The only cooking classes I had attended before this one was a barbecue smoking class in Lubbock and a Dutch Oven cooking class hosted at Texas Tech. I never knew what it was like to be in a real restaurant style kitchen, using a real convection oven and stuff like that. The ICE kitchens were very professional and had all the tools we needed to cook whatever Chinese food we could dream up. We used seasoned woks, actual wok ladles, giant Vulcan gas stove tops and proper chef knives.

The class was lead by the institute’s head Chef Instructor, Loren Banco. His style of teaching was informative, and he really just let the groups run wild on the receipes until he had a chance to intervene and get a rogue team back on course. He kept the mood light when we were discussing the receipes, and when the cooking started he kept his thumb on everyone pretty closely. But it worked out for the best, because everyone’s dish turned out great partly to the fact that he kept such a close eye on all of us.

The dishes we prepared that night were:

• Hot and Sour Soup
• Kung Pao Chicken
• Pork Lo Mein
• Beef with Garlic Sauce
• Peking Duck with Mandarin Pancakes
• Ginger-Scallion Fried Rice

There were 14 students arranged in groups of three, so each team took two items that took the whole 4 1/2 hours to prepare.

Our group had the Hot and Sour Soup, along with the Pork Lo Mein. One thing that I never knew about Chinese food was the insane amount of ingredients involved in each dish. For example, our Pork Lo Mein had 26 individual ingredients! The bulk of our time was preparing our ingredients for cooking, or as the French would say, “Mise en place”. After our “Mise en place”, we had to julienne and chop about 10 lbs of various vegetables and meats to get them ready for stir fry.

The actual cooking process only took about 30 minutes for both of our dishes combined. The trick to stir fry is getting the wok (or saute pan) screaming hot and cooking all the parts of the dishes separately in small batches. That was a rookie mistake I have made trying to make fried rice in the past. Just remember, HOT WOK SMALL BATCH!

Unfortunately I don’t have pictures from the event because I forgot to put my camera in my bag, but I found some photos online of what we cooked. They are pretty close representations of our dishes.

Hot and Sour Soup

Pork Lo Mein

If you’ve never taken a cooking class, I highly recommend it. Because of the price, it’s not something you could do every other week but it will definitely improve your cooking skills over time. In addition to the recipe packet, we had a quick knife skills lesson as well as a quick food history lesson of all the ingredients used in Chinese food and their origins, why they are used, etc. For example, the “Holy Trinity” of Chinese food is: ginger, scallions and garlic.

Kristen and I both really enjoyed the class and of course at the end we had a Chinese feast from all of our efforts with plenty of leftovers. After I “mise en place” all the elements for my sandwich for lunch today, I’ll have some great home-cooked Hot and Sour soup for dessert!

Okay, so this is a two part recipe for driving in New York City.

Step 1. Add Zipcar

Zipcar is this great online car “sharing” service that has garages all over New York with cars you can rent by the hour. You reserve them and they issue you a special RFID Zipcard that unlocks the doors when you get to the car. No messing around with keys! You just leave the keys in the card and lock and unlock the doors with your personal Zipcard.

From the zipcar.com site:

Car sharing seems like a simple enough idea, but there’s a reason that Zipcar has become the leader for cars on demand—we took a simple concept to new heights. It’s not just about less cars, less congestion and less pollution (though we’re not complaining), it’s about understanding why those things are a problem, and finding sustainable solutions. We’re idea people acknowledging that this is something bigger than all of us, something that can take over the world (literally) if we’re smart about it. And it’s not just a theory. We have the industry’s gold standard service, allowing our members 24/7 access to hundreds of cars around the globe. We’re working daily to take things to the next level, and we’re not slowing down anytime soon.

This is how I have wheels around the city, and it’s worked out great. Call them up to reserve a car or use the iPhone app to reserve it from your phone. I walk into the garage, tell them the name of the car (Like Brooklyn the Scion xB or Marielle the Mini Cooper) and away we go. There’s a gas card in the visor if the tank needs a fill up, and I’ve got full insurance in case of an accident. It’s a beautiful thing, because once I’m done I return the card to that garage and walk back to the house. No parking, no hassle. Check out more about Zipcar by clicking on the little pic below:

Step 2: Add Tomtom

So my first trek through lower Manhattan was terrifying and high stress. I had to navigate through Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, across Canal St. and through the Holland Tunnel to Jersey. Once in Jersey I took the wrong turn and paid the Turnpike toll twice in my confusion. Enough was enough. Enter the Tomtom.

For the low low price of $150, I have a small dash mounted GPS that tells me turn by turn how to get to my destination. Suddenly that gut churning feeling of despair magically dissapears! Setup is easy… so easy in fact that the Tomtom doesn’t come with an instruction manual. It’s got a 2 minute tutorial right on the device! We programmed our “Home” address in there, so when it’s time to go home, it’s as easy as pressing “Go Home” and listening to the turn by turn directions.

So there you have it. The secret to driving in New York City. Or really any major city in the US. Zipcar has garages in most major cities and you can get a Tomtom just about anywhere they sell electronics. We purchased ours from a Radioshack in New Jersey. Happy driving!

Thursday night: Traveled to New Jersey and watched Ben Folds played a sold out Montclair Theater!

Friday night: I worked all night running cabling at the Hotel Le Bleu located in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Saturday night: I took Kristen to the Blue Water Grill in Union Square, where we had the best seafood I’ve ever tasted in my life! Kristen had lobster mashed potatos, and I had chilean sea bass. What a great night!

My Chilean Sea Bass

Sunday night: Still feeling like seafood, we went to the grocery store and had a fried seafood feast of popcorn shrimp, tater tots and cole slaw. I love the finer things in life, but I could never pass up a bowl of cocktail sauce and fried shrimp!

All of this coupled with the great gifts and cards I received from everyone made my birthday one to remember. Thanks for the cake Keke!

According to the VMware website,

“The VMware Certified Professional Program is designed for individuals who want to demonstrate their expertise in virtual infrastructure and increase the potential for career advancement.”

I took the test at the Peason Vue testing center on the seventh floor of the Empire State Building in Manhattan on the 13th of March. I’ve got to take a followup 4 Day hands-on course setting up hardware and testing installs to finalize the certification. The course is $3000 so I’m looking under rocks for that money as well…

The great thing about eating out in New York is all the crazy decorations and architecture in each of the buildings. Pop Burger is no exception, and when we walked in there was a great wall of all things burger shop related that was laser cut in metal alongside the wall. See the picture below:

It almost feels like a bar crossed with a burger shack, and they have themed music playing overhead that’s different everyday. That night the theme was ganster rap, because we heard anything from Notorious BIG to Sugar Hill.

We both ordered the slider burgers ($7!) and orders of fries and cokes. They do their burgers a little different though, like mini gourmet slider burgers.

It was a great meal as usual and afterwards we wandered down Central Park South past all the famous spots of Manhattan like The Plaza Hotel and Mickey Mantle’s.

The Famed Chip Shop Reliant Robin

We made our way down Atlantic, and I kept going into the wrong shops because I wasn’t paying attention to the banners out front. Once I finally found the right place we walked into a miniature pub that felt straight out of England. They had 80’s punk rock playing overhead and lots of framed photos of British music stars. We sat right underneath an enormous picture of the Quadrophenia album released by The Who in ‘73.

Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera with me but I managed to find a Flickr photo that shows off the fish and chips plate K and I both had.

We washed down the fish and chips with plenty of Amstel Lights and had a really good time! It was a cheap Friday date by our standards and I think we got out of there with a bill of about $45. The beer was close to $20, so if you’re okay with soda it is very inexpensive date.

The waiter tempted us with fried snickers and other fried desserts but after killing my whole plate there was no chance of eating desert and making it home alive. The Chip Shop was a great eat overall and we’ll definitely be going back in the future.