Fish & Seafood

By the time I finished my training at Le Cordon Bleu, I had sworn that I would never again cook a dish that required my wrapping anything in a cabbage leaf.  Why?  Because over the course of my time there, it seemed that we spent an inordinate amount of time cooking things in cabbage, and to be honest, I wasn’t a big fan.

Training at the school is broken into three trimesters, the first concentrating on the very basics of knife skills and cuts, and learning the ins and outs of culinary building blocks such as stock, roux etc.  The second term is designed as a tour around regional France, with each week or so dedicated to exploring the classic dishes of the country’s varied regional cuisines. In the final term we stepped things up and created modern, internationally influenced “restaurant” quality dishes.

Read More »

 

This post marks my first entry in Foodbuzz’s  Project Food Blog contest. The contest is a 10 part challenge to determine the “Next Food Blog Star”, with some bloggers eliminated after each qualifying round.  This post is meant to satisfy the first challenge of the competition which is for me to define for my readers “who I am” as a food blogger. Now I’m not much of a grandstander, and don’t have it in me to try to SELL you on why I should be voted a “star”, but I absolutely believe in the mission of my blog, and hope that the brief introduction and post below give you a good sense for what we’re all about here at “Oui, Chef”.  You can learn more about me and Project Food Blog by clicking on the contest widget to the right of this post.  Voting for the 1st round entries starts on Monday, September 20^th, and I’ll be writing a follow-up post in a few days describing how you can follow the competition, and vote me through to subsequent rounds if wish. Thanks!

 

Those of you who have been with us for a while here at “Oui, Chef” have gotten to know what we’re all about, but for those of you new to our little site, the story behind this post provides me an excellent opportunity to share with you our raison d’être. 

 

The idea behind “Oui, Chef” came to me after I had read an article by Jamie Oliver on his efforts to improve the school lunch programs in his native England.   As I contemplated his efforts, I started spending some time thinking about what it was that I wanted to teach MY kids about food, cooking, and how to feed themselves well in an environmentally responsible way, and the seeds for “Oui, Chef” were sewn. 

I started to wonder why, among all the things we work so hard to teach our kids, cooking isn’t even on most people’s radar screen.  We teach them to dress themselves, clean their rooms, wash behind their ears, and say no to drugs, but how many of us really take the time to teach our kids how to cook, and how to make responsible choices about what it is they put in their bodies?   Now I’m not talking about “cooking” microwave popcorn or pre-packaged mac and cheese here, I know a boat load of kids that have microwave skills light years beyond mine.  I’m talking about cooking real food, understanding where this food comes from, its effect on their health, and how the way it is grown and brought to market impacts our planet.

“Oui, Chef” now exists as an extension of my efforts to teach my kids a few things about cooking, and how their food choices over time effect not only their own health, but that of our local food communities and our planet at large.  By sharing some of our cooking experiences, I hope to inspire other families to start spending more time together in the kitchen, passing on established familial food traditions, and maybe starting some new ones.  My desire in the end is not just to enhance my young sous chefs’ culinary skills, but to advance their level of environmental awareness, and broaden their palates as well.

 

Each post you’ll find here on “Oui, Chef” touches on at least one of these points, either by introducing the kids to unfamiliar cuisines, teaching them a new cooking technique, or illuminating the nutritional and environmental consequences of our food choices; but I have to admit that it is a rare one that can tag all the bases. 

Every now and again however, the stars align, and fate tosses us the seeds of a post that does more than just offer the kids a chance to hone their cooking skills on a new recipe, but one that gets them to think about their connection to place, and what impact their food choices make on the planet at large……the girls enjoyed an adventure earlier this summer that did just that.

Read More »

In celebration of Jody Adams’ decisive first and second round victories in Bravo Network’s latest “Top Chef Masters” competition, I thought we’d cook a dish today from her terrific cookbook (co-authored by her husband, Ken Rivard), In the Hands of A Chef: Cooking with Jody Adams of Rialto Restaurant.   This dish is a bit of a departure from Jody’s typically mediterranean offerings, but as a nod to asian-fusion style cooking in the style of a “bourride” (a Provencal fish stew), it is a real winner.  I’ve taken a few liberties with the dish only to use up a few ingredients I had in my fridge that I thought would work well here, but the soul of this light and delicious dish is all Jody.

Read More »