A blog about food and cooking by Chris Norris
Day 5: CIA Boot Camp 9/28/2007 It’s graduation day for the boot camp crowd as well as the graduating class of regular students at the CIA. The school has a different feel today – less frenetic and busy – but maybe that’s just the Friday […]
Day 4: CIA Boot Camp 9/27/2007 I’m in the CIA library with only one more day of “cooking college” to go! Tomorrow is graduation day for the current senior class, and proud parents and grandparents are swarming the campus, taking tours, and creating long lines […]
Day 3: CIA Boot Camp 9/26/2007 Woo-hoo! I got coffee today BEFORE class started and actually understood some of the first hour of lecture… My job today was to make spaetzle (a german ‘pasta’) and a tomato herb sauce, both of which came out pretty […]
Day 2: CIA Boot Camp 9/25/2007 Today started early after a 5 hour night and no time for coffee before class. It’s clear that the whole California thing of showing up 10 minutes or so after the scheduled start time is NOT how things are […]
Day 1: CIA Boot Camp 9/24/2007 Wow, what a day – orientation at 6 AM and no slow down for the next 16 hours! Today was spent learning and perfecting knife skills that we inflicted on onions, garlic, celery, carrots, potatoes, mango, oranges, grapefruit and […]
Day 0: CIA Boot Camp It’s 10 PM New York time, and I’m watching the clock with increasing agitation since I have to be up at 5 AM tomorrow morning for a 6 AM orientation meeting. This wouldn’t normally be such a big deal, but […]
Salt, Part 2: Saltiness Is To Godliness Salt was extraordinarily important in biblical times, and great power and wealth accrued to those who controlled the supply of salt. Wars were fought over salt and battles could be won or lost based on the ability of […]
Salt, Part 1: What’s Up With Salt? Click here for the whole series! My oldest son brought home his high school chemistry textbook after orientation classes a few weeks ago and inadvertently launched me on a new research project. While thumbing through the book, I […]
Pasta Class at Ramekins in Sonoma, CA I’ve tried several times to make my own pasta, and the results, while not catastrophic, have never been culinary delights. In fact, my most recent effort was to create an “inside out” beef stroganoff. A typical stroganoff involves […]
Vacationing with the CIA Click here to see the whole series! No, NOT the Central Intelligence Agency! I’m off to the Culinary Institute of America, located in Hyde Park, New York for a one week long boot camp in late September. It turns out that […]