Nutrition/Herb Identitification/Cheese Tasting (Talegio, where have you been all my life?)

The morning's lecture was about nutrition, a good deal of which I was familiar with from prior readings. Chef M was blunt: we're probably spending a little too much time talking about nutrition because most restaurants don't care. Unless the specialty is healthy food, the main concern of a food establishment is safety and well-presented good-tasting food. A steak that is about 7 times the recommended serving size is obscenely unhealthy, but a steak house that doled out the correct serving size would soon be out of business.

Restaurants are for special occasions. The fact that people are eating at McDonald's 5 times a week and consuming 2 to 3 times the recommended number of calories is horrible, but in Chef M's opinion, not our problem at c-school.

The nature of energy foods (protein, fat, carbohydrates) and non-energy foods (vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals) were laid out in detail. Corn's predominance in our diet has caused the balance of omega 3 and omega 6 acids to go from a 1-5 ratio in the '50s to 1-250 today. ADD, autism, and a host of other problems have been linked to this shift. Grass-fed organic animal product is an excellent source of omega 6s.

We were all given small quantities of 14 fresh herbs, all organic and grown on a single farm in South America. Included were bay leaf, oregano, thyme, sage, chives, chervil, mint, curly and Italian parsleys, marjoram, basil, rosemary, cilantro, dill and taragon. Tasting them raw and alone was weird -- some (mint) were absolutely wonderful with a pleasantly bitter aftertaste, others were face-scrunchingly overpowering (bay leaf.) Monday will be our first quiz on IDing these items by sight and smell.

Then the knives came out. Oranges, apples, cantaloupes, strawberries, mangoes, pineapple, and plums all fell to our chef's blades and paring knives. No fruit was left intact.

The cheeses were cut, the proper way of assembling a cheese plate was discussed (always a variety from each group: fresh, firm, hard, blue/moldy); then we tucked in to the cheeses -- cow and buffalo Mozzarella, Marscapone, Ricotta, Feta, goat Chevre, Edam, Monchego, Cheddar, Parmesan, Pecorino, brie, Pont Leveaue, Fontina, Morbier, Cabrales, Roquefort, Stilton and Gorgonzola. According to Chef M, firm Bel Paese is a joked about by the Italians as for export-to-America-only, as it has no flavor. Additionally, according to the French, Stilton is the only good thing the English have contributed to food culture. French bread and fruit salad joined in the end-of-class meal. The soft and firm cheeses were pretty familiar to me, and the blue cheeses were as unappealing as ever, though I hope to change my palate in the next 6 months.

However, the soft runny aged moldy cheeses.....oh my. Some of these cheeses still had the sticker's from Murray's Cheese on it -- $35 for a half pound! And they stink like my bike shorts after a century ride!! However, once you break through the rind and the creamy soft cheese underneath is....mellow, strong, and assertive like a hug from a beautiful woman who just happens to be a competitive weight lifter. In particular, the Talegio -- wow. Wow wow wow wow! Strong notes of red wine were unexpected, especially after getting a whiff of the sweat-socky rind. It just tasted right: a thousand years of cheese-making skill and experimentation lead to that moment of my risking putting that stinky mess in my mouth and getting rewarded with fantastic wave of flavor happiness.

We stood around and chatted with each other and Chef M, who seems to have had cooking experience in a full third of all kitchens in NYC. In the locker room, I invited a fellow student from out of town (along with his wife) to a home-cooked dinner with B & me. The networking starts now, and what a better place to start than with my fellow students?

ADDENDA:
First week of c-school down, 30-odd more to go! I'm really looking forward to shopping in the farmer's market at Wholefoods with my new taste for stank-ass cheese.

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, granola with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM WATERING: 9am, a few cups of ice water

AM TASTING: 11am, assortment of cheese (see above) plus thin slices of french bread, .75 bowls, hunger 4/5
We also had fruit salad that we spent the morning chopping up, but the cheeses were too interesting.

PM LUNCH: 2pm, class-made salsa with tortilla chips, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
B fed me as I drove the car up state

DINNER: 6:30pm, vegan jumbalia with spicy TVP mince, carrots & cuce, water, 1 piece of ww bread with butter, water, 1 cup apple juice, 1 large brownie, 3 bowls, hunger 4/5
Up at the Omega Institute with B and the HVS. The veg/vegan dining buffet was surprisingly tasty and well-presented.