tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36972495196643027032011-11-27T18:25:57.376-06:00The never-ending "What's Next?" for a 30-something culinary student and new food blogger.C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.comBlogger231100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-72784310572934759402010-08-24T00:20:00.000-05:002010-08-24T00:20:14.095-05:00

Whew!  Tonite… was a good nite in the kitchen!  :)  We're wrapping up our worldwide excursion into cereal grains.  Tonite was Cereal Grains of the Americas, which included Central and South America (read: Mexico, the Caribbean). We each made our own tortillas (man, just HOW could I screw up such a simple task!).  I managed to get only about four corn tortillas made, and I struggled with the dough

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-70802423746447669912010-08-17T00:01:00.005-05:002010-08-17T23:16:13.141-05:00

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C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-51457082731693925132010-07-18T15:19:00.006-05:002010-07-21T22:08:33.979-05:00

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C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-18568324085093520242010-05-24T15:25:00.000-05:002010-05-24T15:25:31.491-05:00

WE ARE FINALLY OUT OF THE CLASSROOM! Don’t get me wrong: I did enjoy both the ‘Food, History & Culture’ and ‘Nutrition’ classes. Dice and Ashlee were both fun instructors, and I’d definitely take courses taught by them again. The material was interesting enough, but what ticked me off is how some of the students were really disrespectful of them. Yeah yeah, I know, “we’re here to cook!”

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-78257149993474950732010-05-16T18:45:00.004-05:002010-05-16T19:03:42.891-05:00

Or, How Kim Kardashian Convinced Me to Eat SaladMay the gods bless the Internet! A friend of mine in L.A. turned me on to this Carl’s Jr. commercial featuring the leggy supermodel Padma who hosts Top Chef (no, not the Asian one, the Indian one). Since we don’t seem to have any Carl’s Jr.s here in Chicago (a crying shame, for sure), I went online to Ye Olde YouTube to check this out.Oh, oh my!

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-4171315022828770862010-03-21T16:49:00.004-05:002010-03-21T17:19:18.351-05:00

Scouring the Internet I found plenty of different forms of Tandoori spice, so I’m convinced that everyone sort of has their own and therefore I’m free to figure one out for myself. ☺So I decided to roast a chicken the other night and wanted to Tandoori it. Michael Ruhlman has a great rant on the ‘convenience food’ thing, in particular pre-roasted chickens (you know, the kind you pick up from

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-13061481964723467332010-03-07T17:15:00.006-06:002010-03-07T17:36:56.078-06:00

Reminds me of a certain Sesame Street sketch…Anyway, it was French Pastry week for us at LCB… those of us who even made it to class, that is! I have to admit, it probably wasn’t a good idea to come to class sick, but I didn’t want to miss any more days and so decided to just tough my way through it. Problem is, I think I took out half the class with me… ☹Yeah, either I spread it ‘round or

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-3404894466754933742010-03-02T23:20:00.013-06:002010-03-03T00:42:17.506-06:00

Man, has it really been since last November that I posted?! Sheeit, how time flies when... yeah. Anywho, I can catch up on Foundations III Finals later, and I'm sure no one wants to hear about my travails with English Composition and Food Cost Control/Management... PHBT! :)Really, the main reason for this post is because a certain bench partner has been out sick two days in a row!

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-66025790923750886562009-11-22T17:12:00.005-06:002009-11-22T17:45:53.138-06:00

Chef Kang said it again, and again, and again, almost all last week, and the week before: “Cameron, you gotta work on your time management!”Well he didn’t just say it to me. He said it to lots of us who have trouble juggling eighteen separate little tasks and completing our 2-3 dishes per night in a more timely fashion. The basic setup is this: You listen to the lecture and watch the demo. He

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-80649797194420266972009-11-15T17:12:00.001-06:002009-11-15T17:16:47.777-06:00

Oh man, it’s been weeks since I’ve blogged about CHIC! Being in the evening program, and going for the full Associates Degree (rather than just the Certificate), means that we gotta take stuff like Math and Public Speaking classes (ugh!). This was the cause of the six-week break between Culinary II and III.But hey, as much fun as math and speech are (at least they threw in some culinary math,

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-2532210643099549712009-09-06T19:34:00.009-05:002009-09-06T19:51:10.648-05:00

(or two weeks, as it were)Has it really been two weeks since I’ve posted? My how time flies when we’re… well, you know.The one thing I’ve had to become accustomed to with going back to school are the ups and downs. Some nights go really well, and others… suck. Case in point: last Monday I went to class with plenty of energy, got through most of the production just fine, and generally

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-55683556726212964712009-08-24T23:46:00.003-05:002009-08-25T00:01:15.160-05:00

What a night! It seemed as if all my time management issues were behind me. I’d studied my flashcards on the bus and at work, knowing what sauces we’d be making tonight (a slew of ‘em!). I felt confident walking into class, ready to go… only to realize I’d forgotten my cravat!WTF?! I scurried on over to Student Services, waited forever for some dude to root through a cabinet and find me a

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-44504107812346079022009-08-23T21:43:00.004-05:002009-08-23T22:02:06.400-05:00

‘Twas a rough week at CHIC, folks. I’m sure part of it was the feeling of being overworked at my day job (I’ve been puttin’ in quite the number of hours), but I have to admit that part of it was just my lack of preparation.We’ve just finished Week One of six weeks of Culinary Foundations Two, and I already feel like I’ve repeated the whole of Foundations One class. Sure, we’re reviewing a lot

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-82425482443274795602009-08-17T22:49:00.001-05:002009-08-17T22:51:44.119-05:00

I started Foundations Two class tonight with Chef Wook Kang.Whoa. Talk about a night and day difference.Chef Kang is much more organized, calm, cool, collected, and easier to get along with than my former instructor. And he’s a bear for discipline (which our group certainly needs!). The more straightforward and disciplined approach is a welcome change. I was frustrated in my last class by

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-53239589678736569992009-08-13T23:41:00.006-05:002009-08-14T20:05:34.460-05:00

Well, this first 6-week block of classes anyway. ☺What a nerve-wracking week it’s been. This entire time I’ve always found it difficult to find time to study, and so I’ve been cramming it in as much as possible in the last few days. I made flashcards last weekend and took them everywhere with me, going over them again and again and again, only to find that information seemed to seep out the

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-77374474994000991572009-08-09T18:44:00.004-05:002009-08-09T18:51:20.624-05:00

Well, of the first set of classes. ☺But it does feel like the end of something significant. I look back over the last six weeks of notes and syllabi and realize I’ve taken in an awful lot in a very short amount of time. It’s been very whirlwind, and my only real frustration is that I haven’t had the time to adequately absorb all of this. My brain’s fried already and I’ve now got Foundations 2

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-29104571707104337792009-08-01T18:22:00.005-05:002009-08-01T18:32:13.827-05:00

Wow, this past week has been – hellacious.This whole 'working-full-time/school-full-time' thing has really taken some getting used to. I try to use the weekends to get caught up and read ahead so I’m prepared, but then I end up working tons of overtime! This is the super-busy season at my job now, so there’s not much choice in that.But I think I’ve finally reached a ‘balance point’ with things.

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-44972202511650642612009-07-14T23:28:00.003-05:002009-08-01T20:18:18.621-05:00

Or, “Will I EVER learn to cut a potato?!?”It was back to potatoes tonight, this time a tourné (to turn). I swear, I am gonna get these knife skills down even if it kills me.I almost tourné’d my thumb off. ☺We used small, new potatoes, started at one end with a bird’s beak knife, then turned the potato away from us while holding the blade along the end, cutting a curve across the surface. We

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-18262865116829709092009-07-14T00:07:00.002-05:002009-07-14T00:12:22.863-05:00

I don’t know what it is. I get home from class at about 10:30 pm, and I should be fried, right? Instead I’m kinda charged up. Ready to go. I want more!Which ain’t so good, ‘cause I gotta get up early in the morning. ☺Even on the long days (this one started at 5:30 am), I still seem to have more energy when I get home than when I leave for class. This can only be a good sign. I was really

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-58240688944719050012009-07-12T20:22:00.002-05:002009-07-12T20:29:02.278-05:00

I’m beat.Stick a fork in me, and all that…Flabbergasted and discombobulated.I had no idea you could cram that much culinary instruction into four days. Evenings, no less. Just 14-15 hours this past week. Whew.Needless to say, I made up for it with copious amounts of beer this weekend! ☺Shame, too. I should’ve been studying…More as the week progresses.

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-47487349730475826112009-07-07T23:17:00.003-05:002009-07-12T20:28:47.910-05:00

Finally we got to cook something! After a scintillating video on parasites, bacteria and fungi, we finally got to break out our kits and demonstrate our knife skills!Mine suck.Seriously, I had no idea it’d be so hard to cut a frickin’ potato! In nice straight lines, we had to make a perfect small dice, then make French fries. For cryin’ out loud, if I can’t even cut a potato straight…!But mmmm

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-71281371695005955722009-07-06T23:57:00.005-05:002009-07-12T20:28:26.374-05:00

Back to school!I really wasn’t sure what to expect, and found myself pretty unprepared as well! You mean I need a… a pen? And a… a notebook?? Now why didn’t I think of that?? Can’t I just play with my knife kit? :)I guess the prospect of sitting for long stretches of time and taking notes just didn’t enter into my concept of culinary school. But there I was, learning about food safety and

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697249519664302703.post-61636752573874420232009-07-03T17:44:00.002-05:002009-07-03T17:54:08.785-05:00

“The C-Dawg Chronicles.” Cheesy title? To be sure. But I wanted to get this thing goin’ and the only way I could think to start it is with a cheesy nickname given to me when I lived back in Cali.Yeah, I’m a transplanted Chicagoan back from SoCal in the Windy City, trying to make a new start of things. Man, I shore did mess up the first fifteen-or-so years of my life (at least, the life after

C-Dawghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15715211580791301042noreply@blogger.com0