Category Archives: Education

We had an interesting class last night by Cristina Baez of Bleu Bites, a private catering chef. She started out with parmesan cheese palmiers, a mixed green salad topped with hearts of palm wrapped in prosciutto, her chicken saltimbocca with shrimp and mango salsa and a curry sauce. It was finished with a decadent chocolate dessert with strawberry coulis.

Impressive. Chef Cristina is very soft-spoken and had a handful with neighbors who hadn’t seen each other in a while. We loved her meal, and her full dessert (we all ate the delicious fondant/mousse out of cups) we voted to send the rest to the staff, which I delivered first thing this morning.

I look forward to taking her to the local restaurant supply store, later this month. It was a nice evening capped off with a dog walk around the bayou with two singles we like very much and hope they might get together. We’re not playing matchmaker, but I did need to be the chaperone on our walk. Yes, you can laugh at that one.

Who knows where we’re going to be? Things change every day but we now have a three-day weekend with the markets closed so will take a break before hitting the ground running on Tuesday morning.

No photos today. I made a fantastic dinner tonight, my chicken saltimbocca with scalloped potatoes and a cucumber salad from my grandmother that is on this site on recipes. Cristina left a few slices of proscuitto and I already had chicken breasts and Emmentaler cheese from the quiche I made yesterday so we were good to go. I did pound them rather than opening them with a knife, like a book. It’s been a few years since I’ve done that.

I used practically every pot and pan, dish and cutting board in our home. A few hours ago I put all the drying stuff away. If we stay they’d like me to teach a class or two, which would be interesting and good. If not, we’ll see where we end up in a couple of weeks. As it is, Cristina and I are going to check out the local restaurant supply store in the next week or so. Happy Valentines’ Day! Cheers, Dee.

I never thought about it and never knew but I just hit on a link about mincemeat that http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=en&u=http://blog.cookingwithdee.net/2008/12/15/mincemeat/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=9&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmincemeat%2Btarts%26start%3D70%26hl%3Dde%26rlz%3D1G1GGLQ_DEDE253%26sa%3DN

is my blog in German!  Kochen mit Dee!  I was listening to movie recommendations from Bill, Joe et al and hear Slumdog Millionaire and Defiance are the main contenders, I’m taking everything and in two minutes will sleep on it.  Happy cooking, Dee

I want quality products and service.  In cooking school one learns to shop the outer aisles, produce, butcher, dairy.  You go inside for rice and pasta, legumes.

Randalls is closest, about 1.5 miles away, and the produce and meat people know me and always ask if I need anything.  The manager knows me.  The checkers know me after nearly five years and butchers will give me whatever meat I want.

Krogers is in the expensive part of town (what part of town isn’t expensive?) and it’s a union shop and while one manager says hello, no-one has ever helped me in the produce and meat departments.

Specialty market Central Market is a cook’s dream.  If you forget something along the way it’s nearly impossible to get back.  But when I wanted to serve my husband’s family Christmas dinner a year ago he knew they didn’t have much time to spend with us so I made a few dishes (he didn’t want me to spend the day in the kitchen away from our guests) and ordered the rest from CM and it was delicious.  Yes, of course I told them the truth!  I read today that they have 800 kinds of cheese.  I’m about to become a cheese-a-tarian (thanks Doug Jones who authored “My Brother’s Farm).

Spec’s is fabulous, a liquor store with specialty root beer and Dr. Pepper for Jim, limoncello, wine and any other spirit one desires.  They also have great cheeses and specialty items like Lebkuchen for the holidays.  Workers come from downtown for specialty sandwiches.  I buy their Kalamata olives from the olive bar and drain the brine and marinate them with olive oil, garlic and herbs and spices.  What a great place!

Talk to your people.  You go there regularly, so create a relationship and they’ll recognize you when you enter the store.  If you want raspberries and there are none out and your recipe calls for them, ask them to look in back or ask for an alternative.

Cooking school gave me the confidence to talk to my butcher, order unusual cuts, or get my knives sharpened.  They do that at Central Market while you shop, a really cool feature!

Asian markets are interesting but I need my friend Kim to walk me through and explain some things.

You don’t need individually-packed meals and can make a great dinner from scratch in very little time.  Look at my ten-minute prep lasagna.  In wintertime, preparing a stew for a slow-cooker is ideal for your family.  When the older kids (me and my kid sister, 1.5 years younger) were in high school we had to make dinner twice a week while supervising our younger siblings.  Mac & cheese, and tuna souffle reigned.  Pretty sad for two good cooks in our adult years.

I wish you the best of luck negotiating your neighborhood grocery, and remember to ask for what you want.  If you’re anticipating to grill a boneless, butterflied leg of lamb for a party, ask for it.  Make sure they take off all the fat and that it is as flat as an open book.  Then ask me for the perfect marinade.  Keep cooking!  Dee

Whatever happened to service? “Would you like some iced tea ma’am?” Yes, at least in the South I’m old enough for that designation.

Here’s one for the books: “Can I help you?” That question can be posed and perceived in a number of ways. I won’t tell you how offended I was with one shop today who used the term to get me out the door, and we’ve spent a good deal of money there over the past couple of weeks. One gal there is great, the others won’t even look at me. Listen ladies, the person who looks at me and spends time helping me out is the one getting the commission. So you can be snooty as heck and not make a dime. I know who I’m going to and have already written your manager.

At a restaurant, a mid-range restaurant, I expect to be seated and my table picked up promptly. Order a beverage and a salad or appetizer. Order lunch/dinner. I am treated way better when my husband is at my side and it’s not two gals having lunch. I always tip well, but waiters always think women don’t tip well so don’t treat us well and seat us by the kitchen. Yes, this is Dee’s blog and I’m talking to you, Steve Dublanica of “Waiter Rant” and others.

Snootiness is probably my prime complaint. Cluelessness is next. As a checkout person one scans things so everything is automatically priced. All you do is log out, pay out dollar bills and the change is dispensed directly to the customer. Duh. I have good ones and bad ones and know who to select.

Drycleaners, I’ve been at ours for nearly five years. Every time they change staff it takes forever for them to learn my name. One young woman asked for six months. Asked how to spell something as easy as S-m-i-t-h. Countless times. She disappeared. Now when I drive up Jim’s shirts are already on the hanger and they have the check ready.

Supermarkets, well, that’s interesting because I’ve gone to two practically equally for three years and one won out. The one that talks to me, the produce guys ask if I need anything and the butchers are ready to get me anything I want. The other, not. One specialty place is great and everyone treats me well but they don’t know me. Another has my favorite cheeses and such and one guy called me “sweet pea” the other day. They really know how to satisfy a customer, by just walking down the aisle and finding exactly what I want.

When I was in college I looked for holiday jobs that would help pay my tuition and food. I knew more than everyone else at cooking stores but didn’t have the page boy haircut or preppy clothes, so I wasn’t hired. Come to think of it, before this Christmas I stopped by Williams-Sonoma and they didn’t want to have anything to do with me.

Letter to commissioned salespeople: when we come in, we have money to spend; when you treat us like yesterday’s dishes we do not spend; therefore when we do not buy you do not get a commission. Is that clear enough for your little brains to understand? Service is an art. Too bad the wisdom of caring for others is not instilled in children, because it’s way too late to teach a high school dropout how to serve a customer. And you pampered kids? Most of us have to do these jobs to get through high school or college to have a future. Everyone needs to know this stuff. You have a staff, know how to treat people.

In the past I ordered a cooking magazine or two, and they clogged up my mailbox or nightstand. Then I would go through the recipe page and look up a few. Then, heaven forbid, I couldn’t throw it out because I might never find it again. That has happened to me time and again. But being a blogger, no-one will give permissions to print credited recipes anyway.

Food and Wine gently suggests signing up. My problem is that I only want online access to the magazine to see what’s fresh and new and peruse the archives. I don’t need a tree cut down every month for my reading enjoyment. Some magazines are getting the hint.

But Cooks Illustrated does the hard sell, in my email inbox at least once a day. And now they’re limiting content in the emails they send me. Sorry, this one’s only for members! Ha! Gotcha! Subscribe to our online membership free for a month then we’ll charge you for life unless you spend three weeks calling India for customer support to cancel. Especially after a fellow blogger changed one of their recipes, published it crediting the company and they harassed her mercilessly, saying that their recipe was “perfect” and she had no right to change it.

I don’t work in restaurants anymore. If I want to change a recipe to please my fellow diners, I will do so as needed. No, I’ll do so because I don’t have one item in my pantry or Jim can’t eat anchovies or whatever I feel like doing. Ninety-five percent of the time I don’t use a recipe, just think of something and make it. But I don’t measure so have to do better on that so I can pass my recipes on to you. Should that be New Year’s Resolution #4? We’ll see.

How do you like the blog? It has its ups and downs, in terms of readership, and I thank a number of stalwart readers for writing in with their comments. I was thinking of some changes, not yet solidified, for 2009. What do you think? Hope you’re enjoying a warm and fuzzy weekend with your loved ones. Dee

p.s. Many years ago, on my first home computer, it came with AOL. When I tried to get rid of it, they wouldn’t let me. I spent months on the phone telling them I no longer wanted their service. They always asked “why” and tried to engage me in conversation. Incredibly annoying. It took having my purse (and credit card that paid for AOL) stolen in Italy for them to drop me. I returned with no money, having spent most of New Year’s at the police station or Consulate. But when I went to sign in I had no more AOL and was a happy camper!!!