Date: December 7, 2013
To: Professor Akana
From: Brandon Clarke
Subject: Anna Nurse Workshop Memo
The presenter of the dish at the workshop was Chef James Peterson. He is an award winning cookbook author. The dish he made was poached lobster with puff pastry and a butter sauce called Beurre Blanc. He was very knowledgeable about what he was doing. Chef James wanted a female lobster so he could use the roe to make sauce but at the time it wasn’t available so he had to stick with preparing two male lobsters. He also gave us a very detailed demonstration on how to prepare puff pastry. It is very important to get the air pockets inside the dough and letting the dough rest in between folds, so when it is baked it is very thin layered and the layers on the inside of the dough won’t break. The Beurre Blanc sauce was very rich and sweet when mixed with the pastry and lobster and it was very delicious. The main thing I learned from this workshop though is that, when you enjoy preparing food in the kitchen, the product will always come out great and this was definitely true with Chef James.
I really enjoyed this workshop because of Chef James’ style. He likes to make people laugh and keep them entertained and informed of what he is doing. He answered pretty much every question anyone had to offer and before we knew it the food was ready to be eaten.
