Cake Parade

The students of my PBK 170 Cake Assembly finished their 6 week course on cake assembly with a Cake Parade final practical. They were each asked to produce 3 cakes, 2 of their choice, and 1 a black box. Chef John Montanile helped out with the set up and Llyod Kirsch and Marshall Shafkowitz welconed guests.

The pictures don't do justice but the cakes were beautiful.

Update: CHIC Garden

The season is coming to an end but we are still harvesting green zebras, sunsweets, supersweets, cherry, chocolate cherry, arkansas traveller, white eggplants, lots of hot peppers. The basils are still plentiful, the rosemary, oregano, thyme, lemon grass, chives, garlic chives, are all so healthy. The broccoli raab has reseeded and so has the arugula. The perennial garden is in colorful bloom, the celadine poppies have come back and the echinacea is going to seed, which makes the finches quite merry.

lessons learned from our first year will hopefully make for a better next year.

2009 Adobofest

This is the second year I have been invited to be a judge in the annual celebration of the Philippine National dish, the adobo. This year is special because the sponsor of the fest, the Filipino American Network is teaming up with Gawad Kalinga, a Habitat for Humanity style group to raise money for the poor in the Philippines. Attendance to the show has multiplied exponentially and it is great to see the interest in promoting traditional Filipino food and culture and see the young kids just totally embrace their heritage.

This year also, I was so proud to sit on the judges table with two former students, Ron Bilaro,now a well known TV personality through out Filipino communities worldwide and Paolo Nicolasin Escobar who finished his externship and will continue on as a lead cook in Valencia Spain. It gives me great pride and joy to see students succeed.

CEC and The Ronald McDonald House Charities

CHIC sponsored a movie and dinner event to support the activities of the Ronald McDonald House. In conjunction with the release of the Julie and Julia movie (Julia Child of course, one of the most popular Le Cordon Bleu graduates), Chef Marshall, Chef Corrado, myself, several students prepared a dinner similar to Julia Child's final Practical at the famed French school. Chef John created the dessert, Lloyd Kirsch was Dining Room Manager and Karinne Slyman, Head Captain. The dinner raised quite a sum of money that was donated to the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana.

To honor the check handing, we made a cake made to look like the real one, complete with Chef Marshall's forged signature. The cake was then delivered to a Ronald McDonal House in the area for the kids and staff to enjoy

Rachel Ray's Block Party

Where: Corner of Sheffield and Waveland, the block that surrounds Wrighley Park, home of the Chicago Cubs

When: August 19, 2009

Why: Rachel Ray's Talk Show's Season Opener to be aired Sept 15, sometime

Update: CHIC Organic Garden

Chef John Fuente and his students are totally "digging" the garden. Chef's students prepared a squash blossonm stuffed with bleu cheese and served withtomato coulis...he also used cucumbers and herbs freshly harvested from the thriving garden...Weather has been great and cooperative,but the bunnies are a little too aggressive. I had to resort to some homwgrown concoction of cloves, cinnamon to ward them off.

ICES Convention St Charles, Illinois

Late last year, Mark Seaman, who served as one of the judges for our Gingerbread Competition asked us to lend a helping hand in the construction of the Illinois show cake for the International Cake Exploration Society. I immediately agreed, and Mark delivered the fondant, styrofoam and wooden board for the project. We started working on the project in February, I believe, with the help of a lot of students. This week, the annual convention started at the Pheasant Run Resort and will continue on until Sunday, Aug 2. We also helped set up the tiers, made hundreds of rocks, wrapped black eyed susan stems, cattails, served as gophers, and whatever necessary to finish.

The tiers were designed to represent all of Illinois, from the corn fields, to the violets (Illinois state flower)to the Elgin Joliet train line, the jazz instruments, the Fox River, the prairie landscape, and the Chicago skyline.