Diligent Women are Beautiful

Professional Culinary Institute Hobby Class: Plate Presentation

I went to LA for Food Styling Classes some time ago, a class designed to make food look good for the camera.  This time I went to Professional Culinary Institute (PCI) for Plate Presentation Class which is to learn how restaurant Chefs make food look good for us before we eat it.  We eat with our eyes first, so not only does food need to taste good, but also needs to look good so we would want to eat it.  When we cook at home we can also make every dish we make look good with some thoughtful planning.

On the day of class, if you arrive early, you can enjoy a pastry with juice or coffee in the waiting room.  You will receive a booklet that contains all the recipes of the dishes we are making/plating, including all sauces with plating principles.  The instructor was Chef Jeremy MacVeigh and the class starts with his lecture of plating principles in the demo kitchen.

Basically, most restaurants use white plates because it helps to bring out color in food.  You could use dark or black plates but you need to be very careful with the food because food color would be harder to show on the dark color plates but it does show a different feeling and style.

We also need to remember hot food uses warm plates, cold food uses cold plates so the food would keep looking its best for a little bit longer (until you eat it).  When plating, you want to consider the Colors, Textures, Shape, Height, Plate Coverage, and Cleanliness.

The dish would look better if you have different color of food in one dish so you want to think ahead when planning the meals.  We also want to have different textures and shapes in food to make it interesting to the eye.  For example, we had the Ahi Tuna as appetizer.  The Ahi Tuna is red, triangular, and soft which go with the fried wonton that is brown, rectangular, and hard and then finish with wasabi dressing which is green, soft and can be any shape. 

When plating, you want to stack up the food to create the height. So we used the fried wonton as a bed and put the Ahi Tuna on top of that and then garnish with green chive, green onion and dressing.  You don’t want to put too much food in one plate because leaving some white space would be better.  Remember to wipe the plate clean before serving.

The menu for the day:
1.    Ahi Tuna with fried wonton skin finish with Soy Lime Vinaigrette and Wasabi Aioli
2.    Scallop with pea finish with Red Pepper Coulis
3.    Seared Airline Chicken on top of Polenta with Porcini Supreme Sauce and asparagus
4.    Grill Steak on top of Potato Gratin with English Pea Puree and Baby Carrots, finish with Bordelaise sauce
5.    Tiramisu
6.    Fruit Platter

 

We watched Chef Jeremy make and plate every dishe (all prep work have already done ahead of time).  He explained the important things that we need to remember or pay attention to for every dish, and then we tasted the food.  We all moved to the commercial kitchen next door when he finishes all six dishes. 

In the big learning kitchen, there are three stainless steel prep station on each side of the room with a small fridge underneath and cutting board, knifes, white plates on the table.  Each fridge contains ingredients for making each dish so everyone can pick a station to start, when you are done, go to the next station to make another dish until you are all done.

Honestly, I already feel full after watching Chef Jeremy’s demonstration so I only ate the tuna, the scallop and half of the steak and half of the chicken.  I packed the leftover steak and the chicken home but didn’t feel like making the Tiramisu and the fruit (I should have made them and then taken them home instead).

It’s rare to find a plating class for general public so I was happy when I found this class.  Although I didn’t learn much on plating for this class (because I already know some of them), I did learn a lot on cooking part.  The quality of the teacher and the food are very good which makes sense to me now why the tuition is more in PCI than in Sur La Table.

I realized my plating have a lot of influence from photography.  In photography we try not to put the subject on the center of the frame and that is what I did with my plating, nothing on the center even thought Chef Jeremy put it on the center.  Interesting!

RMSP: House Rental in Missoula, Montana

To live in Missoula, Montana for my five months photography training at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography, the first thing I need to figure out is housing.  I usually lived alone when I was in Taiwan, then I lived with my husband after we got married.  So it was nerve racked when I thought about the possibility that I might need to share a room with someone else in order to save money on rent.

RMSP sent me a package with equipment and housing information.  In the housing booklet, it includes the neighborhood characteristics, rental websites, property management agencies, hotels that have suites and RV parks, and the average monthly rental range and rental rules.

In the beginning of my house hunting I wasn’t sure about the relationship between price and quality in each neighborhood around downtown Missoula or University of Montana.  After four weeks, I started getting a better idea on where I want to live and how much I am willing to pay.

RMSP has its own website for students to find housing because school will receive landlord’s request to post the info, and many of them are furnished.  Otherwise, Montana’s craigslist is another good place to start.  You can also post your “housing wanted” ad on craigslist for landlords to contact you.

After 4 weeks searching, I realized it is hard to find a place I wanted.  The problem is usually a combination of location, price, furnishing and pets.  I found a couple of suitable housing that was close to what I am looking for only later found out that one of roommate has a dog or a cat so I have to give it up.

Downtown Missoula has many hotels but only two have full kitchen in the suites, and a laundry room in the hotel - Staybridge Suites and Campus Inn (the Hawthorn Suites is near the airport).  The monthly room fee for a suite is around $1300 to $2500.

I also found the Wilma Luxury Condos & Lofts in the 2008-2009 Missoula Area Visitor & Relocation Guide.  The location is great and the room has everything you possibly wanted.  It is perfect for me but the monthly rate is about $2100.

So after 4 weeks of house searching, I ended up with the first landlord that I contact with via RMSP site because he is the only one to keep in contact with me and offered me a reasonable deal.  But who would know just 10 days after I submit my rental agreement and application fee, the owner decide to rent to someone else which wasted almost two weeks of my time.  Bummer!

Anyway, I wasn’t in love with the house so I can only tell myself when one door closes another window will open.  So I started looking again.  Just after I post a new Housing Wanted ad on Montana’s craigslist, a young lady who just bought a 2 bedrooms/2.5 bathrooms home near the downtown area contacted me.  She told me that she was thinking about getting a roommate but not sure if you wants to commit to a long-term lease.  She saw my ad and thought a 5-month try out would be a good idea for both of us.  After few more emails back and forth, we found some similarity between the two of us so maybe this is a good fit.  She asked $500 for the monthly rent, which includes everything, and a $300 deposit – which I think was reasonable.  I have my own bathroom with everything is brand new in the house.  What else can I ask for?

What a great find!  So now I know where I am going to stay for that 5 months, and I have booked my ticket for a week break in August.  I will need to pack my stuff when the date gets closer.  The good thing that I am driving to Montana this time is that I can take whatever I want with me.  I am already planning to take my rice cooker, a bag of Japanese rice, Chinese spice and sauces, and frozen goods so I don’t need to worry about the time I miss home food.

Academy of Art University - MFA in Photography

After attending 4 weeks of photography classes in Academy of Art University for the MFA program, I realized that it was a mistake so I dropped all the classes just in time to get 25% refund.  I then experienced a very different attitude from the Registration Department than the Account Receivable/Collections.  When I applied for school, they are all nice and sweet; now I want to change schools, they change their face so quick that I can’t even recognize it was the same school.

Accounts Receivable/Collections Department sent me a statement on how much I owe them and gave me a week from the date they issued the statement to pay (I am not sure when did they actually mail it out to me).  However, the numbers don’t add up, and I didn’t see my 25% refund listed on it so I called.  The Accounts Receivable/Collections Department said I need to talk to the Finical Aid Department, which I did, and they admit the statement was not correct and they will issue me a new one.  I asked them to make sure that they have a record of our phone conversation so I won’t be charged a late fee or anything like that, and they said they would.

A couple days later, I got a call from the Accounts Receivable/Collections Department with a very unfriendly voice, no Hi, no Goodbye, just very straight forward to tell me that I haven’t paid my bill and they will send my account to a collection agency if I don’t pay.  I told her about the conversation I had with their Finical Aid Department and I am waiting to receive a new statement.  She said she didn’t see a record of that conversation on my file.  I said I am driving right now so I don’t have the conversation record in front of my face; otherwise, I could tell you the date, the time and the person’s name who I talked to.  Then she said she would talk to the Finical Aid Department tomorrow, and she just hang up, without a goodbye.

A few days go by, I received an email from the Accounts Receivable/Collections Department about my past due and a threat about the collection agency again so I called the Finical Aid Department again asking why I haven’t receive the new statement.  I told them that I am being harassed by the Accounts Receivable/Collections Department twice now, can they ask her to back off since I am waiting for the correct statement to be mailed to me.  In fact, the Financial Aid Department couldn’t tell me why the corrected statement wasn’t mailed out already and they just said someone must have missed something.

It’s less than two thousand dollars that I owe to the AAU, and I will pay right away but I think it’s reasonable for me to ask for a correct statement before I give them my money.

My advise for people who is thinking about going to a Photography school, look else where unless you are looking for a school have no TOEFL requirement (for International Student) and no portfolio requirement.  Basically, you can BUY your way into this school.  It doesn't guarantee you would graduate but certainly no problem to get into the school. If you are serious about your education in photography, check out the schools on this LIST. They are much much better choices.

If you are not looking for a degree program, just simply want to sharpen your photography skills, check out Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Montana which is the school I am going for 5 months for a intensive Career Training this summer.