So, I decided to take a cooking class. Not a bad idea, eh? I'm retired and like cooking, so how could it hurt if I took a few classes? But, oh no, not just any cooking classes would do. I decided to double down and go back to school. Full time! Five days a week from September to May of last year.
Hello Niagara College and their Culinary Skills Program. Did I say it was full time?
It was full time!
So, I walked in on the first day, proudly wearing my Chef's white jacket and toque (that's the tall hat worn by Chefs, the taller the hat, the more important the Chef) and was surrounded by a multitude of bright shining faces, full of hope, expectation and anticipation. Everyone was either straight out of high school or pretty close. At 66, I was the "alte kaker", that's Yiddish for old fart, to be polite. The oldest guy in the entire class of nearly 300 kids. In fact, I was older than most of the Chef Instructors. But I was keen and excited and eager to get going.
Over the course of the next year, I learned to properly julienne, brunoise, chop and dice vegetables, chiffonade herbs, poach salmon, eggs and chicken, make stocks, soups and sauces, grill, fry, saute, deep fry, which I learned is actually a type of dry cooking (who knew?). I learned to fillet fish, both flat and round, clean and process different meats. I learned the wet hand, dry hand technique for breading, so you don't end up with thick, caked fingers. I learned how to make canapes, appetizers, hollandaise sauce, how to pickle, how to get the perfect hard and soft boiled eggs, how to cook mussels and scallops, beef and veal and pork and chicken. I learned about foods from different countries, different types of nutritional factors and considerations, how to calculate food costs, prices and yields. And best of all, I got to take everything I cooked home for dinner for Harvey and me (poor Harvey).
I was taught by a series of professional Chef Instructors who, in my humble opinion, more than earned their salaries. They were kind but firm, encouraging and critical and, above all, patient. Many of the young people in my class had never seen the inside of a kitchen, held a real knife, been expected to perform to a specified level of competence and were somewhat overwhelmed. Add to that the fact that many were from foreign countries, with their own cultures, languages and class distinctions and the Chefs were constantly challenged to bring the best out in these kids. And, for the most part, they succeeded. And succeeded well and I applaud every one of them. They ARE true professionals and I appreciate their professionalism and humanity.
Anyway, there was one course which, much to my surprise, really caught my interest. Baking! I've sort of enjoyed baking most of my life, mostly confined to lemon meringue pie and brownies and the occasional challah, and, thanks to COVID, had learned to make pretty decent sourdough bread (who didn't?). But this course was some serious stuff. I learned how to scale things properly. Up to now everything I had done was measured in cups and teaspoons and impreial measurement, but now it was all metric; grams and milliliters. Did you know that 100 mL of water weighs 100 grams? I didn't.
We learned to use different techinques of cake mixing, One Stage Creaming, Two Stage Creaming, Chiffon Method, Angel Food Method, Flour Batter Method, to produce delicacies like Black Forest Cake, Carrot Cake with those little orange marzipan carrots on top and Pound Cake. Then there were the various biscuit techniques, the Creaming Method, Biscuit Method:, Muffin Method, Modified Muffin Method giving us the chance to create muffins and tea biscuits. And there were hot dog and hamburger buns, Vienna bread, challah, pies, pastries, strudels.
And I was in love! Baking had become my new passion, well my cooking passion, anyway. I couldn't get enough. Thanks to the internet I've been able to indulge my passion, to the point where, now, I've developed my techniques and skills to the point where I'm offering the cakes you can see on the Home page or the Order page for sale to the public.
And I'm still on my quest for more knowledge, better skills, better techniques. I'm enrolled in George Brown College's Cake Decorating Course and have been accepted in the Inaugural year of Niagara College's Baking and Pastry Arts Diploma Program.
So, in September, it's back to school again. Full time. This time for TWO years. I believe you're never too old to learn. You're never too old to pursue a passion. So, onward I go. Once again to be the "alte kaker" in a sea of youth.