Culinary Boot Camp

Each month, twenty-four new students meet at The Culinary Institute of America for Boot Camp, a five-day program designed to teach non-professionals how to think like a chef by teaching them cooking basics in a professional kitchen environment. The students meet every day for five days, beginning promptly at 6:00 A.M. and concluding at 3:00 P.M., with a break to refresh, reflect, and prepare for a meal at one of the commercial restaurants at The Culinary Institute of America. In Culinary Boot Camp, Martha Rose Shulman brings her own Boot Camp experience to life and shares the tips, tricks, and cooking techniques she learned during her 5 days at The CIA. Throughout the weeklong journey, the reader follows Shulman's process of learning about teamwork, procedures, and techniques, as well as preparing for a final exam of planning, producing, and plating a full meal on the last day. The lessons cover kitchen terms, knife skills, sauces and stocks, sautes, soups, frying, roasting, broiling and grilling, braising and stewing, poaching, steaming, and plate and platter presentation. Combining the narrative of Shulman's exciting boot camp experience with a wealth of useful kitchen information, this book gives readers a step up in the kitchen and takes them on a vicarious adventure through basic training with one of the country's finest professional cooking schools.