Exciting news: Top Chef (my favorite foodie reality show) wins an Emmy, Denver Chefs featured in the New York Times, and you can now register for CSR’s Fall Flavors Home Cook Open House online! In addition to that, a nice guide to eating leftovers for breakfast, the most important meal of the day. Check out these articles and let us know what you think. Or, if you have exciting news to share with us, send it our way!
Save the date! CSR’s Home Cook free Open House is right around the corner. Join us on Thursday, September 23rd from 5:30 – 7:30 pm as we celebrate the beginning of a festive Fall season with chef demos, discounts on class registrations, and tastes of terrific seasonal fare. We’ll also be hosting a live band and staff and chefs will be available to answer questions on all things food. Don’t miss out on a great night at Culinary School of the Rockies. Our free Home Cook open houses only happen twice a year, so don’t miss this chance to finally turn over a new leaf in the kitchen. RVSP today.
By Juliet Wittman
The end of our fourth day in the kitchen, and—though no one I know would ever believe such a thought could cross my mind—I’m feeling I don’t ever want to think, talk, read about, or shop for food again. Let alone eat. Too much hustling round the kitchen, too much trying to figure out what I’m doing, too many stupid mistakes brought on by fatigue, too many things to taste—each of them wonderful, but cumulatively overwhelming—too much uncertainty about tomorrow, when we’re supposed to go off book, split into small teams, and figure out for ourselves what to cook. With Chef Michael’s help, of course.
I’ve been talking with Laura, another student, about buying a half pig together and splitting it, and I dreamed about that damn pig last night: My part arrived. It hadn’t been eviscerated, but that was okay because it was actually a hard, dark piece of wood, and I left it propped up on a chair in the back room. Walking into the room later, I noticed the thing was moving. Slightly, but unmistakably.
I like eating meat, and I like working with it, but I’ve never managed to come completely to terms with the fact that an animal has to die to provide it. I discussed this with Kimberly—a proud carnivore—as we worked at a saddle of lamb this morning pulling skin and fat away, guiding our knives carefully against bone so as to lose as little meat as possible in separating out the loin meat and releasing the tiny tenderloins. The creature we were dissecting was very young and amazingly small. Michael had talked to us earlier about the kind of fat and scrap worth saving when you’re cutting up an animal—the luscious melt-in-the-mouth and carry-flavor-like-nothing-else-can kind—and the stringy stuff you need to toss.
Here’s what CSR has learned from our first Win a Date contest we held last week: LOTS of our home cooks need a night out with their honey. After reading all of the comments that came in about why YOU need a Dinner Date Cooking Class for two, we have chosen the winner to be Deborah! In Deborah’s entry she wrote, “After a quick evening of throwing together dinner, baths, practicing school work, walking the dog, feeding the cats, brushing teeth and convincing our two year old that he really does need to sleep tonight…we’re spent. We need to re-connect, but the only time left that we have would be best spent sleeping so we can re-energize for another day full of rushing out the door in the morning, to get to work, to get home, to start again.”
Thanks to all of our fans and readers who entered in our Win a Date Contest! All of your comments were deserving of a date – and it was hard to pick just one winner. Between your careers, kids, yard work, wedding planning, and pets – CSR now knows how busy your lives are. Thanks for sharing a snippet of your life with CSR. Hopefully, we’ll have the chance to see all of you the kitchen soon. Congratulations to Deborah on winning a hands-on cooking night out with her hubby this Friday!
After more then 16 years of living with our cream colored, work-horse fridge in the home cook kitchen, we finally have decided to part ways and upgrade. The news was announced Thursday afternoon that we found a new refrigerator to build a future with. With a borrowed trailer in tow, Luke and the purchasing crew embarked on a mission to pick our purchase up. Moving the fridge into its new home looked like back breaking work, but it is finally here. What a beauty . . . with two doors, shelves galore, and bright shiny front.
