My time in the CIA day 1

Yes it's true, I signed up for the CIA! What else does a 50 year old retired educator do? This has been a decade long dream of mine ever since I toured it decades ago with the Producer and saw all of the fun things they get to do here. The best part is I now have full privelages and access to the highly guarded third floor due to my name badge and most importantly the uniform. 

Well now that I have your attention, time to come clean. I am not entering the world of espionage ,as my young baseball coaching friend first thought! In my world CIA means only one thing! Culinary Institute of America. When I first toured those kitchens, my only thought was I want to cook here some day! 

And with much gratitude to the Producer, there is a big fat check on my bucket list...although I really don't have a bucket list for a variety of reasons! I have not gone back for a full degree because that is a HUGE time and financial commitment. Rather, I am getting my fulfillment in a 4 day Boot Camp. 

We are spending our 4 days in a mini Culinary school experience in and amongst the full time students.  Our focus for the 4 days is all things Bistro. We are broken into teams of 4 (there are 12 of us) and each team prepares 3-4 items and then we set it all out for a delicious buffet dinner. 

Yesterday we did soups, sandwiches and salads. To me the highlights were the French onion soup, and bitter winter greens dressed with a melted Brie vinagrette.

Today we are all going to lunch to look at and talk about plating. this restaurant serves large parties family style so I'm really excited since family style is my thing!

We will return to campus, don our uniforms and go to class for 2 hours of lecture. Lecture will consist of technique and recipe clarification along with some kitchen etiquette.  After lecture, we will head to the kitchen to begin mis en place and then prepare our assigned dishes. Tonight in class we will prepare classic Bistro dinner fare. I will report on the results tomorrow with some better food porn and kitchen shots. 

You can also look forward to me playing with these recipes and sharing my versions!

Xo MamaP