J5’s Blog

After hearing from a number of people that they enjoy reading my entries about cooking class (I think I have already convinced a few to start taking classes) what do I go and do? Stop blogging about food for a couple of weeks, of course. Sorry for the hiatus but every time I went to post I got a case of writers block. Well last week was my last French course but fear not. I will be taking a break until the spring or summer, depending when the Italian course starts but as it turns out our class got along so well together we are going to do a dinner party at some point and I will blog about all the wonderful meals made there.

Until then let me start with my second to last class, the Burgundy region. If you are a fine wine and fine food enthusiast this is the place to be. Unfortunately I was a bit hung over and tired from the Red Hat holiday party the night before (which by the way had excellent food catered by Wolfgang Puck’s catering company). So while everyone else was taking on two dishes, it was a small class this time around, I did one.

What you see is the hanging mass of Cervelle de Canut. That is correct, for you French readers out there - Brain! It isn’t really brain but a herbed cottage cheese that when placed on the plate does somewhat resemble gray matter. Case in point:

That is basically how my brain felt but hey, it tasted really good. The rest of the dishes turned out amazing.

The French Onion soup, my favorite soup in the Universe, was rendered lighter with half of the beef stock replaced with chicken stock and white wine used instead of red. Who knew there were so many ways to make it and all of them pretty easy.

The Salad Lyonnaise, which was basically a salad with bacon fat as dressing, along with the Gougere, an egg and cheese bread, were the perfect
first plates to get the digestive system going.

My brains were served right along side the Flageolets a la Creme or green beans in cream. And the piece de resistance Longe de Porc Dijonnaise - a pork dish with a dijon glaze surrounded by apples sauteed in butter.

Those apples were great. They reminded me of apple chips which I suppose you would get if you took those and baked them.

And then there was desert.

The Pain D’epices was a flowerless molasses bread, the Clafoutis aux Cerises, a cherry pie and the Le Gateau au Chocolate a la Bourguignonne a decadent chocolate cake with raspberry jam filling.

It was a great meal, made with good friends but by far not the best. That honor goes to the last class of Normandy/Brittany in which I made what I would say was the best dish I have ever cooked or for that matter eaten. If the reaction I got out of a couple of female classmates is any measure, this is one the dish every man should know how to prepare…but you will have to wait awhile to find out what it was.

P.S. There is a wine expo going on this weekend in Boston for those who are interested. I will be there on Saturday.

[read this post in: ar de es fr it ja ko pt ru zh-CN ]