It takes a whole school ...

(L to R) Chef Dan Notley (instructor), Nicole Mallette (administrator) and
Chef Daniel Slat (admissions counselor) working the Food & Drink Fest booth.
(photo by Terry Asma, 2020studios) 

We had a great time at the Food & Drink Fest in Hamilton April 12th, 13th and 14th at the Careport Centre. In the week leading up to the event, it was all hands on deck: chefs, students and staff helped to bake, roll, dip, decorate and wrap almost 700 cake pops to sell throughout the weekend. Check our Facebook page for more photos. You will find the recipe for these irresistible little treats on our Recipe page.

Chef Bill helps with Catelli Pasta food bank donations

Chef Bill starts cooking Catelli pasta while
Gary Yokoyama shoots photos for the Hamilton Spectator.

We had a Hamilton Spectator photographer in last week, taking photos while Chef Bill prepared the simplest of food: pasta. Why is The Spec interested in this incongruous match? Our chef was one of sixteen chefs across the country to contribute to an online cookbook from Catelli Pasta entitled Gourmet Family Meals for Under $10.

The cookbook is part of the company’s Feed the Hope initiative; Catelli is donating up to one million servings of pasta to Canadian food banks - one for each ‘like’ on their Facebook page, and one for each box of their pasta sold in Canada between April 1 and June 30. Chef Bill’s contribution was a recipe (‘Long noodles and Special Meatballs’) that has a bit of a twist, yet is simple to make with ingredients that are common household staples.

To learn more about Catelli’s campaign, visit their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/catelli. Once you hit the ‘Like’ button, you will be able to download the recipes and read about the chefs that contributed to the cookbook. Watch the Hamilton Spectator for their coverage of the Feed the Hope campaign too.

Can you guess what sauces are cooking?

Daniel is working on a Chausser sauce.

 Tantalizing aromas routinely drift through the foyer, classrooms and office while the ovens and the stovetops are crowded with meats, soups, breads and pastries. Sauces, though, are a face-to-face affair, their finest qualities only revealed close-up.  

Their appreciation lies in the subtlety of texture, the layering of flavours, their complement to the main attraction, and the colour they add to the plate.

  They are a big part of French Classic Cuisine, so the first full week of Advanced Class is dedicated solely to building a sauce repetoire. 

Students review the five mother sauces,  and learn at least forty more small sauces derived from these basic building blocks. 

Take a look at some of the ingredients that were prepped for the first sauce test last month. Can you guess what type of sauces were in the works, and with which kind of food they would be served?

Mike reaches for the salt
 to finish off his cream sauce.

Susan separates eggs to start a Hollandaise.

Gone Fishin’

How does your food go from this...

It’s not what you think. We’re not kicking back with a line in the water, or nursing a hot toddy over a hole in the ice. And there’s no catch and release policy. It is ‘Catch and Kill’ day at Liaison, and there is not much nostalgia involved.

It is a city kids’ fishing trip, as our students trek over to the nearby Asian market, a cooler full of water in tow. The merchants might think we are strange (they have never said), but are always happy to scoop a dozen or so tilapia from their live tanks and deposit them unceremoniously into the cooler. They handle live fish every day, so this non-event is a contrast to what lies in store back in the classroom.

One by one, the students, with varying degrees of trepidation, dip into the cooler to catch a fish with their bare hands, while trying to avoid the spiny back and dorsal fins. For most, it is the first time they have ever handled a whole fish, dead or alive. Some are repulsed at the prospect of knocking it on the head to kill it: others find filleting to be the greatest challenge.

The chef-instructors focus on the latter, but there’s a secondary message that they want to relay. Every piece of meat, fish or poultry that budding cooks and chefs will serve to their customers was at one time, a living, breathing being. We must respect and honour that life, and the process involved in bringing it to the table. 

......to this?

Visit our Facebook page for the whole story in photos.

Building a strong foundation with food...

At Liaison Hamilton, we’re all about food. For other businesses, what’s cooking in the kitchen comes second to what’s up in the workplace. But some companies know how to mix food and fun, and build a strong team in the process. Last Friday, staff and board members from The John Howard Society joined Chef Greg and some of our students in the kitchen for an afternoon of cooking and corporate team building. You can find one of the recipes here on our Recipe page. For more photos of the event, visit our Facebook page.    

The butchers, the bakers and the kitchen team makers....

Tom and Chuck learning
butchering techniques

Alec with Chef Greg 

Jacques making shells for
apple tarts in Basic class

Cook Basic students emerged from five weeks of cooking theory at the end of January. While the four novices filled the kitchen with the smell of freshly baked bread, the Advanced students were learning butchery skills. During their side-by-side lessons, the more experienced cooks broke down a leg of veal into steaks, cutlets and chops, at the same time that the Basic class was discovering the difference between lean and rich doughs, straight doughs and sponges.

Francesco making fruit tarts

Tom 

Our kitchen accommodates sixteen students at one time, so the size of one class is determined by the the other that shares the same time slot. Each level has their own chef-instructor and covers their required material on a pre-determined schedule, but they often have the chance to work together for special occasions, catering or community events. Their time in the kitchen together helps them build rapport, and gives the less experienced students early exposure to the concepts and techniques they will encounter when they move on to Advanced level.

fruit tarts by Francesco

Eat your greens: brussel sprout salad, cactus pads, broccoli soup and spinach fettucini

Team A served nopales (prickly pear
cactus pads) in a salad and on toasted pita. 

Team A students Chuck (L), Jessica(C) and
Tom (behind) tuck in to Team B's buffet.

Last week our Advanced students returned from Hamilton Farmers' Market with a small mountain of fresh veggies, pumped with the spirit of competition. It wasn't exactly an Iron Chef face-off - more like a friendly round of pick-up. Divided into two teams, their goal was to turn out the best buffet of vegetable-based dishes they could muster. They had to include six vegetable dishes and two meat dishes, and had the chance to prep everything a day ahead.

For two hours they cooked up a storm, but their participation didn't stop when the stoves were turned off. When the two tables were laid, each student sampled foods from the opposing team's buffet, writing a critique of each dish with reference to cooking technique, seasoning and creative use of the ingredients.

     

Chef Bill (L) and Chef Greg (R)
sample and mark the students'  efforts.

The spread offered a great variety of dishes, and everyone on campus - students, staff, and even the visiting computer technician - got in on the exercise. The newest Basic students, still engaged in the theory part of their studies, tasted and critiqued alongside the Advanced students.

Our chef-instructors did their own evaluation, sampling and marking each dish, but were also watching how the students functioned as a team, organized their time and workspace, presented their dishes, and marked their fellow students' work.

To see more photos, visit our Facebook page.

Team B's dishes: clockwise from top left: broccoli soup, vegetable sushi,
 curried potato croquettes, parsnip & carrot hash, rice pilaf, veal stir fry,
Waldorf salad and vegetable lasagna.