What is a Chef?

Over the past few years, I have had people call me ‘Chef’… and I have mixed feelings about that!

Yes, I am a culinary school graduate (with honors), yes, I run a food business and have survived (and grown) even with the supposedly receding recession, yes, I do try to push some boundaries, especially with our cheesecakes  and our ‘En Fuego’ cooking, but I do not consider myself a chef. When people ask, I call myself a ‘Cook from Jersey’!

I have hired culinary students, both here and in Virginia that know way more about ‘fancy’ cooking that I do. I know many chefs and cooks around town (Josh from Bin707, Theo from 626 on Rood, Diana Tarasiewicz, from DMT Catering and now District 51, Jonathan from Craving,  Chef’s Jon, Wayne and Dan Kirby from Colorado Mesa University’s Culinary Program, are just a few that come to mind, who have forgotten more than I will ever know!

While I have always loved cooking, I came into this industry late in life (after the age of 50!) and wonder, how much more would I know (and have learned) if I realized that this should be my profession years ago?

So, am I a chef?  No… a Cheesecake Savant.. maybe? (Come on, Ghost Peppers in a cheesecake?) And you gotta try our Colorado-Style Southern Chow-Chow, which will be unveiled at the Downtown Farmer’s Market in August. (Think Southern Relish meets En Fuego!)

To me, a chef is more than just a great cook. A chef knows how to hire the right people, train them the right way, in the right procedures (miz en place anyone?) and also knows how to give them a little room (not too much, at first!) and then can work with them and is able to get the most out of them, sometimes even more than they know they had in them.

A chef puts out food that makes people think, that makes people go ‘Whoa!’ and one who can do so again, again and again!!

Scary thing, well maybe not so much…. There are many great home ‘chef cooks’ out there! How many of us in the industry learned from their mom (or dad)? How many of their recipes have we adapted over the years and even have brought them into our professional lives?

Ya gotta love cooking and food and what it brings into our lives.. so go out, check out what our area chefs and cooks can do and then go home, and as we say a lot.. Play with your Food!

The ‘Website of the Week’ is Chef2chef.net. This is a great site about the industry and also has some tasty recipes. Our ‘Recipe of the Week’, Hawaiian Chocolate Brownies, is also from that site.

You can now also follow the adventures of Decadence on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Decadence-Gourmet-Cheesecakes/171538834903 ,on Twitter (www.twitter.com/decadenceGJ) and on Pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/circ2000/decadence-cheesecakes-cooking-thoughts/).

Recipe of the Week...

Hawaiian Chocolate Brownies Recipe

(from Chef2chef.net)

Servings: 16 large or 24 small brownies

The addition of coconut and macadamias makes these rich brownies even more decadent and delicious.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks (16 tablespoons) butter, more for pan and parchment paper
• 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut
• 1/2 cup roughly chopped macadamia nuts

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Butter a 9x13 baking pan and line with buttered parchment paper.
3. Place butter and chocolate in a bowl and place bowl over a pot of barely simmering water.
4. Cool slightly.
5. In a large bowl whisk together eggs, salt, sugars, and vanilla.
6. Whisk in cooled chocolate mixture.
7. Fold in flour just until combined.
8. Stir in coconut and macadamias and pour batter into prepared pan.
9. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until shiny and beginning to crack on top.
10. Cool completely in pan on rack before cutting.

 

Gotta Love Springtime in The Rockies

 As I write this column, I am sitting at my desk, just outside Richmond, VA, having been out here for a little over a week as our Fair & Festival Season has kicked in. It has been in the 90’s the past few days and thank goodness the summer humidity has not kicked in yet!

We did The Central Virginia Wine Festival on Saturday and as I was talking to people there and they found out that I still live in Colorado most of the time, two subjects were coming up a lot. The first was almost always about Colorado’s new law regarding the ‘Green’ and I try to explain to them that I do not live in Boulder or Denver and that the Western Slope is just… a little different than the Front Range. (Gee, ya think?)

The other subject was the snow that was hitting the Rockies and how could I live out there when the weather is like that.. In the Spring!! Smiling, I try to explain to them about our little ‘slice of heaven’, The Grand Valley and while, yes, the mountains around us do get nailed, we seem to have our own little eco-system, which spares us from most of mother nature’s fury. But as most of them seem to keep thinking that all of Colorado is like Denver, they just do not understand.

So, while I continue to grow our VA operations, I still am proudly a Palisidian and a small part of the Grand Valley!

Now that people have survived this last onslaught of our lovely Springtime weather, it is time to start getting ready for the Fairs, Festivals and Farmer’s Markets, some of which have already started, some are this weekend, (Try explaining to people in VA what Mike The Headless Chicken is all about!) and starting up in June, we will have the Farmer’s Markets starting up in Grand Junction, Palisade, Fruita, Rifle, Glenwood Springs and more!

If you have been getting cabin-fever this past weekend, why not come out to Fruita and check out The Mike The Headless Chicken Festival on Friday and Saturday!

When I think of Festivals, I always think back to when I lived in the Almaden Valley in South San Jose. When the wind was right, it would blow up from Gilroy and the garlic that grows there. My first major festival out in California was The Gilroy Garlic Festival, back when they only had a few thousand people show up, yeah, they get a few more than that nowadays,

Now that I got myself thinking of garlic, our ‘Website of the Week is from The Gilroy Garlic Festival and as you may guess, it ‘reeks’ at the Stinking Rose!  (http://www.garlicfestival.com/garlic-festival-recipes)

Our 'Recipe of The Week' is from that same site, Baked Garlic! Talk about an easy and tasty treat!

And don’t forget to come out to Palisade this weekend for the 1^st Brews & Cruise Festival!

You can know also follow us on Pinterest; Decadence Gourmet Cheesecakes and Decadence Cheesecakes Cooking Thoughts... Check them out and let me know what you think!

You can now also follow the adventures of Decadence on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Decadence-Gourmet-Cheesecakes/171538834903 ,on Twitter (www.twitter.com/decadenceGJ) and on Pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/circ2000/decadence-cheesecakes-cooking-thoughts/).

We are loading up recipes and discounts on our Facebook page and will also be letting our ‘fans’ know of upcoming events, sales and the like. There are even videos! Check it out and become a fan!

Baked Garlic
Ingredients Whole garlic bulbs Dried thyme or oregano Olive oil Directions Preheat oven to 350ºF. Peel loose, papery skins off garlic bulbs. Slice top of each head (pointy end) so that the flesh is exposed. Arrange in a baking dish or garlic baker and drizzle with oil. Sprinkle with herbs. Cover with foil or baker lid and bake for about 45 minutes until the garlic is soft and golden. Cool before serving. Squeeze soft garlic out of skins and spread on meat or French bread. Serve toasts with remaining oil.