cooking classes and more at the uspca conference in long beach

I was recently invited to attend the United States Personal Chef Association Conference (USPCA) in Long Beach next month and while feeling a little skeptical about it all at first, now I have to say I’m excited to go! Obviously I am NOT a personal chef, but the conference offers a few classes of interest to me as someone who loves to cook, eat and to blog about it!

Here are a few of the classes at the conference that caught my eye:

Make Your Own Tamales with Chef Aleccio Leon and Diego Fernandez

Food historians can trace the tamale back to Pre-Columbian times in 7000 BC.  Los Angeles food history changed in 1923 when El Cholo Café introduced their signature Green Corn Tamale.  Made with fresh corn and stuffed with an Ortega chili and cheese, Angelinos have been lining up for these seasonal delicacies for more than 90 years. During this hands-on class, participants will learn the basics of making traditional tamales in addition to El Cholo’s world famous Green Corn Tamales. Gourmet magazine’s Caroline Bates once wrote, “I cannot imagine Los Angeles without El Cholo.”

What you will take away from this class:

• Basic understanding of tamales
• The difference between traditional and Green Corn Tamales
• Hands-on experience stuffing and wrapping tamales
• Knowledge of how to make Green Corn Tamales from corn-on-the-cob to the final dish
• How make traditional masa and the special fresh corn mixture used for Green Corn Tamales

I have never attempted to make my own tamales before. Something about it seems complicated and time consuming, like, what if I totally mess up the masa and my tamales turn out to be crap? How do you know when it’s just right? I’m hoping this class will give me the confidence to make my own tamales since I love tamales so, so, so much!

Plating and Presentation: Making Your Dishes Appeal to the Eye as Well as the Palate with Eric Crowley

Chef Eric Crowley has been teaching his professional students how to make meals look appealing for over 15 years.  During this 45 minute course, Chef Eric Crowley will demonstrate how to design your food to make it visually appealing to your clients.  As a chef, it is important to make your food taste great and look fantastic.  Many of his students are working in the industry applying the techniques he teaches.

• Plating do’s and don’ts
• Using contrasting colors effectively
• Garnishing for maximum visual effect
• Utilizing Sauces to their full potential

When cooking/baking at home and doing food styling for the blog, sometimes I struggle with ways to make the plate prettier. This might be a good class to take to make my photos look more appealing!

Kitchen Math with Terry Madigan

Understanding basic kitchen math is an essential part of being a successful personal chef business owner. This class will increase participant’s understanding of kitchen math helps efficiency and speed. 

• Customary units of measurement
• Basic conversions of volumes and weights
• Understanding of yield percentages for various food items
• Recipe size conversion
• Better ingredient ordering and costing

As a person who’s terrible at math, this class appeals to me. I always have to look at this magnet on the fridge for basic conversions and I struggle with converting a recipe to scale larger or smaller. I usually seem to make too much food!

The California “Liquid” Gold Rush with Colleen McCall

There’s been enough hoopla surrounding olive oil in the last couple of years to make one’s head spin like an olive mill centrifuge.  This session will explore the attributes of a true extra virgin olive oil, the origins of olive oil production in California and the creation of the California Olive Oil Council.  We will discuss California’s olive oil industry and the different varietals and oils produced.  You will complete a basic sensory awareness session distinguishing the characteristics of a true extra virgin olive oil and the different flavor profiles.  

• The attributes of a true extra virgin olive oil
• The different flavor profiles and pungencies of unflavored olive oils
• Basic food and olive oil pairings
• Introduction to a variety of flavored olive oils for recipe inspiration

This class seems particularly intriguing as olive oil is one of the main oils I use for cooking. I don’t usually think about which brand or what I buy and I’d like to learn more about different flavored oils as well. Fun!

There are a few other interesting classes, such as Food: Too Good to Waste (how to reduce your food waste), Food Styling and Photography (a pre-conference class that sadly is already sold out), Sushi Basics and Beyond, Cooking with Wild Game, Handy Desserts for the Personal Chef and tons more (lots of others about the business side of being a Personal Chef)!

The USPCA Conference is from July 17-20th, 2014 in Long Beach, CA. You can see a full list of classes on their website to see if anything piques your interest and you want to attend the conference!

If you’re interesting in attending, you can register as a nonmember and receive a $50 off discount when you enter the code ThisTastyLife. I’ll be there on Saturday, eager to learn all about tamales and olive oil!