Cooking 101 Recap: Week VIII

by Campus Executive Chef Tom Barton

Well it's finally here -- the final Cooking 101 class. As promised, next week's final session will be the student chefs' chance to utilize the tips and techniques they have learned during the past eight weeks to prepare a complete three course dinner for their invited guests. In this past Tuesday's class, our chefs were busy practicing the surprise menu.

Chef Tom going over the menu with our student chefs
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Just before the start of class, each student was presented with a very special personalized Xhibition Kitchen chef coat that they will wear proudly next week -- well actually, some couldn't wait and wore them this week too! The group was split into two separate teams and the students got busy chopping, pounding, sautéing, braising, whipping and folding. Timing the food to come out at the same time proved to be a bit of a challenge but everyone overcame the cramped quarters behind the counter and finally got to taste and enjoy their practice menu. The beauty of doing this practice run was the student chefs getting a chance to critique their own work and plan for some adjustments in next week's official dinner. Still need to find a way to keep the dessert from sticking!

Although I've never seen the Xhibition Kitchen look quite like that after a class, we managed to clean everything up and secure the kitchen for yet another week. In the mean time, if you know any of our student chefs, they've been sworn to secrecy on next week's menu so don't even think about it...