Natural Chef Culinary School: Showcase Recap

Hi friends!

It’s amazing how quickly school is coming to an end. I will give my Final Presentation (for 45 minutes in front of my peers and instructor – EEK!) on Wednesday.  Then Friday I’ll just be an audience member while students are giving their presentations that day.  We come in on Monday to turn in our very last homework assignment (which is basically our business plan, flyers, sample menus for our business, etc.) and then fill out some final paperwork.  Then I will have OFFICIALLY finished Natural Chef training!  And I even have all of my externship hours completed!  Wahoo!

One of the big things we’ve been working on at school as of late culminated Friday night with our Culinary Showcase.  It had been a very long week (and extremely long Friday) leading up to it.  But it was worth all the hard work.  It came together so nicely.

The theme for our event was Boulder’s Seven Sister Cities.  Which couldn’t have been more fitting, because we had 7 courses to prepare.  I’ll list the menu first then show pics of the food after.  The sister city being represented is listed under each menu item:

Welcome Beverage:

Digestive Tonic
(Yamagata, Japan)
Kuzu broth with lemon, ginger and umeboshi plums

Appetizer:

Steamed Momos
(Lhasa, Tibet)
Sprouted brown rice dumpling cups filled with crimini mushrooms, cabbage, onion and a sweet & spicy tamari sauce

Soup:

Maharagwe
(Kisumu, Kenya)
Spiced red beans and tomatoes in a tumeric coconut broth

Salad:

Vigoron
(Jalapa, Nicaragua)
Herbed cassava (yucca) and cilantro salsa over red cabbage tossed in an avocado emulsion
and topped with crispy ‘raw’ onion rings

Entree:

Vegetarian Tamales
(Mante, Mexico)
Masa Harina dough surrounding kabocha squash & blackbean filling
topped with red chile cherry chocolate mole & goat cheese
Served with a side of jicama salad

Dessert:

Banana Cassarole
(Yateras, Cuba)
Citrus caramelized bananas, almonds, and raisins with a blood orange reduction and coconut mint ice cream.

Closing Beverage:

Decaf Green Tea
(Dushanbe,Tajikistan)
Steeped with date infused water and fresh mint

***

The digestive wellness tonic:

The momos (which normally are little dumplings that I consider somewhat similar to potstickers) – my teammate and I made them into little cups instead:

I didn’t get to snap a shot of the soup as it was on its way out of the kitchen.  Imagine a gorgeous yellow soup with some red beans in it! 

The “vigoron” salad – I LOVE the presentation of this salad – built up tall and served on a banana leaf:

The entree (mmm tamales – the cherries and dark chocolate in this mole made this sauce over-the-top delicious!):

The dessert – topped with a scoop of homemade coconut mint hempseed ice cream:

And cheers to decaf green tea sweetened with date water and fresh mint:

I was so impressed that the students selected to be on the decorating committee were able to absolutely transform the huge eyesore dining hall into something cozy.  Since our food theme was all over the world, we decided on an airplane theme.

We had a runway:

We had blue sky and clouds:

We had window seats:

We had departures timed with the service of food for each city:

And even tearful goodbyes:

I think I was over-tired.   Yeah, that was it.

It was the last time we’d all be cooking together as a team – and while I’m so excited to be done with school, I guess I really am more attached to my classmates than I thought.

I’d like to give a special mention of thanks to my kind and beautiful friend Keri from Om of the Rockies for attending this event as one of my guests and for helping me out by taking lots of pictures of the evening.  Keri – it meant a lot to me that you were there, and I so appreciate all the support you have given me in the years we’ve been friends. You’re awesome!

Well friends, I have some vegetable stock in my pressure cooker that is needing my attention so I better get busy!  I have lots of fun food pics to show you coming soon of creations I’ve been making at home, including what I plan to prepare for my final presentation.

Have a WONDERFUL week and I’ll see you next time!

– Shari B. =)