January 13
Read Volume 1 Chapters 1 and 2
February 13
Read Volume 1 Chapters 3 and 4
March 13
Read Volume 1 Chapters 5 and 6
Congratulations on completing book 1. Drink a bottle of Chablis and think about white fish, butter, citrus, and gravel.
April 13
Read Volume 2: Traditional cooking.
Grill something!
Cook a piece of fish by the Girardet method.
Make a pizza on a metal plate.
Go eat a stir-fry at the best Chinese restaurant you have access to. Think about textures and what 'sauce' means to a Chinese cook vs. a French cook.
Can something. Use a traditional cookbook.
Rig a smoker in your yard for less than 75$. Make dinner for a sexy librarian. Use hot AND cold smoke.
May 13
Week one and two
Read Volume 2- Modern Ovens
Do irresponsible things with your microwave.
Weeks three and four
Read Volume 2- Sous Vide
June 13
Read The Modernist Kitchen up to Juicing.
Make tom yum broth.
Make baked potato broth.
Make some bitters. Then, get a sexy librarian hammered on Manhattens.
Make fines herbs extract.
Make molasses butter, then think of 10 things to do with it and post it on TheDentrassi.
July 13
Buy a dehyrator. And a foamer.
Finish reading the Modernist Kitchen
Make Lobster Jus. (p. 347)
Make Lamb Jus in a jar.
Ice filter the leftover lobster and lamb juices.
Fuck around with your fancy new dehydrator.
Carbonate some fruit.
Make orange soda. Get with Jesse about the centrifuge problem.
Dry ice strawberry milkshake.
Congratulations on finishing book 2. Drink a bottle of Cote de Provence rose. Think about strawberries and green olives, but not at the same time.
August 13
Weeks 1 and 2, read through page 44. Start dry aging a piece of meat. Remember, not a steak, a sub-primal you will cut steaks out of. Cut one steak off, eat it (preferably with a sexy librarian) and take notes on its complexity.
Week 3 Read the cutting section (thru page 70) . Seam out a leg of lamb and feed Rachel for a week. Have a sashimi dinner with the best fish you can afford. Include raw, flash-cooked, and blow-torched examples. Make Thomas Keller's coronets.
Week 4: Read the cooking chapter. Stop at p. 108, that's enough for 1 week.
September 13
Week 1 and 2: Read through p. 151. Microwave a fish (p. 115). If you can get a small fish, do the puffy-scales fry trick. Dry-render and wet-render some pork fat for later use. Tearfully lament the fact that pork-rind crusted pork is technologically unattainable. At the end of your 2 weeks, console yourself by cooking up your 30-day dry-aged steaks.
Week 2 and 3: Read through page 220. Cure a fluke or flounder in konbu. Make some bacon. Make bresaola. Make microwaved beef jerky. Assure a sexy librarian that you will eventually move past the salting-and-curing chapter. Make fish paper. Bonus points if you can find a use for it. Make beet-flavored oysters. (I recommend making a horseradish mignonette.) Use your foam gun to do a side-by-side 20 minute marinade race. Record your results.
October 13
Week 1 and 2, finish meat chapter. Make some boudin blanc. Sorry about the mess. Consult theDentrassi for traditional serving suggestions. Serve a whole boneless fish.
Week 3 and 4. Catch up. Drink a bottle of Cote Chalonaise Red Burgundy. (Mercurey, Givry, or Rully). Think about mushrooms and roasted chicken.
November 13
Weeks 1 and 2: Read plant foods, through 310. Make some crispy boiled peanuts (p. 303). Make an alternative risotto.
Week 3: Read Microwaving. Make sichuan bok-choy in the microwave (complete with chili oil and pressure cooked sesame seeds.)
Week 4: Thanksgiving break.
December 13
Weeks 1 and 2: Read 'Frying'. Make Heston Blumenthal fries. Get yourself a turning slicer for Christmas. Make some potato ruffles. And some pringles. (This is a great reason to get a silpat if you don't have one already). (Side quest: use some tapioca maltodextrin and your dehydrator to make flavored chips!!!) Make some aerated batter fried fish. Have crazy fish and chips.
Weeks 3 and 4 SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT! Cook a post christmas dinner using principles you have learned. Take pictures. Send them to Jesse.
January 14
Finish reading volume 3. Make preserved lemons. Make sauerkraut. Make green pea wafers. (Use your bacon and your green pea wafers to garnish some pasta carbonara.) Make a pad thai to close the month down.
Congratulations on reading volume 3. Have a bottle of cheap Cotes du Rhone. Think about wild herbs, sun-baked grapevines, and lamb.
February 14
Do something inappropriate with crystalized rose petals to remove librarian pants.
THICKENERS!
Read chapter. Wait for care package. Work through chapter with Jesse.
March 14
GELS! Pace: 4 pages a day
Read chapter. Wait for care package. Work through chapter with Jesse.
Make miso-cured egg sheets. Make chorizo French toast.
Look into fresh goat milk for ricotta. Make extruded gel noodles. (make cold caprese jell-o salad you little weirdo)
If possible, make alginate oyster shooters.
April 14
Emuslions!
Read chapter. Wait for care package. Work through chapter with Jesse.
May 14
FOAMS! Same as last 4.
Make sure to do barbecued eel with whipped caramel.
June 14
Wine. Read the chapter. The Coffee chapter, too.
Congratulations on finishing the structured part of this syllabus. Sit down with a sexy librarian and open 3 bottles. Start with a bottle of champagne. A real one. Think about yeast, and about what it is like to taste the stars. Then, open a red bordeaux. You don't have to finish it, just think about cigar box, structure, tannin, and gravel. Finally, sip a Sauternes, Monbazillac, Saussignac, or Muscat de Beaumes de Venise. Think about liquid candy, and drinking nectar. Top this off with a serious coffee drink. (You should probably have some food, too, or you're gonna be hammered.)
July through december: Once a month, cook a dinner party. Remember what Paul Bocuse said: don't try to do more than 4 courses, and of those 4, at least 2 should be done ahead of time, and only one should be really difficult.
Post pictures on the Dentrassi. During this time, finish reading volume 5. When all this is done, have a beer.
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