Picture of CIA Duffle Bag

CIA Boot Camp – Day 1

Picture of CIA Duffel Bag
This is part 1 of a 5 part series on my adventures at the CIA Boot Camp. You can see other posts here:

In March, I attended a 5 day Culinary Boot Camp offered at the Culinary Institute of America in San Antonio.Class started promptly at 7:00 AM each day and ended around 1:30 PM. We started with lecture and usually by 9:30 or 10:00 we were in the kitchen. These awesome duffel bags were waiting for us on our first day. They contained:

  • Two uniforms – White jackets and black and white herringbone pants.
  • Two toques – the funny paper hats that chefs wear.
  • One travel coffee mug.
  • Our name tag.
  • A binder with all the notes in it.

Class met from 7:00 AM until 1:30 PM. Or until we were finished. This was our schedule:

  • 7:00 AM – 8:15 AM – Lecture
  • 8:15 AM – 9:00 AM – Review the recipes for the day
  • 9:15 AM – 12:00 PM – Kitchen work – food preparation & demonstrations
  • 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM – Lunch – usually what we cooked
  • 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM – Clean up & Review/Critique

Pictures of the veggies we cut up

On day 1, we did no cooking. We spent our kitchen time practicing various cuts. We learned a lot on day one. Starting with how to hold a knife properly. I have been doing it wrong all my life! We worked on slicing, dicing, batonnet cuts, oblique-cuts, mincing, and more. Our food didn’t go to waste. We packaged it up for use by other classes at the school.

Since we did no food prep, we dined on food prepared by one of the other classes. (Presumably the students who are in the degree program.) They were working on breakfast that day. We finished right on time on day one. The rest of the week we ran over a bit.

Got questions about my CIA Boot Camp experience? Leave a comment below or use my contact page.

This is the first in a series of 5 blog posts on my adventures at the CIA. Look for the series to continue for the next few Fridays.

This is part 1 of a 5 part series on my adventures at the CIA Boot Camp. You can see other posts here:

Barbara
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3 thoughts on “CIA Boot Camp – Day 1”

  1. Now I’m curious what the proper way is to hold a knife. I would love to learn different cutting techniques. I certainly don’t do it fast like I see chefs doing it on TV.

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