Party Hearty

Day 6

It's time for a celebration.

I made it through my first full week of culinary school. I also flambeed for the first time (and didn't burn down the kitchen). On top of that, it's my birthday.

Today I turned 29—the last year in my 20s. Signing up for the day class, I wondered how my age would stack up compared to the rest of the students. I was told "older" students mostly enroll in the evening session. I feel like I'm probably older than most in my particular class (many are straight out of high school or college), but some are in their late 20s, 30s—even 50.

My thought is that it doesn't matter how old you are anyway. Julia Child was in her late 30s when she started cooking. And my mom—the best chef I know—graduated culinary school in her 50s, although she'd been cooking impressive meals for most of her life.

Although there are certainly learned techniques (you can reference my "Tourner Up the Heat" post), I believe cooking is an art. Thus, the name "culinary arts," I suppose. Once you learn the proper methods and find out what flavors complement each other, it's a matter of imagination. There's nothing wrong with recreating a popular dish—after all, it's probably popular because it's good—but I find it most fun adapting recipes or coming up with something entirely new.

OK, enough of those tangent remarks. Today, sauces were the name of the game. I was in charge of the chicken veloute as well as the sauce chateaubriand aux champignons (wine and mushroom sauce). Yum to the latter. Instead of dumping it in the vat with everyone else's, I

selfishly brought it home. It will be perfect to thaw out and spoon over some red meat when time is tight.

I couldn't have asked for a better birthday meal. Ryan put his heart and soul into a steak dinner with creamed spinach. Finding it hard to resist the kitchen, I told him I'd prepare the bearnaise sauce. It was good at first, but after trying to keep it warm for a half-hour, it turned foamy. Bearnaise foam? Sounds like something from molecular gastronomist Wylie Dufresne's kitchen. Guess I'll have to wait for Monday when we cover sauces part two.

A steak dinner wouldn't be complete without a nice bottle of red. We broke out one of the big guns (for us, at least): a 2004 Caparzo Brunello di Montalcino. I bought it

in Tuscany in June 2009 and have been saving it for the right occasion. This seemed to be it.

We ended the evening with a cappuccino—Ryan makes the best, thanks to Breville—and cupcakes from Butter Lane. We split two: banana cake with maple frosting (my favorite) and banana cake with caramel frosting, topped with popcorn.

Sweet conclusion to a sweet week.