight, which the instructor observed “almost never happens.” (It seems that these classes are overwhelmingly populated by females, so for any eligible bachelors who may be reading this, infer from that what you will.) After donning our white ICE aprons and name tags, we were set up at individual workstations laid out with a gleaming selection of Classic Wüsthof knives: chef’s knives, a utility knife and a paring knife.

The three hours we spent watching and learning to use the knives were an epiphany. According to Weinstein, the biggest mistakes people tend to make when using knives are using the wrong type of knife for the task, and handling the knife incorrectly. (Apparently, I’ve been guilty of both.) And where previously I’ve been hesitant to invest in any knife larger than 8 inches — small girl hands! — the 10 inch chef’s knife was a revelation. Weinstein put us through the paces halving a bagel, slicing up celery and carrots, then dicing potatoes and onions, mincing shallots and garlic, chopping herbs, and finally peeling. (Check out the tomato skin rose garnish — fancy!) Different techniques all, requiring different motions with the blade, which were not immediately obvious without specific instruction. But what an improvement!

ICE class

Also covered: knife sharpening (which is best left to the professionals) and blade honing with a misnomered “sharpening steel.” Check out Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” segment on sharpening vs. honing, which covers a lot of the same points.

Chefs can be rabidly devoted to their knives — this Times piece by the brothers Lee also happens to includes a photo of my instructor — and depending on whom you ask, it’s not necessary to invest in a pricey set of kitchen knives. But boy, are they nice to have around.

After a while, I could really appreciate the heft, balance and weight of the Wüsthof knives, and the easy rhythms of steady cutting action that, when mastered, became almost meditative. The biggest challenge was unlearning old (bad) habits, so admittedly, it was slow going at first, but after a while, the techniques began to gel. So while I still don’t know how to wield a knife like Hung, winner of Top Chef Season 3, I feel I’m on my way, slowly, surely, to getting all the pieces the same size. And isn’t that really the most important thing?

On the way out, lured by the warm, delicious smells, I peeked in on the baking class still in progress across the hall. The one downside to the knife skills class: no treats to take home afterwards… unless you count the errant flecks of shallot I found in my hair later that night.

ICE class

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The new color of Love?

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 | All Things

Remember how when we were growing up the green M&M’s were associated with special naughty powers? How do such random associations get started? Apparently, in this case, no one really knows. In my young mind, I always had traced the origins to the 1980s M&M’s “home run” commercial — “With the green ones, I take the ball dowwwntown!” – but it seems that such urban legends have been circulating around the country since the Disco era. In the mid-90s, Mars introduced the print and television “Is it true what they say about green ones?”-advertising campaign, unabashedly exploiting the candy’s sexy reputation, and in 1997 officially introduced Ms. Green, the first and only female M&M’s character.

In case you were wondering, there is absolutely no merit to the claim that the green ones have aphrodisiacal properties.

This Valentine’s Day, “the brand celebrates the myths, rumors and innuendo surrounding green M&M’S Chocolate Candies” by introducing these special limited edition “All Green” packets — sure to catch the eye amidst the sea of red and pink offerings.  The suggestively smiling mascot with her saucy “Sweetie… It’s all true” seems a tad risqué for a candy campaign, no?

Green M&Ms

Warning on package: “Consumption of The Green Ones may result in elevated Romance Levels. If you experience this effect, contact your Significant Other immediately. No official agency has verified these statements… but what do they know about romance anyway?”

As you can see, I picked up a bag anyway. I’ll take my chances.

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Famously good burgers

Monday, January 14th, 2008 | All Things, Eats

J had tickets to Carnegie Hall tonight, so we decided to meet for a quick dinner nearby before the concert. But where? We were about to fall back on our usual pre-Carnegie Hall standby — the Burger Joint inside Le Parker Meridien hotel — until we recalled that another burger joint had opened in the neighborhood recently.

The extraordinarily well-loved, family-owned Virginia-based chain of Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries arrived in New York City last year — the East Coast’s answer to In-N-Out — opening branches in College Point and Brooklyn Heights. In early November, the first Manhattan outlet opened on 55th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues; the company plans to open 29(!) more in the borough over the next eight years. (That’s a lot, but nowhere near Starbucks’ level of ubiquity. But I digress…) By their second day of business, midtown lunch crowds had pushed waits for burgers and fries to an hour and half. Oh, what New Yorkers will endure for a good burger! Or good pizza!

At just past 7PM on a Monday, though, it is a decidedly less chaotic scene.

Five Guys counter

J had visited the Queens location before — they have a MySpace page! — but this was my first time sampling the famous burgers. Each one is made to order, and Five Guys provides all the shelled peanuts you can eat to tide you over while you’re waiting for your order number to be called.

Five Guys peanuts

The corporate policy is to cook all beef patties to well done — eek! — in spite of which the burgers do retain a surprising level of juiciness. Usual toppings include lettuce, tomato, pickles, fried onions, sautéed mushrooms, ketchup, mustard and mayo; other less standard fixins include relish, jalapeño peppers, and green peppers, and all are included in the price. I ordered what’s listed on the menu as the “little hamburger,” which didn’t seem so “little” to me; roughly the same size as the ones at nearby Burger Joint, and at $2.00 less, a much better value. (The standard Five Guys burger comes with two 3.3 ounce patties, stacked one atop the other.) Five Guys fries are hand-cut, skin-on affairs. $4.50 for a large order (plain or cajun) seemed disproportionately expensive — a quarter more than my burger was, even — but are very generously proportioned; we essentially received double what we expected: inside our grease-stained brown paper bag was a tall styrofoam cup brimming full of fries, with roughly the same amount thrown in loose over our foil-wrapped burgers. Easily more fries than we could finish in a single sitting — and I love fries. Nice touch: bottles of malt vinegar on the tables. Goofy touch: announcing the provenance of the potatoes on a whiteboard by the registers. (“Today’s potatoes are from Ririe, Idaho.”)

Five Guys burger

Peter Meehan of The New York Times had good things to say about those fries in his assessment of the Brooklyn branch (“Generously portioned… with an honest potato flavor”), but was less impressed with the burgers themselves, declaring them “not particularly salty or griddle-charred or beefy.” New York magazine was more effusive in its praise, recently naming Five Guys among the city’s best burgers; theirs was just one more article mounted along a long wall lined with glowing write-ups.

Non-press folks love them, too.

Five Guys testimonials

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