Kelsey Nixon Teaches the Essentials: Tips, Tools, Techniques, Pantry and More!

This past Tuesday I attended an excellent class taught by chef Kelsey Nixon sponsored by The Learning Annex.

Kelsey Nixon

Going into the class I wasn't sure what to expect. My fellow audience members and I were wondering "where's the kitchen?" when we entered the room at the Midtown Hitlon East. The description given by the Learning Annex didn't say there would be cooking, I think we just assumed Kelsey would be showing off some of her kitchen skills to help us learn them. 

Instead of cooking, we receive a very informative and fun presentation from Kelsey and great discussion with a room full of experienced home cooks. Kelsey gave a detailed background of her journey getting to where she is today. She has had great experiences from interning with Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, to working on her own cooking show in college: Kelsey's Kitchen, to earning a culinary degree from Le Cordon Bleu Hollywood, working on Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade, to being a contestant on The Next Food Network Star (which is where I know her from best) and finally to being one of Cooking Channel's leading chefs with Kelsey's Essentials. 


Kelsey's presentation covered the essentials in terms of Tips, Tools, Techniques, Pantry, and how to stay organized and implement these into your routine. Some of the essentials are no-brainers that any practiced home cook will have learned, hence why they are essential. But others are very smart ideas that can make a big difference in the kitchen. Here are 6 Essential Lists from Kelsey. More information and comments from Kelsey have been given in italics. 

Celebrating 1 Year of The Culinary Librarian!

Today marks the 1 Year Anniversary of The Culinary Librarian! 

First and foremost I would like to thank all of you! My readers! It is a complete pleasure to write knowing I have a great audience to read my work. I hope you have enjoyed 12 months of food and photos. May your mouth water for the next 365 days to come! 

In honor of the anniversary I have collected my favorite photos/stories from each month of 2010 for this celebratory post. Some come from blog posts, some from Facebook posts. Enjoy this look back at a year in the life of The Culinary Librarian! 

January

Fallen Chocolate Soufflé Cake

Last year around this time a few of my very good friends went off to my beloved Paris for a visit and since we like parties so much we had a little French-themed send off for them! I provided the dessert-- this decadent (yet very easy to execute!) soufflé cake. Making chocolate soufflés has been one of my favorite things to do since I fell in love with them at my old resto of employment, the now closed Carmine's Restaurant in Albany (replaced with the fantastic Grappa '72). Since I knew individual soufflés to be a breeze, I selected this cake  as the perfect start to a Parisian vacation. I also love the black & white tiles of my old apartment's kitchen and the butcher block that provide a very French background to the rich cake. 

The full post from January 2010: Les Joies du Chocolat-- sans peur!

February

For the Love of Duck

Happy New Year! Let's make 2011 even more delicious than 2010!

I hope you are all resting up and recovering from the past month and week of Holiday celebrations! If you are like me you may be looking forward to 2011 with a list full of resolutions for yourself and a heart full of promise in the newness of a fresh year and a start full of potential!   2011 can be the best year yet should we choose to live with vigor everyday. Let's make another memorable year, a great start to a new decade and an even more delicious 365 days together. 

New Year's always holds an extra layer of promise for me because it is not only a new calendar year for me every January 1st but also a new year in my life as my birthday is also the first of the year. This year I rang in a new beginning with friends at a pre-party at my house then off to a rockin' Black 47 concert just a block away from the hub-bub of Times Square. 

I served some delicious prepared appetizers from Whole Foods but also made mini beef wellington appetizers to add that special taste to the evening. I call these "Poor Girl" beef wellington because I used eye of the round steaks, which is a much much less expensive cut of meat than the traditional filet mignon but has the same shape and limited marbling. Also, phyllo dough is usually less expensive to get than puff pastry. Maybe you will make these for your next special occasion or birthday! Enjoy!

Poor Girl's Mini Beef Wellington Appetizers

Out to Eat: NIOS Restaurant

The cards for free wine flights from NIOS Restaurant at the Muse Hotel had been sitting on my desk since the NYC Wine & Food Festival just waiting to be used. After not spending any one-on-one time with my good friend Katie for a while I suggested we use the wine flights and check out some of Chef Massimo De Francesca's culinary creations. I made a reservation for 2 in the bar at 9:00pm for Friday night. 

Expecting only to have share some appetizers and the wine flights I came to NIOS hungry but not expecting to take on a three-course meal. We were offered the Pre-Theatre Prix Fixe Menu and while we were debating sharing some of the appetizers from cleverly named "Act I" of the menu Katie and I decided too many things sounded delicious so we went for the $42 Prix Fixe. Katie chose the Smoked Duck for her starter and I selected the Calamari. 

The calamari was inventively coated with cornmeal as opposed to breadcrumbs served with a subtle yuzu aioli. Perfectly fried to be golden but not brown, tender on the inside, the tentacles were particularly delectable. My appetizer was crunchy counterbalanced by the silky aioli and served at the perfect temperature.

Katie's smoked duck came served with frisée, figs, wild mushrooms and thinly sliced manchego cheese. I was lucky enough to be able to taste some of the duck from her plate-- of course you would expect me to try the duck! Delicately cured by smoking, the duck breast had that creamy layer of preservative fat. The finely cut duck looked like turkey bacon but had much more complex flavors than anything out of a Jennie-O package! I can just imagine what all the elements on her plate would have tasted like together. 

The Locavores' Dilemma: A discussion about what to eat.

Thanks to my avid reading and tweeting on Twitter I found out about the event at the New York Public Library (NYPL) I attended Thursday October 21, 2010 from @SlowFoodUSA.

The Locavores' Dilemma brought in former Cullman Center Fellow Melanie Rehak, author of Eating for Beginners, Chef David Shea of applewood Restaurant in Park Slope, and Steve Jenkins of Fairway Market; the discussion was moderated by another former Cullman Center Fellow Patrick Radden Keefe journalist and author of The Snakehead.  Odds are unless you're a New Yorker you might not have heard of any of these people (yet). I recognized Fairway, of  course, and had seen Melanie Rehak's book cover but did not really know much about any of the participants or what they do. Jean Strouse, director of the Cullman Center, gave thorough introductions for each participant (a recipe of hers is included in Eating for Beginners, which Patrick Keefe drew attention to due to her memorable instruction to "add a stick of butter" to a dish of brussel sprouts- and Strouse added joyfully "and bacon!").

So how do these people fit together to make for a discussion about locavory? Rehak lives in Park Slope just blocks away from applewood restaurant (small "a" intended). She is a locavore and spent time working in the applewood kitchen to write her book; she also follows the food the restaurant uses back to  its sources; spending time making cheese, picking greens, and even out on the ocean to catch the restaurant's seafood. Chef David Shea is a consistent voice and presence in Rehak's memoir. During her time working at applewood he encourages her to believe in herself and in her abilities in the kitchen. Steve Jenkins is a mainstay in the New York grocery scene and brought insight to the more commercial side of local sourcing and eating.