liv bites

Not every dish we make at school is one I’m rushing home to recreate. Culinary school teaches you all the basic, French techniques that made food taste good back when ingredients weren’t so ripe — meaning they usually benefited from a good smothering of cream, cheese and breadcrumbs. And more cream, apparently. These days, of [...]

Fact: Banana Nut Bread is a perfectly acceptable breakfast. So are muffins, Pumpkin Bread and scones; never mind that all of those things are basically cake, and that you’re eating them before 9 am. Until recently at school, we’ve focused on yeast and steam as “raising agents,” or things that make food puff up in [...]

In French cooking, as it turns out, you only really need three ingredients to get started: butter, flour and eggs. Sugar helps, too, as does a nice Swiss cheese. Everything else is just an accessory. After our indulgent day of soufflé making a few weeks back, I didn’t think I’d be able to stomach another [...]

We’ve been cutting up chickens on a daily basis at Tante Marie’s over the past couple of weeks, so dinner this week was more practice: Roasted Chicken and an Arugula and Butternut Squash Salad with Pomegranate Seeds. The recipe for that is still in the works, but even more interesting was what I decided to [...]

There are about 4,000 ways to cook an artichoke, and trimming those prickly leaves never gets any faster. Make your own pasta… … It’s simple, you can freeze it, and you won’t regret it. Some things are best eaten raw. Never discard stale bread. Give croutons, bread crumbs and bread pudding a chance (particularly the [...]

I hate it when bloggers apologize for being MIA, so I’m not even going there. Suffice it to say that last week, culinary school became, well, school. I was faced with a practical exam (read: cooking a three-course meal under a deadline for my instructor to critique) and a written exam, rounding out the week [...]

See this guy? He’s at work at 2:00 every morning, and he can filet a fish in under 10 seconds. He’s an employee at Monterey Fish Market, a company that supplies seafood to some of the best restaurants in the Bay Area — and to Tante Marie’s Cooking School. I set my alarm for 4:30 [...]

I vow never, ever to buy ricotta cheese in the supermarket again. This week we made fresh cheeses at school — as opposed to aged, hard cheeses like cheddar — and my mind was blown by how incredibly simple the whole process is. Okay, I had it easy, being assigned the ricotta cheese, which takes [...]

I discussed last week’s fish workshop in plenty of detail, but I couldn’t wait to try baking the filets in parchment paper at home. Thus, it’s recipe time! It’s been a while since I posted a recipe on the blog, mostly because I’m focusing on taking everything in rather than producing something new. But I [...]

Confession: Before last week, I had never really made a pie. Okay, there was this chocolate one and these mini tarts, but in terms of an old-fashioned, crusty, fruit-filled pie, I admit I’m fully intimidated. Until Friday, that is, when our school day consisted of a workshop in basic pastry dough — that buttery, flaky, [...]