On the spicy day, we made Buffalo wings with an extract of ghost pepper (one of the spiciest pepper known to man), spicy shrimp dish, chicken and more. When paired with a highly tannic wine, our mouths became even spicier. We also drank milk, water, and juice to notice the interactions. Water did nothing. Milk slightly dulled the spiciness, and juice actually did the best.

On comfort food day we made 2 different styles of comfort food dishes, one light, and one rich. The lesson dealt with the different ways you can change the texture of a dish. One example was that a group made 2 different Macaroni and Cheese dishes. One was made with a traditional béchamel sauce. The other was a sort of soufflé. The point of the lesson was to pair a certain bodied wine with the dish. We noticed that heavy wines overpowered light foods.

On each of these days, we’d dress up the table, eat food and sip wine. We’d discuss what we tasted with each dish, sip the wine and talk about how that dish interacted with the wine. We would always be full afterwards, because we ended up eating 5 dishes.

Chef Sarah also had a sauce day where she made a bunch of different delicious sauces. I helped her make a honey mustard sauce. She also made an amazing bleu cheese & red wine demi sauce that was out of this world.

We also had a mock-tail day where we all made different mixtures of drink and paired them with a little appetizer to spark a reaction.

Concurrent to this class, we had a Taste & Flavors: Wine class. In this class, our instructor, David, would teach us the methods for producing wines. We also did a lot of tasting. We’d have a journal where we would write down the aromas we’d smell, the color, the tastes and more. We got to try a lot of great wines and champagnes, and some of them were not cheap wines. We tried a $130 bottle of Champagne and compared it to a $30 bottle. Although the expensive champagne was good, it wasn’t $100 better than the $30 by any means.

For our final project, we had to create a dish and pair it with a wine. Our objectives were to make something happen to the wine. I made ravioli with ground pork & brown spices in a marinara sauce. I paired it with Chianti. You can check out my write up here.

This was by far my favorite class at NECI.

Having an associate’s degree in Culinary arts and a bachelors in Hotel & Restaurant Management will make a well rounded resume. I’m also thinking more and more each day that I’m less likely to become a Chef. I think something along the lines of a food and beverage director sounds nice. I’m sure having the culinary degree won’t hurt if I pursue that career. I’ll have to talk to Chef Joey. She’s the head of student success and has helped a lot of students when choosing what to do with their lives.

Our first experiment was to pick a genre and make a dish that represents that genre. My buddy Sam and I picked reggae. We made a Jamaican jerk chicken breast with peppernada, couscous. We were limited in time, so we were racing against the clock. We also had a limited selection of ingredients that the chef picked out.

Next we made a dish with a specific saucing method. I made some seared scallops with a “rocket” sauce I made. I pretty much made a red pepper coulis with a chipotle thrown in for spice. I was worried it was too spicy when I tasted it, but luckily it mellowed out after sitting for a little, and it went very nicely with the scallops.

We also had an assignment to make a “to go” dish that could be served in a restaurant or out of a truck. This dish made me pretty proud. I came up with poutine on a chip appetizer. For those who don’t know, poutine is gravy fries and cheese curds (Popular in Canada). Basically, it was a potato chip with fine julienned potato sticks, cheese curds and a demi-glace (I didn’t want to use gravy as that would be sloppy). Chef Michael was very impressed with this dish and said it could be viable in a gourmet truck.

We also worked with charcuterie a bit. Mostly it was with terrines, Pâté, and foie gras. We ended up having to make a bunch of terrines for the restaurant, and also made a platter with amuse-bouhe for the new student’s orientation.

Our final project in the class was a platter with 2 terrines and some amuse-bouche. Our group did an Oktoberfest theme and had a duck terrine and a country pork terrine. It all turned out really nicely, and we got in the high 80’s our for grade.

Check out one of our assignments, the media presentation on sribd.

Check out the pictures.

I decided not to live in the dorms this year. I had some bad experiences in them last year, and I figured it’d save me money. I’m currently commuting from Burlington, which is about a 45 minute drive. The drive is mostly highway, and it wasn’t so bad (until gas prices hit $4/gallon).

Burlington is Vermont’s largest city, and it is much more interesting than Montpelier. I’m bummed that NECI decided to leave the Essex campus. Essex is close to Burlington, the old campus was my internship.

It’s good to be back in classes though.

I spent my first few weeks floating garde manger and hot apps lines in Butler’s and the Tavern (formerly a NECI campus). I chose Butler’s because it was close to home and a lot of NECI chefs/Alumni still work there.

Things got hairy when people started to leave, and I ended up being put on saute station (a very technical station). Although I was glad to try something challenging, it took me a while to get the hang of things, especially on 300 cover nights.

I learned a lot, burned myself, made some terrible mistakes, but in the end, improved my skills and knowledge. The whole experience was for the most part positive, until a new Food and Beverage director let my chefs go all of a sudden. I ended up finishing my internship with a new chef who hadn’t really worked with me, and they were the ones to fill out my final assessment paperwork.

In the end, the whole experience gave me a clear head on what type of restaurant I want to intern at next. I’m thinking something with about 100-150 covers a week. A non-corporate restaurant (not a hotel) and I’d like to leave New England for it.

The online portion of the internship was pretty bland and I wasn’t impressed. It pretty much was an online message board that you had to post on once a week. A question would be posed, and you had to post a response to it, and 2 other classmate’s posts. You also had to upload a virtual tour of your internship site (which to this day, no one’s tour has been uploaded onto NECI’s internship database yet)

I’m really excited to get back to classes and start my 2nd year at NECI!

The classroom is an actual facility that is inspected by the state of Vermont because the meats that are broken down are served at the Dewey Cafeteria and at 118 Main St Grill & Bar.

I think the best part of this class was when we took a field trip to the Royal Butcher in Braintree, Vermont. We got to see go into the slaughter house and see how it’s done. This was a special treat, as not all students were given this opportunity. It gave me greater respect for meat, not to waste it or burn it.

Stations include Garde Manager, Griddle, Pasta station, Saute, Grill, hot apps/fry, and Sous chef. We spent 3 days on each station and I was bummed that I didn’t get to try out all the stations.

I started off the first week on Hot Apps, which is one of the busier stations because almost everybody orders an app, or some calamari for their salad. On this station, I would devise the daily flatbread special, I would make Calamari, fish & Chips, and french fries with the fryer. I would also make BBQ pulled pork as one of the entrees. It was a fast paced station to work on.

On griddle, I prepared the Tempeh Rueben sandwich, CornCakes, and quesadillas. It was a slower station, but I got to observe the  pasta station, which was my next choice.

Chef Ben takes a moment to demo proper techniques on plating pasta

The Pasta station was my favorite one. I created the daily pasta, along with the kids pasta, beef bourguignon, and chicken-fried steaks with mashed potatoes. I liked this station because it let me be a little more creative with the pasta dishes and because I got to practice a lot of sauteing. I can now make the vegetables and ingredients “jump” in the pan because of this station.

I think the best part of this class was that we all had to communicate as a team. My pasta dish my take 6 minutes to cook, but the same table might order a medium burger, which would take 12 minutes. I depended on my teammates to let me know when their dish was 6 minutes out so we would finish at the same time. I also liked working with Chef Jeff, who pushed us hard. He rode our butts, but we worked better because of it. This class is the best representation of what working in a restaurant is going to be like.