I just returned from an incredible and inspiring week of Mediterranean Cooking Culinary Boot Camp at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park NY.   One of the week-long continuing education courses that they run there is Mediterranean Cooking.  It was unbelievably cool to be in a professional kitchen for a week with our professional lead Chef, Michael Skibitcky, and my 9 new kitchen best friends.   Every day, we went into our classroom for a quick lecture and recipe review at 7 am with Chef, then into the kitchen to prepare our  15-20 course lunch for that day.

View at Picasa 01-Jul-2010 10:08, 5.6, 24.0mm, 0.008 sec, ISO 800

Each day was a different Mediterranean region – Southern France, Southern Italy, Greece & Turkey, the Middle East and Northern Africa,  Coastal Spain. Each of us got the chance to cook 1-3 dishes per day, and Chef always did some demos for us.   We had cheese tastings, wine tastings, and of course, dinner most nights in the CIA’s signature restaurants, Caterina d’Medici, Escoffier, and American Bounty.   The campus is a absolutely beautiful, set in the lush Hudson River Valley.

View at Picasa 01-Jul-2010 13:43, 5.6, 15.0mm, 0.001 sec, ISO 800

So what did I learn at Boot Camp?  I’ll share recipes and photos in the next couple of weeks – so come back and visit the blog often.  Here are some other things I learned:

1. It’s really fun to be in a professional kitchen and to have a big rack to put all of your dirty dishes on (no dish washing on vacation!!), several student helpers to get things for you and help with technique, and new friends who are just as excited as you about being in the kitchen.  It’s also really nerve wracking.

View at Picasa 02-Jul-2010 12:36, 5.6, 14.0mm, 0.006 sec, ISO 800

2. You don’t need fancy knives, pots and pans, or equipment.  You do need the right equipment, but it doesn’t have to be new and shiny and fancy.  You also don’t need fancy, expensive spices, oils, or vinegars.  What you need is technique, great recipes, and practice practice practice.

View at Picasa 28-Jun-2010 11:40, 5.6, 17.0mm, 0.01 sec, ISO 800

3. It’s even more fun when you have a friend who works there.  My friend, Lynne Gigliotti, one of Season 7′s Top Chef contestants, is an assistant professior at the CIA.

View at Picasa 02-Jul-2010 01:16, NIKON CORPORATION NIKON D40, 4.2, 26.0mm, 0.017 sec, ISO 400

4. Having this kind of experience isn’t cheap, but it is absolutely positively worth the price of admission.  It was a super fun week, one that I highly recommend!!! An absolute must-do if you love to cook and eat.

Recipes and more photos to follow – check the blog during the next couple of weeks.

Don’t miss our guest blogger Lynne Gigliotti

Season 7 of Top Chef begins on June 16 9pm est – and one of our favorite guest bloggers is one of the contestants!  You may remember Lynne Gigliotti from her very funny blog “They Call Her Chef” on our very own Mama Says website.

From the Top Chef website:

This season captures the varied tastes of Washington D.C. and features appearances by some of the town’s top names including Apollo Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, White House chef Sam Kass, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, Congressman Aaron Schock of Illinois, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, CIA Director Leon Panetta and NBC White House Correspondent Savannah Guthrie. The challenges featured will be some of the most creative and inventive yet: the chefs take over the concession stands at the Nationals stadium, go inside the CIA’s closely guarded headquarters and literally receive out of this world direction on one challenge from a NASA astronaut orbiting Earth .

Don’t miss the show, and support one of our own, Lynne Gigliotti!! (PS – she said she can’t tell me who wins, otherwise she’d have to kill me, so yes, we ALL have to watch EVERY episode!)

Guest Blogger: Lynne Gigliotti, assistant professor of Culinary Arts at the Culinary Institute of America

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a fairy godmother?  Or at least someone who was really really good at something (like cooking) and helped you along your journey while you explored the same thing? My friend, Lynne Gigliotti, assistant professor of Culinary Arts at the Culinary Institute of America,  is just that kind of person. I’ve known Lynne for almost 20 years, and during that time she not only fed me some of the most wonderful food I’ve ever eaten, but she also patiently guided me through many cooking questions and journeys. Lynne has agreed to Join us in the Kitchen and share her musings as a professional chef, prior restaurant and catering business owner, and culinary instructor.

They Call Me Chef