Guess who Abby helped today at D&D?

Thats right, its Oscar winning actress Hillary Swank. If you have been under a rock she is from the movies Boys Don't Cry, and Million Dollar Baby. She and her husband came into D and D today and I helped them pick out 3 cheese and 2 meats, although the meats were just for the husband.

I think that this is hands down the most exciting celebrity citing yet. David pointed out that she too was in a karate kid movie, the last one I think.

I hope everyone has a great holiday!
Lots of love
Abby

Celebrities

There were two exciting celebrity sightings this weekend. Abby and I saw Martin Kove on Friday night. For those of you who don't know who that is, you may know him better as John Kreese, sensei of Cobra Kai Dojo in The Karate Kid. (Fear does not exist in this dojo! Pain does not exist in this dojo! Defeat does not exist in this dojo!)



Let me say that I was having a crappy day of Christmas time retail hell, and seeing this guy really cheered me up. Abby had no idea who she was and was not nearly as amused as I was.

The second sighting was today. Abby had off, but I got to help Joe Montana with cheese, olives, and pate. He was very nice and unassuming. I was still more excited about John Kreese. What can I say, I've always been a Packers fan.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas.
David

2/3 of the way through the CIA!

Weeks 19-20

These last two weeks have flown by as they tend to as Christmas gets closer. Even as I write this with the screen door open in a T-shirt, I have a hard believing that it’s the 22nd of December. It’s hard to get into the holiday spirit when it’s sunny and 55 outside. David and I finally got our Christmas cards out, and all of our shopping and candy making is finally done.

School was interesting these last two weeks. My instructor and the teaching assistants are having a power struggle, ending with the chef director getting involved. It made for a uncomfortable learning environment for the last two weeks, with lots of lectures about us leaking our instructors dislike for the teaching assistants to the teaching assistants. Talk about unprofessional behavior! Besides that the class went well, we made mole, tamales, ceviche, Peruvian popcorn (which pops on the inside, not the outside, kind of like a corn nut) and lots of other fun foods of the Americas.

The most interesting part of the week was on Tuesday when we had a “snow day”. The winery up the road for the CIA blew an electrical transformer, so the CIA was without power. It’s not safe to cook only by using emergency flood lighting, so we were sent home early. By 8:30 I was back home and David and I were able to do some last minute Christmas shopping and had lunch at a brewery in Santa Rosa. It was a great day off.

I’m really looking forward to coming home for Christmas, even if it is for a few minutes. I hope everyone has a great Christmas season.

Xoxox
Abby

Week 18

Week 18, 19, and 20 are “Cuisines of the Americas”. Week 18 we cooked food from the US, southern, northeastern, pacific northwest, mid west, etc. The food was fun to make and the lectures are pretty interesting. I have a new instructor, Chef Ken, who is also my next door neighbor. He is a pretty interesting guy. Tons of fun, and a good teacher.

David and I had fun last week as well, we made Christmas cookies, and TOM AND JERRY MIX!!! It is super yummy and we have been drinking one pretty much every night. They make us feel all warm and fuzzy and Christmas-y which is hard to do in CA. Its still pretty warm out, 60 degrees and sunny today. The palm trees make it hard to feel Christmas-y as well. We’ll keep listening to Christmas music and drinking Tom and Jerry’s until we get into the Holiday spirit. My class Christmas party is on Saturday night, at our house. It should be fun and put us both in the holiday spirit.

Dave and I also went to the redwoods on Saturday. The photos are on the post below. We had a blast. It was too fun.

Lots of love to all
Abby

Photos!

Here are some pics from the last two weeks...


These two are of the mustard grass blooming between the vines.



This is our Christmas tree.



Abby made the star, David strung the popcorn, and all of the corks are ones we liberated during our time here in Napa. Not too bad, huh?

Here is a picture from last Saturday's trip to see the redwoods at the Muir Woods. (By the way, Andy, it's much safer and more fun during daylight.)


It's kind of hard to get a sense of the size from the picture, but trust me, they're really big.

David

Week 17 and 1est term practical Week 17 and 1st semester practical exam

This week was a doozey! Im glad its over!

First off we had out grand buffet in my garde manger class. All week we prepared for it, and on Thursday we had an insane amount of beautiful food. I took tons of photos and here they are.




As I said the entire week was devoted to getting ready for this one buffet, so there isn’t a lot to talk about. A lot of chopping and such but nothing too too exciting.
Thursday was amazing though. My team had 3 action stations where we were preparing food live in front of the guest. These stations included a bananas Foster station, and oyster station, and a spinach salad station with warm bacon dressing (I swear that one was not my idea, but how Wisconsin is that!!) In addition to the live action stations, we made a smoke duck breast salad, with tangerine vinagrette, a canapé with homemade marscapone cheese and lobster, and the most beautiful cheese display in all the land (which I made).

The semester test was today, and it was a little scary. We had 2.5 hours to make four portions of protein, sauce, starch, and 2 vegetables. This morning I drew menu 2, which for those of you who haven’t spent every waking minute of the last two weeks studying these menus, I’ll fill you in. Menu two is chicken breast, with sauce fine herbs, fresh pasta, tourned zucchini and carrots, and shrimp bisque. My food turned out great and I made it just under the wire. The test is pass fail, I passed with a score in the mid 80’s which is pretty respectable.

Now I'm looking forward to a nice bottle of wine and a pot roast dinner with David when he is done with work tonight. We really need to stop working opposite schedules..ick.

Random tidbits for the week are that I sliced proccuito for Francis Ford Coppola at Dean and DeLuca. He was a little needy, but it was pretty cool. The CIA is also decking out for the holidays. I'll include a photo of school next week.

Hope everyone is doing well and isn;t too cold in the mid west.

Lots of love
xoxoxoxox
Abby

8 random things about David

Sorry it's taken me so long to come up with my list. Also, I just don't know enough bloggers to link to, besides Ann, Mom, and Abby who are ahead of me in this meme of random things. Anyway, here are my 8 random things...

1. I love paper airplanes. They are the coolest homemade toys. In fact, I own several books on paper airplanes—my public reason is that I’m keeping them for when kids come over, but they’re really for me. (Don't tell Abby, but I moved them to California in case I feel like making some.) Oh, and in 6th grade I won 1st place in a multi-event paper airplane contest.

2. I also love (and am really good at) tying knots. I was always the knot expert in Boy Scouts and on Blackbeard’s I taught lots of new crew their knots.

3. In spite of the fact that I am now working as a fancy cheese monger, I think that Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is one of the world’s perfect foods.

4. I have very sensitive skin. Any exposure to cleaning supplies or beer sanitizing chemicals makes my skin get all rashy.

5. I don’t function well without breakfast. I need at least a bowl of cereal or a PB&J or I’m crabby until lunch.

6. I’m terrible at wine tasting. Last weekend at a sensory evaluation wine tasting, the only descriptor I could think of for one of the scents was Ann’s Strawberry Shortcake dolls from when she was little.

7. I love family time—the more cliché, the better. I love holiday meals, pumpkin carving, gingerbread house construction, card games, movie night, fireworks, you name it. (It doesn’t even have to be my own family.)

8. In spite of the fact that I have friends all over the world from the Army and Blackbeard's, I’m a terrible correspondent. I really owe an apology to just about everyone I know for not keeping in touch better.

And as a bonus, I have a 9th thing that I feel like is worth mentioning...

9. I can wiggle my ears with an unusual degree of skill. I can move them both together or each individually. I can also move them in any direction ranging from up toward the top of my head to straight back behind me.

Thanksgiving and A Celeb spotting

This last week was Thanksgiving, which meant that I had off the whole week of school. I had a great time lounging, practicing for my test this Friday, and hanging out with David. My parents came to CA on Thursday and we spent Thanksgiving with Claire (Mom's childhood best friend) and Richard Hatch who live in Pleasanton. Friday and Saturday we went wine tasting and had a great time together.

This week is the end of my Garde Manger class, which culminates with our Grand Buffet on Thursday, and then a semester practical on Friday. I hope everything goes well and I pass both :)

Today at school I saw Aisha Tyler, if you are one of the many saying "who?" I understand. She was the actress who played Ross' scientist girlfriend Charlie on Friends. Here is a photo to help you out. She is at school taking a week long wine class.

Hope all is well with everyone and I hope I survive my week :)
Love
Abby

8 Random things about me

Ann - I have no idea how to link this to your blog, nor do I know anyone other than you and Barbara who have a blog I could tag, so here are my 8 random things.
Have a great Thanksgiving :)
Love,
Abby

1) As much as I put out the “go getter” vibe, I am really one of the laziest people I know.
2) I’m double jointed in my thumbs.
3) My biggest vice is crappy TV shows. The more mind numbing the better, eg The Girls Next Door, Made on MTV, etc. The dumber the better.
4) I can’t consistently make good coffee or oatmeal. I’m going to culinary school and I cant make decent oatmeal! How embarrassing. Oatmeal and coffee are left up to David.
5) I have a refined wine palette, ie I can be given a glass of red wine and I can tell you what kind it is, what it tastes/smells like, etc. but I have absolutely no skill in tasting beer. I can’t tell one beer from another. I know if I like it or not, but don’t know why.
6) I want to live by water. I love the beach and coastal landscapes. I’m not particular, west coast, east coast, island, whatever.
7) I’m afraid of the dark. Terrified actually.
8) I was a vegetarian for five years, until my favorite aunt (My dear aunt Martha, who loves to spoil me with countless presents) sent me a summer sausage at college and David watched in amazement as I ate ¾ of a large summer sausage in one sitting.

David's Birthday

David being fancy and the view from Domaine Carneros. (PS this is the last photo of David being 28)

vineyard fall photos


The town-y bar where we found some really good hamburgers.

Week 15 and Week 16

Week 15-17 are Garde Manger class, which is the cold part of the kitchen. In this class we are making things like terrines of foie gras and pate encroute, and huge buffet platters of itty bitty canapés. It’s a fun class where we get to make tiny little knife cuts and turn food into art. My teacher is Chef Tom Wong from Hawaii and has cooked for some pretty cool people in a resort hotel in Hawaii where he was the exec chef. He cooked for Elvis Costello and Diana Krall and tons more. He is a great instructor who demands perfection, and pushes us to be creative. In this class we present food every three days so on day 3, 6 and 9 we put up food. The other days are prep for our presentation days. Day three we were to present very common foods in the style of a canapé (one bite) small plate (3-4 oz) and an appetizer (4-6 oz). Our group had to make chicken and biscuits, cod cakes, and shao mai (which is dim sum). It was fun trying to make chicken and biscuits in one bite.

On day 6 we made duck confit salad with potatoes, scallops and lobster tabbouleh. These its are pictures (mine was the duck confit) The canapé is a fried potato cup with greens, and a roasted shallot vinaigrette. The large platter, which is appetizers for four people, is potato gnocchi tossed in the vinaigrette with greens and duck confit. The point of this is to take the ingredients of the recipe, and make them into something totally different. I loved this challenge so I took some photos.



Day 7-9 we made sausages, which was interesting. It makes you look at sausage differently when you watch it be made…icky, slimy ground meat and fat. But, as Chef Wong said, it’s better to know what’s in it, and know its quality ingredients, than not to know. Day 10, Friday, we did cheese and caviar tasting and cooking. I got to pick out 8 of the 20 cheeses that we had. Chef wanted some different ones that the school couldn’t get so I got to pick cheese from Dean and Deluca. It was fun and both AM and PM ACAP classes got together on Friday, so people could make their flights home. It was nice having different people to talk to.

Other exciting things in the last two weeks, David turned 29, and is doing well coping with the fact that he is knocking on 30’s door. We went out for a nice diner and wine tasted on the 10th to celebrate. Yesterday we had the day off and went to the Petrified Forest, which is in Calistoga. We had a great time looking at the trees transformed to rock. Last night I practiced for my big test on the 30th. It’s a semester exam and I need to pass it to keep going with school. We will draw 4 possible menus and have 2 and a half hours to cook them. My goal for the week off is to cook all four menus for David as kind of a dress rehearsal. Last night we had French onion soup, roast chicken, fresh pasta and green beans and turnips. I made it all in 2.5 hours with time to spare. Yum Yum.

I hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving week! I know David and I will be eating well. ☺ Love, Abby

Beer and a culinary (mis?)adventure

Today was my day off and I decided it would be a great time to brew some beer and make a recipe I've been wanting to try. I know that I said my next brew would be the wedding beer, but I forgot that I have the ingredients for a batch of witbier. For those of you keeping track, it's Wade's Wit, the beer I brewed to exchange for his couches. It's a fairly light Belgian wheat beer spiced with coriander, cumin, and orange peel.

As for my culinary adventure, I made a recipe called Koolickles. On the latest season of Feasting on Asphalt, Alton Brown learned about Koolickles when he was traveling in the south. Apparently they are a traditional southern food. He gave a recipe on a recent episode of Good Eats. For those of you who don't know, here are the ingredients:



That's right, dill pickles, Kool-aid, and sugar. To be exact, the recipe calls for a 1 gallon jug of dill pickles, one pound of sugar, and two envelopes of cherry Kool-Aid. I reduced it down to a 1.5 quart jar of pickles, because frankly I'm not sure I want a whole gallon of these things. All you do is drain the pickles, reserving the brine, slice them in half lengthwise, put them back in the jar, dissolve the sugar and Kool-Aid in the brine, and pour it back into the jar. After two weeks you've got Koolickles. Here's what they look like today:



This could easily be the weirdest thing I've ever made. I can't wait to try them. I'll let you know if they're any good.

David

Some photos

I've been meaning to post some photos for a few weeks, so I have a bit of a mixed grill for you. Enjoy!


This is Abby on our hike up coyote peak a few weeks ago.



The view of Saint Helena from the trail.



These are some cattle we saw while we were driving. They don't look nearly as happy as the ones on the happy cows commercial. I think it's false advertising.



This is a loaf of oatmeal bread I made a few weeks ago. It made great toast.



Here is a shot of my beer on the day I bottled it. By the way, it turned out quite well. My next brew will be my first attempt at the wedding beer.

I hope everyone is doing well and that you enjoyed our photos.
David

Week 14, Home and the World of Flavor Conference

Week 14 of Euro went pretty well. We made food from Eastern Europe, so lots of goulash, and stews and quick pickles. The food was good, although Chef was in quite a bad mood. On Friday we had decided that we wanted to make breakfast foods, so what better time to do it than breakfast time (which is pretty early, in case you didn’t get the memo). I arrived at school on Friday at 3:45am for class at 4am. I was all prepared to pop in my overnight cinnamon rolls, which I had made the night before and let raise in the fridge. Chef then announced that we was embarrassed that no one wanted to make eggs Benedict, so I decided to make it to pacify him, although that meant that I got to make hollandaise at 5:30 in the morning. The hollandaise came out perfectly, as did my poached eggs. The chef instructors all wanted the eggs benedict, and Chef Stephen who was the pastry chef at the French Laundry said that the eggs benedict was done perfectly. What a compliment! So we had fun making breakfast, although we were all soo sleepy. I have a new appreciation for guys and girls who are working at Denny’s and Perkins making 20 omelets at a time at 5am.

At the end of breakfast, 9am, we all went to the classroom and chef announced that he would be leaving to go back to New York at the end of the World of flavor conference. He said that he couldn’t sell his house, and his teenage daughter didn’t want to leave her high school so he is going back. I have to admit no one was very sad. So no more Chef Mike, who thinks I’m swell, but I’m convinced others think I’m swell too.

After Euro I went home to Shawano for a few days (Sunday-Tuesday). It was nice to be home and hang out with mom and dad. Mom and I shopped Shawano, we all had dinner with Chris and Stacey at Luigi’s…yummy ravioli. The next night we went to the Launching Pad, and had yummy burgers. On the way to the airport, Mom and I had lunch with Dave’s mom Barbara. It was so nice to see her and catch up a little bit.

Wednesday was the start of the World of Flavors conference at school. Which was pretty cool to be a part of. I saw a ton of celebrity chefs, the owner of the Slanted Door in SF Charles Phan, Morimoto from the Food Channel, and Martin Yan from PBS “Yan can Cook”, among a ton of others who non food geeks would not be excited about, but I was super excited. The school looked beautiful, the theme was Asia, and there were huge paper birds and dragons hung from the three story stair well. The barrel room, which where all the wine was produced when the building was the Christian Brothers winery, became an Asian Market, with huge silk multi color awnings, and bamboo food stands. It was too cool. I helped Wednesday-Friday, and then spend Saturday cooking and cleaning for a little dinner party we were having. When I was in Shawano mom and I got a bunch of food together that I cant get in CA, and we shipped it out. Dave and I thought it would be fun to have Joel and Victoria over for a little Wisconsin feast. We had cheese spread, and summer sausage for an appetizer (with old fashioneds), which they both loved and had never had before. Then we had been cheese soup with kielbasa, again something they had never had before. Then we made brats on the grill with our homemade sour kraut, and German potato salad, again things they had never had. For dessert, a family favorite, Grandma Yeager rolls, which are kind of like butter horn cookies, but they have meringue and cinnamon in the middle. Victoria wanted to help, so she came and we made the rolls, as David made the soup. Here we are making the rolls.


Both Joel and Victoria loved the meal. David premiered his latest beer, “Napa Red” which was a hit as well. We played games after dinner and had tons of fun. It was nice to have people over for a grown-up dinner.

Lots of love to everyone
Abby

Week 13

My euro class is going well. We are all getting a little fed up with the teacher, but for the most part everyone is going fine. We cooked our way through Spain, and Italy this week and for the most part everything was good. Spain food is not really my thing, so it was a lot of empanadas and random fish bits. We got in suckling pig and were going to roast them whole, which is really really yummy, but the pigs were rotten. It was sad that the little baby pigs died for no good reason and ended up in the trash. What a shame.

Besides the pigs going to waste we have been bombarded with the history of each of the countries that we have been talking about over the last two weeks. Long lectures, with lots of misinformation. Our chef lived in Europe in the 1980’s and he still thinks Europe is in the 80’s. He announced in class that everyone in the basque region of Spain wears a beret. Victoria and I just giggled in the back row, and could count on one hand the number of berets we saw in the basque region. We think they were big in the 80’s, and he didn’t get the fashion memo.

Everyone at school is getting a little stir crazy, like the weeks leading up to Christmas break. Everyone is getting on everyone elses nerves, and we are all ready for the week break after this class. The school holds a conference every year called “The world of Flavors”. It’s a big deal in the industry, and we get the week off of school for it, and can volunteer if we want to. This year’s the theme is asia, so it should be really fun. Morimoto of Iron Chef, on the food channel is coming, as is Martin Yan from PBS, as well as every other famous Asian chef that I should know, but don’t. It should be fun to meet them all. The best part about the conference is that it starts on Wednesday, so I get to go home Sun-Tuesday ☺ I’m too excited to see mom and dad, and have lunch with Barbara!

Since there has not been a photo in a while, here is a photo of David, Victoria, Joel, and myself in San Francisco Saturday Night. Victoria, Joel and I spent the day in the city and David met us for dinner. The restaurant had this sign on the front window, and we were al a little confused by it, although it was an Asian restaurant and there was no cheese. Enjoy the photos. ☺

Week 12

Week 12

Week 12 -14 will be European/Mediterranean food. The first three days was dedicated to Northern Africa, Turkey, Greece, Iran, and the middle east. I was the Sous Chef on Wednesday, which is a rotating position of authority. I made sure everyone had everything they needed, made sure we had all the food. I helped Chef Mike set up the demo and then I set up the buffet of all the food that we made. It was fun to be in charge and I think I did pretty well.

Friday we switched to Spain, and had a three hour lecture on Spain and is food. Three hours was a lot of lecture, and the information was a little dated, but most of it was still true. Next week Monday and Tuesday will be Spain as well and then the rest of the week will be Italian.

Saturday David and I were feeling adventurous and decided and go on a hike (stop laughing Leigh-Anna. I’m out-doorsy!) We got some salads from a gourmet market in town, and some fried chicken and drove to Napa Valley State Park to eat it. It is a 5 minute drive from our house, so it was a nice afternoon activity. We parked the car and hiked up a small hill (1000 feet or so) and had our lovely little picnic from the top. It was nice to get little exercise and the hike was beautiful, although it was a little more strenuous than I thought it would be. When we got home we made a delicious four cheese mac and cheese, a warm spinach salad with bacon dressing, and broccoli. Victoria came over, as she usually does for dinner on Saturday night. We had a yummy dinner and then watched a little Family guy (one of our favorite TV shows).

Now David is at work and I’m about to do some homework, and fold the laundry. It sunny and beautiful outside, although I wish it was a little cooler, and more fall-like. 70 and sunny does not say October to me. Oh well, I should enjoy it while it lasts.
I hope everyone had a great week,

Lots of love
Abby

Week 11

Week 11

My class for week 11 was Flavor Dynamics with Chef Tucker Bunch. We talked about how different flavor combinations occur is different types of food, ie Basil, tomatoes, olive oil = Italian food. My group had Asian foods, which meant that I got to play with a bunch of weird (to me ) ingredients. I made chicken in clay pot, which was chicken cut up and marinated in fish sauce (which was new to me and smelled like swamp) and chilies, ginger and soy. It was really really good, even though the fish sauce smelled like swamp. The lectures for this class were by far my favorite, thus far. We tasted salts, olive oils, and vinegars and talked about why we liked certain ones and disliked other.

My favorite lecture was about smells relation to taste. We shut our eyes and picked out a jelly belly, held our nose and popped it into our mouths. We chewed and it was so weird, I couldn’t taste anything, because my nose was held. I couldn’t tell what flavor it was. Then we were told to let go of our noses and I could tell it was coffee flavored. It was kind of fun.

On Friday we did a market basket assignment. We went to the farmers market, and had $10 per group to buy something to make 30 portions of a one-bite appetizer within our flavor profile, (ours was Asian). We found some fun mussels, and these mini tomatoes. We steamed the mussels in a curry, coconut, lemon verbena, and lemon grass mixture; we then took the muscles out, and skewered them with the mini tomatoes. It was supper yummy and everyone really liked it.

The Saturday after week 11 we went to Monterey with my friend Victoria and her friend who was visiting from Miami. We got sandwiches at Campango’s again, and then went to the aquarium. It was fun hanging out with Victoria for the day. We drove back on Saturday night, and David worked on Sunday while I did homework. I had off on Monday for Columbus Day, which was nice, and David switched shifts with a girl we work with so he was off on Monday too. We went out for tacos and went wine tasting and had a really fun day together.

Lots of love
Abby

Week 10 - wines class

This week we had afternoon classes, which I think upset my chi somehow, and I came down with a cold on Wednesday. We had wines class, combined with the PM class, so our class was held from 2-8:30. I worked a few mornings and then went to school, which seemed like longer days than going to school and then working until 8:30 which I usually do a few days a week.

My class was fun, a good refresher from the last few wines classes I had at Stout. We tasted wines and went to a few wineries to watch the crushing process. Watching the grapes being crushed and tasting the juice at all stages was really interesting. The class was mostly lecture for 6 hours a day so it was a little boring, but the information was good, and I was hearing it all for the third time.

Besides class my friends from cooking school and I went out for Chinese on Wednesday night. David was able to join us, which was fun. Yesterday I felt my cold lifting, so I made lasagna and my friend Victoria from school came over for dinner. It was fun to have her over, but I think I had a little too much excitement and Sunday (today) I’m feeling yucky again. I’m taking it easy and lounging in my Pj’s and drinking lots and lots of fluids. I’m planning a full recovery for tomorrow for class with Chef Tucker Bunch again!! I can't believe I'm 1/3 done with school.

I hope everyone had a great week, in Wisconsin/Minnesota, in Europe on a fabulous cruise, or celebrating your 28th Birthday with a Packer Win! (Wade!!!).

Lots of love to all,
Abby

Yay Beer! (Part 2)

Last Saturday (the 22nd) the weather was cruddy and rainy, so we needed an inside activity. Our best idea was to drive over the hill to Sonoma Valley and visit the brewpubs there. We invited our friend Victoria to come along with us. Our first stop was Dempsey's in Petaluma. We chose to start there because they had the best-looking lunch menu. We had a very nice lunch there and shared their beer sampler between the three of us. There were five beers on their sampler and they all were nice. Our favorite was their stout.

Next, we drove the 18 miles to Santa Rosa and visited the 3rd Street Aleworks. They had quite a selection in their sampler.

There were 13 beers (as you can see) ranging from a Kolsch to an Oatmeal Stout. Abby and Victoria's favorite was a cherry ale called "Bada Bing Cherry Ale" which was certainly not made with bing cherries. It tasted like it was made with sour cherries and in spite of my general dislike of fruit beer, it was actually quite good. My favorites were their English Bitter and the IPA on cask. All the beers were solid and several were terrific. Here are some photos of us with the beer.















After the 13 samples plus the five from Dempsey's, we needed a break. We went to Target and spent about an hour taking care of our general merchandise needs. After a little walking around time, we decided we were ready to visit Santa Rosa's second brewpub, the Russian River Brewing Company. Russian River had a great presentation for their sampler.

You can't really see it in the photo, but the glasses slip out the edge of the tray. Since the 12 beers here were numbers 19 through 30, we had a pizza to help us maintain some level of decorum. Russian River is well known for its Belgian-style beer. I thought the Belgians were fantastic. They had great names, too. The golden strong ale is called Damnation, the biere de garde style is called Perditition, and one of the brettanomyces-soured ales is called Sanctification. They also had four or five blisteringly hoppy IPAs including an imperial IPA called Pliny the Elder. The beers were all pretty tasty. Abby and Victoria didn't care much for the IPAs or the sour Belgian ales. My favorites were the Damnation and the Perdition, but I loved all of the Belgians because they were so unique.

We had originally planned to continue North to Healdsburg and hit the Bear Republic Brewing Company, but our safe return home would have been at risk, so we called it a day and headed back to Saint Helena. We had a great time and personally, I can't think of a better way to spend a rainy day.

P.S. I racked my beer from last Friday into a secondary fermenter and I'll probably get it bottled next weekend.

Week 9 (already!)

This week started off with me dreading our cooking test on Friday. When I got to school on Monday morning the chef said he thought we should get the test over and should have it Monday instead. Pop Test Time!! The whole class freaked out and at the end I got a 9/10 on my beef stew.

Tuesday was business as usual, making food for lunch for the school. Then Wednesday another Pop Test on Steak with béarnaise sauce, mine was super good and chef gave me a 9.25. Yay Abby. Thursday was fun because it was the day we were supposed to have our final, so we drew which protein we would have as a group, to divide up the proteins, and we were allowed to make whatever we wanted. Lisa and I made lentil soup with ham hocks, our protein, and Sham and Andrew made like 9 Indian dishes. Sham is from India and is the kid who really tests my patience. He was in my group the first week, and again somewhere in the middle. I end up in his group a lot, I think because God likes to see how I’ll react, and then giggles at me when I lose my cool. Any way we have been with the same groups for this entire 3 week class and I’m glad it’s over. The soup I made was good, it got a little chilly here this week 50-60 and drizzly, so it was a soup day. The Indian food that the boys made was yummy too, all 9 different kinds of it.

Friday was vegetarian day, and our chef, chef mike, was gone so we had the afternoon class’s chef, Chef Amir, who was amazing. He talked to us a little about vegetarian cooking as a niche market, for example his friend who got really into vegetarian food and is now Sting’s personal chef. Too Cool! He was fascinating, so it was fun to have someone else who was a little clearer about what we were supposed to do. For my vegetarian food, which I have a wee bit of experience in, I made vegetarian chili and Grandma Jackie’s monkey bread, which I stuffed each ball of dough with caramelized onions and Parmesan before I baked them. It was pretty amazing.

Before he left, Chef Mike, my chef for the last few weeks, asked if I would help him figure out the curve for the written final exam. When I was helping him he said that in his 20 years at the CIA 1 in every 400 students or so catches his eye. He said that I had “it”, and that he expected nothing less than amazing things from me at school and in the future. That made me feel great! It’s nice to be noticed for trying hard and being a good person, and dare I say a good cook? How nice!

Another week done with school. My next class is wines, which starts at 2!! So I get to go in late, and sleep in!!!! David is working closing shifts as well so I will get to hang out with him in the morning. How fun. This week was a good week, it was nice to not have the tests looming all week long, we got them out of the way and then could really relax and be creative.

I hope everyone is doing well
Lots of love
Abby

Yay Beer!

Hi Everyone,

First of all, here is a photo from last Saturday. Abby and I went to see the historic Bale Grist Mill just north of town. It's a restored flour mill from the late 1800's where they actually do milling demonstrations on the weekends. It was much cooler than it sounds. I think that the most interesting part was learning about how the face of the grindstone got re-surfaced periodically. (Don't worry, I won't bore you with it.) I was surprised at how fast the water wheel turned. Here's a photo of me standing by it.

As for the post title, it's finally getting cool enough here in Napa for me to brew. So on my day off yesterday, I got to brew a batch of beer. I made a red ale in the hopes that it will be ready early enough to show a prospective employer what I'd like to do with his current red ale. Here is a photo of my crushed malt in my mash tun.

The lightest grain on the right is pale 2-row, the medium colored grain on the left is caramel 40 , Munich, and biscuit malts, and the darkest is chocolate malt. The metal piece is part of the mash tun and helps to filter the liquid coming out.









Here is a photo of the boil. In professional brewing parlance, I had a rockin' boil. I started with 16 quarts of wort and boiled it down to 10. I was making a 3 gallon batch, so I had to add more water to keep my volume up.









Here is the boiled, chilled, oxygenated beer. I realized that the spot I chose to ferment it was right next to our hydroponic garden, so I had to cover it to keep uv light from damaging the beer. I had made a few covers back in WI, but I didn't bring them here, so I had to think quickly.

Week 8

Week 8 of cooking school

This week went by in a flash, partly because I only was at school for three days. Tuesday I had a migraine and was out for the count all day. I missed school, and thank goodness I didn’t have to work. Yikes. So that was no fun at all.

On Wednesday I was feeling much better, which was good because we had a field trip to San Francisco and Berkley. We all loaded onto a bus and drove to San Francisco and went to a farmer’s market downtown. Then we went to a meatpacking plant which was a lot more interesting than it sounds. It was first freakishly clean, which was good since this place supplies most of napa valley with meat. Next it was so interesting to see guys French a rack of lamb in 3 minutes, where it takes me 10 times that amount. They were amazing. We then went to Mel’s dinner, which is a SF classic. It’s all done in chrome and is the typical 50’s dinner. It was too fun. Next we went to the Ferry building, which has a bunch of food stores, (Scharffen-berger chocolates, Acme sourdough bread etc) and some restaurants like the slanted door which I still haven’t been to, but need to go to. Next we went to Berkley and went to Berkley bowl, which is a huge gourmet/hippie supermarket. We were all pretty tired by then so we all just clumped around and then got back on the bus to go home. It was a really fun day though and it was nice to spend time with people from school in normal clothes and do normal stuff.

The rest of the week (the other three days) went really fast and was kind of a blur, food was made and served and enjoyed. I'm 25% done with cooking school and I feel like I have learned a ton, and I'm really enjoying it. Lots of love to everyone and come and visit us in Napa!!! (Its 80 and beautiful right now!!) Abby


Some field trip photos

Sorry its side ways, this is me at the meat packing plant. How cute am I in a hair net. Too cute, right? The ex vegetarian and the hanging side of beef. yikes.




Ok, don't worry moms and grandmas and Leigh. This is Joel, one of my friends from school. We were at Mel's Dinner and couldn't resist the sock hop/ 50's dinner pose. You all know me far too well to think I would share my chocolate malt with any man, maybe not even David.


Always gray and cold in SF.

Some Photos

Here are a few pics from our day off last Saturday.

This is a bin of grapes waiting to be de-stemmed and crushed at the Dutch Henry Winery.


This is a view of the backyard of the Summers Winery. They had great wine and a bocce court. (Yes, of course we played a game of bocce.)


The reason we went to Summers is that we read that you could see Calistoga's Old Faithful geyser erupting from the tasting room. Also, it costs less to taste at Summers than the admission to the little park by the geyser. The guy pouring for us said the geyser kind of looks like a broken sprinkler or a guy spraying his hose up in the air.


He was right. Yellowstone's is much better. But we went home with a few bottles of wine, so it was worth the trip. One of the wines we got was an Italian varietal called Charbono. Neither of us had ever heard of it, but it was quite nice.

We had a great time at the movie that night. We packed a picnic and smuggled in a bottle of wine. We sat out under the stars in between the vineyards and watched Rear Window. It was a terrific day.

Cooking school week 7

This week was the first week of my third class at cooking school, entitled skills 3 – production. In this class we pretty much make the rest of the school lunch. At 12 they line up, put in an order and then we make what they order after they order it. Like a real restaurant, no? yes!

So anyways, in this new class we get a lot more freedom to be creative in the kitchen. One of the first days we made roast chicken, and the next day I made curry chicken salad for the lunch menu. It was quite a hit, so I felt good about that. My group is more than a little crazy, some intense personalities, and we will be together for the whole class, which will be a test of patience on my part. On Friday I made chicken Kiev, and tonight I am making it for David, because he has never had it before. I’m excited to make him something I learned how to make in school.

My professor is ok, he is really knowledgeable but sometimes gives us too many things to think about. It is information over load, and hard to sift thought and figure out what exactly he wants us to do. Like the other day we were making mashed potatoes, and he said “Mashed potatoes are nice, maybe you could put some cheddar cheese in them , and some chives and some bacon..that would be nice right? You could also add some flour and some eggs and make gnocchi that would be real nice to right? What about berny potatoes we should find some truffles and you could totally make berny potatoes…” After saying things like that we walks away, and I’m left to figure out which of the three different potatoes he would like in an hour… It’s a little tricky, but I’m figuring out how to read him.

Other than that everything is going well. David and I spent Saturday together, which is pretty rare for us. We went wine tasting, and out for lunch, and then we went to a movie that was outside in a winery. It was really really fun, and Victoria, my pal from school came along to the movie. Next week we have a field trip to San Francisco to look forward to.

Lots of love,
Abby

Wine Tasting

St. Francis Winery - Dont we look cute.


Chateau St. Jean Winery

These are the wineries that we went to in Sonoma with Wade and Ali.

Cooking school week 6

This picture is the view from th highway between Napa and Sonoma.


Week 6 of Cooking School This week was a short week, only four days, because our blocks are 14 days long. This makes for a nice long Labor Day weekend. Wade and Ali are in town so we have been having fun with them and their friends Jason and Caitlin. So school.

This week was again testing week. Wednesday and Thursday I had tests, Wednesday was a written test, and a knife test, and Thursday was my cooking test. For the knife test I had to produce 2 cups of small dice (1/4” cubed) onion, 2 cup or julienne (2” x 1/8” x 1/8”) onion, ½ cup fine dice shallot, ½ cup minced garlic, and 1 cup tomato concasse (which is tomatoes that are boiled for 45 seconds and shocked in ice water and then peeled, seeded, and cut into little pieces). All of this in 30 minutes. Lets just say that there was onion flying everywhere. The funniest part was my friend from school Victoria who was right next to me for the knife test, kept singing dankeshane everytime anyone said concasse (which is pronounced Con-ca-say). It was too funny and we were all giggles during the test, but we both did well even with the giggling.

Thursday went really well, as well. The test was sautéed chicken breast with sauce of fine herbs, berny potatoes, which are mashed potatoes with black truffle pieces in them, shaped into pear shaped and rolled in breadcrumbs and deep fried. Another reason to be made at the French, they take forever to make. Lastly green beans were the veg. All of my food came out pretty well, and I again was freakishly clean. If I could only make myself be freakishly clean all the time in the kitchen, not just on test days. Oh well. Chef Tucker Bunch said I looked like a rock star, referring to how nice my food and my station looked, so that made me happy. I am currently 1/5th of the way through my program and I am really starting to like it. I feel less scared and more in control, which is nice.

Everything in sunny CA is going well outside of school. The grape harvest has begun and should last until the end of September. We have been having a major heat wave which has been pretty unpleasant in our not air conditioned apartment. Right now 10:30 AM on Sunday, the shades are all drawn and windows all shut to keep in the nights coolness. How funny. I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday weekend!

Lots of love,
Abby

Week 5

Cooking School week 5

This week was pretty fun, and I didn’t have to get up as early as I thought I was going to have to, so that was nice. It turns out that we are not allowed into the kitchen before 7 due to legal liability. Sooo instead of 5:30, which is what time I got to school on Monday…yuck, I was able to get to school at 6:30 which was soo nice. At school we made beef medallions with spicy tomato sauce, roast beef, roast chicken, risotto, braised veal cheeks, and a whole lot of seafood, shrimp, crab (live when we got them, dead and yummy when we were done with them) fish, which had to be gutted (eeww) and scaled and filled and boned ..eww. Too much fish.

The highlight of his week was that I had time to get my hair cut, which I hadn’t since done since Wisconsin. I also went out to lunch and played tennis with one of my friends from school, Victoria. It was nice to put on real clothes and do normal stuff.

Next week is again a week of testing. Wednesday written and knife tests, and Thursday the cooking test. We have Friday and labor day off which I am really looking forward to because Wade and Ali are coming!! I can’t wait to hang out with them!!!! Lots to do before then though. Right now David is still at work (9:30pm) and I just got home because today was inventory day at D and D. Not a lot of fun, although the guys in the department were talking about drinking when they got done so I don’t think it will be too rough for David the rest of the night. I hope that everyone had a great week!
Lots of love – Abby

Celebrity Count

I had my third celebrity sighting at Dean and Deluca's yesterday evening, and Abby and I thought it might be interesting to post our celebrity sightings to the blog.

#1 During our first week here in town, Abby saw Michael Chiarello of the Food Network at the Safeway by our house. He is her culinary nemesis because he uses grey salt in all of his cooking, even to season pasta water. Grey salt is an expensive sea salt from France and its virtue is in its appearance, so any use but for finishing is extravagantly wasteful. (Grey salt can cost over $20 per pound.) I think she showed commendable restraint in not kicking him in the shin.

#2 My first week working at D&D, I served Tory Belleci, one of the builders on the Discovery Channel show Mythbusters. I helped him find some prosciutto, salami, and cheeses. He was pretty friendly and when he was ready to leave he asked me if we were allowed to accept tips. I told him that I wasn't sure, so he gave me a tip--"Have that shirt cleaned and burned." No, not really, he gave me a few dollars.

#3 Earlier this week, Joe Montana came into D&D while I was working. I didn't serve him, but I saw him.

#4 Yesterday I helped Robin Quivers of the Howard Stern show. I sold her some cheese.

Unfortunately none of these are juicy stories we can sell to the tabloids for lots of money. We'll let you know if we get any of those.

David

David's New Pursuit

Hi everyone,

My weekend from the cheese counter is usually on Monday and Tuesday, so I have lots of free time while Abby is in school those days. It's still too hot in our apartment for beer to ferment safely, so I've been trying my hand at the other historically (slightly less) important grain product, bread.

My first attempt was about three weeks ago and I let the bread rise while we went to the laundromat. It rose a bit too much, so I wound up with a huge loaf that overlapped all four sides of my baking sheet. It was huge, but not very tall. I deeply regret not taking a photo of it. In spite of its ludicrous size, it tasted pretty good.

My second attempt was last week Monday. I made the same recipe, but watched it carefully during my bench proof to make sure it didn't over rise. It didn't, but I really should have made two round loaves instead of just one. It was also quite tasty but comically large--I'd guess it was about 16 inches across and 6 inches tall. (Wade can confirm how huge it was.) Regrettably, I neglected to take a photo of that one too.

This week Monday, I picked out a new recipe and tried again. My new recipe had only 1 pound of flour instead of the nearly 2 pounds in the first recipe. It also started with a yeasted pre-ferment in the fridge overnight--a new technique for me. I shaped this one into an oval and baked it. It turned out very nicely.

The crust browned a bit more than I wanted it to because I used two tricks to make the crust brown more--next time I'll just use one. The cooler of the two is that I added a burst of steam just like in a professional bread oven. When I preheated the oven , I put a cast iron skillet onto the bottom rack. When I put the bread in, I poured 1 cup of boiling water into the preheated skillet and closed the door quickly. Luckily, I thought to wear gloves when I added the water because it was quite violent.
Here's a view of the top. I slashed it with a knife just before it went into the oven so it would open where I wanted it to rather than splitting anywhere. The bread turned out great; delicious and crusty. (Just like me) It made nice toast for breakfast this morning with the Door County cherry jam Abby and I made last summer.

I hope everyone is well. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by for some toast.

David