Before I tell you about our class day I want to talk about my evening. After school I headed Downtown on foot to Greenwich Village. What a great place! It if full of trendy people, shops and restaurants. A far cry from the days of Beatniks in the 1960s. Wish I could go back in time and see it like it was! Found a sidewalk table at an Italian restaurant where I enjoyed a couple of glasses of Pinot Grigio and did some great people watching. Also eavesdropped on a conversation between two women at the table next to me. They were French and one was trying to figure out how she could rent out her house so she could spend more time in New York. Something I would love to figure out myself! After that I headed down MacDougal Street to Mamoud’s for a falafel sandwich. I knew this was the place to go because earlier when I walked by I saw at least ten women standing outside the shop eating falafel – they were all wearing Berkas. A good sign!
So back to school at the Natural Gourmet Institute. This morning we had a fascinating lecture and demonstration about sea vegetables by Chef Jill Gusman. Sea vegetables are near and dear to my heart because it is something that Maine is well known for. Sea vegetables are amazingly healthy. They are packed with minerals – iron, phosphorous, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iodine and niacin. They are more alkaline forming and are anti-inflammatory. They contain Vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, D, E and K (in small amounts). Sea vegetables also contain “alginic acids” which can bind with heavy metals in our system and help us to detoxify. You don’t need much to obtain these results – ¼ to ½ cup a couple of times a week plus small amounts daily in soups, etc. is more than enough. Some of the recipes we made this morning included: arame caviar, hijiki snow peas, smoked dulse and basil infusion, kidney bean dip with kombu, crunch ‘n brine seaweed salad and apricot pudding (kanten) made with agar flakes. If all that sounds to exotic for you buy some kombu (this comes dried in packages and can be found in most Asian sections of grocery stores) and add a piece to the cooking water of beans or to soups. You can use kombu in place of a bay leaf in any recipe. This will add flavor as well as minerals.
Arame Caviar
Sea Vegetable Lunch
The afternoon’s session featured stocks and soups. We made a simple carrot, celery and onion stock which is very traditional. This stock can serve as the base for hundreds of different soups. One tip - don’t add salt to your stock. Salt should be added as needed when preparing the final recipe. We used the stock in two different soups – a carrot soup and borscht (made with beets). The carrot soup was fabulous! After cooking we ran it through a blender and it came out oh so creamy! The borscht was really interesting - something I had never had before. This particular recipe was apparently different from traditional borscht and was not blended. As such it had tiny bites of onion, beets and cabbage that gave it a wonderful taste and texture. The third soup we made did not include stock – this was a chilled cantaloupe soup made with white grape juice, cantaloupe and a peach. Great for a dessert soup or for a brunch.
Mis en Place - Carrot Soup
Making Carrot Soup
Carrot Soup - The Final Product
Tomorrow is the last day of class. How sad : ( We will be doing fish in the morning then having a graduation party in the afternoon. After that I am going out to celebrate with a classmate so I may not be back to the blog until Saturday morning. Ciao until then!
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