Chef Mark Mattern, MBA, CEC

Food Trends by decades: check it out http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecades.html Chef Mark is looking ahead are you?

Many people are working harder than ever to make ends meet today, and while we can’t blame everything on the skyrocketing price of fuel, some are being forced to choose between gas and food on occasion. People in general are said to be spending less and going out less often.* To top it off, while demands on their resources and time increase, they are becoming increasingly demanding themselves. As people keep a frugal eye on their spending, they expect more from everyone they hand their hard-earned money to, and who can blame them? Fierce competition for consumers’ attention, along with continual product improvements, has driven up the cost of doing business in recent years. Our electronics have gotten better, smaller, faster, and more versatile during the past two decades, yet prices have stayed much the same. New cars have become better, safer, more comfortable, and more expensive, and as a result people are driving them longer. Consumers have come to expect slow food faster and bette...

In the latest update of the Oxford English Dictionary, there are a whole new batch of silly words and definitions including several initialisms — abbreviations consisting of the initial letters of expressions — made popular through their frequent use in text messages, tweets, or emails. The experts at Oxford Dictionaries Online explain that the initialisms added to the dictionary are "noteworthy" and even happen to be "found outside of electronic contexts" at times, and we believe them. After all, how could these language authorities not add initialisms and words like this to the dictionary without a good reason: • couch surfing • ego-surfing • hentai • la-la land • LOL • meep • muffin top • OMG • party-crashing • wassup Our favorite thing in this entire update though? A tweak to the definition of 'heart': ♥ to heart The new sense added to heart v. in this update may be the first English usage to develop via the medium of T-shirts and bumper-stickers. It or...

Evaporate The rotary evaporator combines evaporation under vacuum and condensation (liquid-gas-liquid). This process is called distillation and the purpose is to separate a given mixture into its components based on their respective volatilities. It is explored by creative chefs for two main purposes: To concentrate non-volatile components in a mixture (for example, concentrating the purest and freshest flavors from a blood orange by removing the water) To extract the volatile aroma and flavor molecules from mixtures gently and at low temperatures (for example, extracting the desired flavors from a blend of alcohol, herbs, and fruit without heating the mixture up). Compared to standard distillation processes, the significant difference of the technique with the PolyScience Culinary Rotary Evaporator Kit is the lower temperatures required for evaporation. The key point to this technique is the gentle, precise, and efficient separation of food compounds without altering them. Two key com...

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Chaine des Rotisseurs They exist in the United States. They are in Bahrain, Belgium, and Bermuda. They live in Paris, Milan, and New York. They are doctors, writers, and salespeople. They are passionate, adventurous, and hungry. They are the ultimate foodies. “They” are the members of the Chaine des Rotisseurs. Revived in 1950, the Chaine society actually traces its’ roots back to 1248, when France boasted a royal guild of meat roasters; at the time, specifically goose (a particular favorite during that period), although the society grew to include masters of all meat, poultry, and game. The Chaine, as it is casually referred to, was disbanded in 1793 due to the political upheaval of The French Revolution. The Chaine was not the only casualty; all guilds and similar societies met their end. The official definition of a guild, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “an association of people with similar interests or pursuits; especially: a medieval association of me...

Winter 2011 Orientation 01/07/11 First Day of Class 01/10/11 MLK Holiday 01/17/11 Last Day to Add/Drop 01/18/11 Mid-Qtr Orientation 02/16/11 Registration for Spring Begins 02/07/11 Mid-Qtr Classes 02/17/11 Mid-Qtr Add/Drop 02/21/11 President's Day Holiday 02/25/11 Last Day to Withdraw 03/11/11 Portfolio Review 03/24/11 Last Day of Class 03/26/11 Break Between Qtrs 03/28/11 - 04/03/11