Chef Mark Mattern, MBA, CEC

Vacuum Vacuum sealing is used in the process of sous vide cooking to remove air from the cooking pouch. In a commercial kitchen this is usually done with a chamber vacuum sealer which creates a low pressure environment in and around the bag during the sealing process. This prevents liquids from being sucked from the bag. A non-chamber household vacuum sealer creates a low pressure zone only at the opening of the bag, resulting in suction that will remove not only air but also liquids from the bag. Another use of vacuum sealers is to seal food with the intent of preserving flavor, color and aroma. By storing food in an air-free environment, the oxidation process is minimized. It is important to consider food safety aspects as some bacteria can thrive without oxygen. As with any cooking method, it is critical to observe proper food handling protocols and storage temperatures. An awareness of temperature is also important during the process of vacuum sealing. As air pressure decreases the...

http://www.pga.com/seniorpga/2011/hospitality/ The Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid is the most prestigious Major Championship in senior golf. It brings together both the legends of the game and the newest members of senior professional golf to audiences throughout the United States. Fred Couples, Tom Watson, Paul Azinger, Jay Haas, reigning Champion Tom Lehman and Kentucky's own Kenny Perry, Russ Cochran, and Ted Schulz are among the 156 players eligible to compete at Valhalla.

Websites: • www.findtuition.com • www.collegeanswer.com • www.collegefund.org (Native American) • www.college-scholarships.com • www.fastaid.com • www.fastweb.com • www.gmsp.org (Gates Millennium Scholars) • www.hsf.net (Hispanic) • www.uncf.org (African American) • www.scholarships.com – a lot of design opportunities here!! • www.review.com • www.apiasf.org (Asian American) • (Culinary) http://www.nraef.org/scholarships/apply/ • (3rd and 4th year culinary) www.iacconline.org. • (AIGA Scholarship) http://scholarships.worldstudioinc.com/deadline-application/ • www.schoolsoup.com • www.scholarships4students.com Books: • How to Get Money for College, by Woodburn Press • Cash for College, by NASFAA • How to Pay for College: A Practical Guide for Families, by Gen and Kelly Tanabe • The A's and B's of Academic Scholarships, by Anna Leider and Anna Schimke • The Black Student's Guide to Scholarships • The Scholarship Book, by National Scholarship Research Service • The Scholarship...

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...