F Scott's Cooking Class

Dinner

USN = University School of Nashville is a private school that used to be a demonstration school for Peabody, a teaching college.  USN strives for diversity amongst its student body with students from a wide area around Middle TN, a wide range of socio-economic levels, and a range of race and ethnicity.  USN conducts fund over the 100+ year history, and one of the scholarship fundraiser is offering evening classes during the spring semester to the Middle TN general public.  Class range from exercise, photography, philosophy, computers, cooking, and more.  I take advantage of cooking classes every year.  The tuition for these classes are 100% given to scholarships.  Yes, everyone volunteers to make these classes happen.  It is really quite amazing for the quality of these classes.

One class I ALWAYS take is one sponsored by F. Scott's one of the best restaurants in Nashville.  Chef Kevin Ramquist strives to use local ingredients in everything he cooks at F Scotts.  He never takes short cuts.  Chef Kevin is the master of slow food.  Every time I take a cooking class from Chef Kevin, I just learn a ton.  On this evening, we made carrot polenta topped with braised pork and arugula salad with crispy chickpeas.

Everything was was delicious, but requires 2 days to make this meal. I will just mention some cooking techniques here that will for ever change my meals flavor profiles for ever.
1.  When making a stock, don't add salt to start, only add salt at the end product.  The flavors boil down, so you won't know about the salt level until the end.  If you add salt too early, and then boil down, you will have an end product that is too salty.
2.  Roast the bones before boiling the bones to make a stock, and use the same bones as the meat you are serving.  For chicken, use chicken bones; for pork, pork bones, etc.  Roast the bones until they are brown with brown bits.  Put all the roasted bones and brown bits into the stock pot.
3.  Brown the veggies before putting them into the stock.  Deglaze the veggies and put all the veggies and deglaze in the stock pot.
4.  Chef Kevin does not use celery for stock.  Celery does not brown or caramelize, so you can't get a richness out of celery like you can with carrots, leeks, and onions.
5.  Get a juicer.  Fresh veggie or fruit juice is great for cooking.  He juiced a couple carrots and used the juice to cook the polenta.  3 parts veggie juice to 1 part polenta, and finish with a dash of cream to make the perfect creamy polenta.  These were the best polentas I have ever had.

So we dined on this fabulous meal.  We just loved it!  We licked the plates, pots and bowls clean.

I look forward to next year!  Thanks USN Evening Classes, F Scott's and Chef Kevin! xoxo!