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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!)

One one recommendation and Two wine hints

Recently a dear friend from the Pacific Northwest was in Atlanta and had only one night available for dinner. As we compared notes regarding what’s new each of us confessed to watching Bravo’s “Top Chef” Season Four. My excuse? I am cheering on the three Atlanta area chefs who are in the competition (Pura Vida’s Hector Santiago, Woodfire Grill’s Kevin Gillespie and Eno’s Eli Kirshtein). That said, I’m rooting for Kevin. Woodfire Grill reminds me of my favorite Portland, Oregon restaurants – the food is local and the cooking-style enhances the fresh, natural ingredients.

It was a given that our one-night reunion would take place at the Woodfire Grill. The service, the attention to detail and the food were outstanding. Kevin wasn’t in that evening but his team was top-notch. We savored every bite of deconstructed Waldorf salad, local African squash soup, pan roasted wild Alaskan halibut, wood grilled Sonoma artisan duck breast along with two desserts.

And we came away with a wine find from the region of Italy that gave birth to the slow food movement:

Nebbiolo – Fantino – Rosso Dei Dardi – Piedmont, Italy – 06 - around $20.00 retail.

A value-driven blend of Barbera and Nebbiolo, that is easy to drink and has a long flavorful finish. We enjoyed the jammy, earthy nose of this wine along the hints of fig, plum and damp earth tones.

Fantino Barolo—Monforte d’Alba/Piedmont

Alessandro “Sandro” Fantino spent ten years as winemaker for the legendary Bartolo

Mascarello before starting his own small winery with his brother Gian Natale about 8 years ago. Their estate is the only one in the center of the old city at Monforte d’Alba, and the cellar, parts of which date from the 1600s, is worth visiting just for its aesthetic qualities. The brothers own 25 acres of vines, all in the “Vigna dei Dardi” cru, and like their mentor, Bartolo Mascarello, practice traditional viticulture and winemaking. In addition to their classic Barolo, they also produce a top-notch Barbera and Rosso di Nebbiolo. The Nebbiolo is produced from very old vineyards situated in the Dardi province hand harvested with very low yield. The wines are very tradition in style using no new oak. Production methods also are very traditional, utilizing gravity and no pumpovers.

Wine Hint 1: When you taste a wine you like write it down and then ask your local wine merchant or grocery store (Fred Meyers or Whole Foods) to see if they can find it for you (and at what price).

Wine Hint 2: For wines produced outside the US, note the name of the importer on the back of the bottle. In the future, look for other wines imported by that company. Or checkout their website for other ideas.

Buon appetito!