Sunday, October 14, 2007

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

2 comments:

Peanut said...

Um your market extravaganza reminded me of Project Runway when they have like 10 minutes to run through the store and grab fabric for their project and they have a limited budget. I hope it was that intense and exciting and even if it wasn't don't ruin the excitement for me :)

Abby&David said...

It was pretty much like that. Very intense and there was fire and hot oil and danger. Way more exciting than making clothes!
I hope everything is going well in MN and Menom. I miss you tons
xoxoxox
Abby