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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The beginning...

About 2 years ago I realized that I had an addiction to cookbooks. I owned about 200 of them. Martha Stewart, Williams Sonoma, Mexican, Italian (one for each region in Italy and 3 dedicated to different types of pasta), Bacon, Fish, New York, New Orleans, French, Good Housekeeping, Martha Stewart (yes I owned a lot). There was something so comforting about cracking open a new cookbook and visualizing what could be created with the right ingredients. I especially liked the cookbooks with the pictures. (it made the visualizing easier...).
Around the same time, one of my friends mentioned that he had an interest in cooking and taking cooking classes. Before I could stop myself, I found the words coming out of my mouth 'I think that's a great idea...in fact, I would love to do that too!' and 'I think (because I think I know things) that George Brown College (in Toronto, Ontario for those out-of-towners) offers Culinary Arts classes and that's where we should take them.' (this conclusion was drawn after having done little to no research on Culinary classes in Toronto...).

2 years later...my addiction to cookbooks has subsided a little (mostly due to a lack of monetary funds) and the decision to take culinary arts classes with George Brown has been one of the best in my life. I never thought the practice of learning to put certain ingredients together with my own hands and creating something yummy could bring such satisfaction.
I have made it through 6 courses in the George Brown Continuing Education Culinary Arts Program. Some of them with techniques and recipes that make me think that 'I love the fact that I put on this uncomfortable elastic-waist band, tapered pant GB College-issued uniform today, because learning how to make this earth-shattering, mind blowing, mouth-watering Tourtiere was totally worth it'. While others have made me think 'my mouth and senses have been violated by this Russian salmon egg dill pie...(a.k.a Russian Coulibiac).'
When planning most of the activities in my life, I look to online reviews (I 'heart' tripadvisor). I found the online reviews of the George Brown classes few and far between. (I have been told that you can go to the GBC continuing education office to take a look at the course outline, however I depend on things being online...it's just how I roll...).


2 years after embarking on my culinary education (because I am a procrastinator) I decided to set up this blog in order to discuss and provide (albeit humble) opinions on the courses that I have taken and will be taking in the future in hopes that it will provide someone else with the information they need to embark on their culinary education....






Happy Cooking!

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