Knife Skills class...

[Zwiefel]

Looking through your handout, you are covering a lot of ground. Since most of the students -- if not all -- are really, really hoping for a lot of hands-on knife skills training, I would gloss over the knife types, etc., spend a few minutes talking about basic grips and safety, and the lions share of the time on the demonstrations/ doing part of things. Like a couple others here, I attended a SLT knife-skills class, and frankly you can burn 1/2 hour just on dicing an onion or carrot because there will be a couple people in there who really need you to hold their hand.


The handout will go a long way towards providing them with additional knife information, so you will still be educating them about all things knife-related, just not necessarily during the class.

Thanks Wildboar, this is kinda what I was planning on doing...and I provide a way for students to contact me after the class if they want more info on anything.

I'm really quite unclear on how much I can cover in two hours both in terms of lecture type info, and in terms of the hands-on bit. Going to try to err on the side of providing too much time for hands-on though.

This is really good feedback guys, appreciate it.

 

[WildBoar]

BTW, someone earlier in the thread mentioned supreming. I think it's a great thing to do, as most people today probably have not heard of it, or eaten an orange prepared that way. It's amazing how much better it makes the orange taste, since all the bitterness is gone. That was by far the most useful thing I picked up at the SLT class. But I would put a time limit on it, as some people went very, very slowly.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

Yes I use a handout as well,last page are Internet sites that carry reccom. knives & stones.Also Jon's site JKI has alot of free,youtube on knives,sharpening etc.He also covers knifecare.If reccom.sites for learning sharpening be specific,there is some not so good information out there.

I would say to err toward almost all hands on.

 

[Zwiefel]

well, I just tried to make citrus supremes out of 4 oranges following Rick's example in this video:

[video=youtube;jgkM_RrIGLM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgkM_RrIGLM[/video]

By #4 I was doing a half-decent job and not wasting 1/2 the orange. Honestly, I cannot believe how much of a flavor different it makes...it's like I've never had an orange before.

Class is tomorrow night and this is definitely going to make an appearance. Thanks Rick, Dave, Salty, keithsaltydog, etc. for your suggestions and observations! I'll post again after the class to let you know how I screwed it up

 

[Zwiefel]

Finally getting around to writing a follow-up on this...thanks to a bit of gentle prodding by another KKFer.

Well...as everyone suggested, my menu was too ambitious. Only got 2/5 of the way through it. Also, realized I need to create a bit more structure and discipline...they tried to follow along instead of watch, then imitate. One guy cut himself immediately b/c he was trying to follow my demonstration on how to breakdown an avocado instead of watching...and I was busy watching where my edge was so I didn't see him.

OTOH, everyone had a good time...and the evaluations were really good. So, going to revise the menu, and have a little lecture about watching, then trying...not doing them at the same time

The range of hardware people showed up with was interesting. one guy had some kind of victorinox knock-off that had a "bolster" design that made it impossible to get a proper pinch-grip. I didn't expect that. After trying a few different things, I found a modified pinch-grip that seemed to work on his design.

I tried to push people to keep a pinch grip and stay away from the pointer grip...but was kinda hard to avoid being obnoxious in pointing it out. Those of you that have done these classes: how much correction of this type do you do? I know when I was learning from a chef, he jumped on me every single time...annoyed the **** out of me, but I eventually made the adjustment and was grateful to him for not letting up. OTOH, he got a lot more than 2 hours with me.

It was a good experience, but I have a bit more work to do for it be what I wanted from it.

 

[Zwiefel]

One unintended consequence of this class: my wife keeps asking me to sublime an orange for her

 

[ThEoRy]

Cool, getting the hang of it I see.

 

[WildBoar]

One unintended consequence of this class: my wife keeps asking me to sublime an orange for her

Haha, that's funny. But I don't blame her -- they taste a lot more sublime when supremed! You will now be required to supreme all oranges for the next couple of decades.

 

[Keith Sinclair]

Good Zwiefel got your feet wet.I was watching the Supreme video on this thread,I've done alot of oranges & grapefruit,I did enjoy the Sushi making eg. Rainbow Roll,Chef Sean Park.I'm not crazy about segmenting fruit,but I love making Sushi & eating it too.:hungry: