Blogs

As most of you already know, I've been nominated by Food And Wine Magazine for "People's Choice Best New Chef." As a small town chef in Truckee, the nomination came as a surprise, especially when I saw who else was listed in the California Region, including Thomas McNaughton of Flour + Water and Matthew Accarrino of SPQR; two very talented chefs in San Francisco who have achieved much acclaim.

When I made the decision to leave San Francisco early on in my career, I knew full well that I was sacrificing all the tools, experience, and connections that working in the city would offer, but the trade-off was more than fair. Being able to call the Tahoe/Truckee area my home for the last six years has been a reward in itself. Yet the fact that a national publication like Food and Wine has the town of Truckee on its map is what makes this nomination both exhilarating and humbling. I, like many other ex-city-dwellers who now call Truckee their home, have always believed in this region as a world class end destination. We live where people spend all year planning to vacation, and if you're in the service industry like me, you have the extra reward of creating memories that in some cases will literally last a lifetime.

It would be a bit insincere to say I wasn't slightly caught off guard by the whirl-wind of attention that this nomination has stirred up. The highlight so far was being interviewed by Beth Ruyak of Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, especially since I've always been a bit of an "NPR Nerd" and had an interest in radio broadcasting growing up; an interest which led me to share my passion for cooking through an audio podcast of my own. As you can imagine, doing a podcast is one thing, but being on live radio, where any verbal mistake will be instantly broadcasted to a countless number of nameless, faceless listeners was absolutely nerve racking. Listening back to the interview was a cringe fest; I was way too close to the mic (but couldn't tell because I had no head phones) and was talking a mile a minute, all the while trying to drown out the voice in my head saying, "Jacob, you do realize that you're totally bombing on live radio, right?" As a guy who's fairly good at operating under pressure (at least in a restaurant environment) being live on the air with a personality I remember watching on TV when I was a little kid was the closest thing I've had to a panic attack since my wife went into labor.

Yet despite my nerves and the desperate desire for a "mulligan," being on live radio was one of the highlights of this nomination; that, and the "beehive" that is San Francisco dining getting kicked around for the first half day of voting when they saw some no-name chef tucked away in the hills of Lake Tahoe leading the polls. We even got a nod from The San Francisco Chronicle's Inside Scoop Columnist Paolo Lucchesi saying "In a huge upset over the city folk so far, the guy from Truckee is winning the vote in the earlygoing." I guess that's the power of the Stella Culinary, Cedar House and Truckee/Tahoe community, who charged hot out of the gates Monday morning when the nomination was first announced.

After rallying the troops to insure "the guy from Truckee" wouldn't walk away with the top prize, Chef Thomas from Flour + Water and Chef Matthew from SPQR are currently leading the polls, with yours truly in third place. Yet considering the reach and resources of all the accomplished chefs nominated in the California region, just being in the top three, and at one point leading the polls, is a huge win for Stella, The Cedar House, and most importantly, the Truckee/Tahoe Community.

If you haven't voted yet, you can do so by following this link here: http://www.foodandwine.com/peoples-best-new-chef/california. Voting will close this Monday at 2pm PST. Please note that you can only vote once, and multiple votes from the same IP address will be deleted per Food and Wine Magazine's rules.

Also, because I've been so busy the last few days, I know that some questions and various forum topics have fallen through the cracks. I'm going to do my best to go back and answer all the cooking questions that you've sent in. If you don't see an answer in the next day or two, please remind me via e-mail: jacob@stellaculinary.com.

One of the things that I have been neglecting is publishing a fascinating guest post on Teas, Tea Pots and Brewing Methods written by Stella Culinary Community Member Marco099. The post keeps flipping a weird security glitch in my Apache servers because it contains keywords that are misinterpreted as malicious commands. Anyways, while I try and work this glitch out with my hosting company, I thought I’d post a PDF download link here for your reading pleasure. A special thank you to Marcos099 for all the hard work he put into writing this great post, for nothing more than the ability to share his passion with our small community. And that, in the end, is what Stella Culinary is all about.

Thank you to everyone that's voted so far, the loyal and passionate people who make up the Stella Culinary Community, and of course the staff at The Cedar House Sport Hotel and Stella Restaurant, who are the ones that make a nomination like this possible through their hard work and dedication.

Cook With Passion!

Jacob

Stella's first culinary boot camp was an amazing time, bringing people from across the United States and Canada together with one singular goal; to become better cooks. This intensive five day course was constructed to challenge and push the students to their limits, debuting our new core curriculum, the F-STEP cooking process.

The F-STEP curriculum was designed to train the students how to think like a professional chef, not just blindly follow recipes. In fact, most of the recipes in the boot camp curriculum were changed daily and "on the fly," forcing the students to utilize their newfound understanding of flavor structure and technique.

On the last day of class, our twelve student boot camp was split up into six teams of two, with each team being responsible for creating their own unique dish as part of a six course tasting menu. This final exam required the students to go through the F-STEP thought process, thinking about Flavor, Sauce, Technique, Execution, and Preparation. Each student had to time the execution of their dish to fit perfectly within the structure of our six course tasting menu.

What the students ended up producing was nothing short of impressive, as you'll see in the photos below. All dishes and their corresponding recipes were designed, prepared and executed by the students on their final day of class, with each team being responsible for completing a composed tasting portion and a family style plate.

Cynthia and Marty kicked off our six course tasting menu with a chilled carrot-ginger puree as their amuse bouche (above). Their first course was an "ahi tartar napoleon with avocado, sesame, crispy wontons, and spicy-asian aioli" (below).

For their family style plate up, Marty and Cynthia painstakingly wrapped the wonton skins around a wooden rolling pin and deep fried them in the shape of a shot glass, which they then filled with the tartar mixture (below).

Next, Jack and Sue offered up a delicious bacon-wonton intermezzo (below).

Jack and Sue's appetizer course was wood fire roasted prawns with charred frisse and sumac (below). The bitterness of the frisee balanced nicely with the sweetness of the shrimp and was tied together by the lemon tang of the sumac, a spice indigenousness to Africa.

Darcy and Keith created a Vietnamese style chicken satay. The chicken was first brined and then sous vide, skewered with sticks of lemon grass, served with two separate dipping sauces and a refreshing rice noodle and pickled vegetable salad. The combination of the crispy, rice coating exterior with the tender, juicy interior, made this chicken absolutely delicious. Add in some fresh, South East Asian inspired ingredients and you have yourself a light and enjoyable dish.

Chris and Roger served a sous vide pork tenderloin roulade, filled with provolone cheese (first photo below). Calling it the "Cuban Ruben," this dish was a fun and unique play on a traditional flavor structure with a few twists, including home made pickles, Russian dressing and a garnish of preserved lemon rind.

Sticking with their inspired theme, Chris and Roger also offered up an "mint-mojito" intermezzo in the form of a refreshing sorbet (middle photo below).

Fred and Douglas created an intermezzo of "house made potato crisps with cucumber creme fraiche dip" (pictured bottom right, below). This cooling bite was followed by their "mexican-spiced duck sausage 'on fire,' seasonal vegetables with chipotle aioli and lime-pineapple-habanero sauce." The sausage was made with ground duck breast, formed into a cylinder using plastic wrap, and cooked sous vide. The combination of the rustic-roasted vegetables and the spiced sausage was outstanding.

The final dish was served by Eva and Mike. For their intermezzo, they offered up a "cucumber-cumin shooter with lemon and fresh mint." This was followed by a perfectly "sous vide fillet of beef with chickpea puree, sauted spinach, cucumber salsa and thyme-wine demi glace." The chickpea puree is really what made this dish. It had a smooth texture and subtle flavor that paired nicely with the full reduction demi and the perfectly cooked fillet of beef. 

Thanks again to everyone who participated in this November's boot camp.

If you weren't able to make it to this boot camp, don't sweat it. We plan on doing another this spring, although we have yet to set dates. If you want to be on our early notification list, please enter your name and e-mail address in the form below.

UPDATE: SOLD OUT!

If you would like to be notified when out next boot camp dates are released, please enter your name and e-mail in the sign-up box below.

You might also find this boot camp wrap up post interesting, where we go over all the dishes the boot camp students created for their final exam.

Get Notified When Our Next Boot Camp Is Announced

Name:

 

Email: