If Buffalo had a ‘Celebrity Chef’ – I believe it would be Mike Andrzejewski, or as most people call him – Mike A. The man has been cooking on a shamanistic level for years in the city, and has had a key role in numerous restaurants of past, present, and certainly future. SeaBar and Cantina Loco are his current projects, and they seem to be performing greatly. I would highly suggest you get into either one of these locations to try his unique creations. Read more here: (http://buffalonews.com/topic/mike-andrzejewski/)
For Christmas, I got my friend Chris some cooking classes at the Auburn Watson Culinary Arts Center – (http://www.culinaryartscenter.org/) Specifically, for a class called ‘Hands On: A Evening with Mike A’. I had never done anything like this before, and was definitely not sure what to expect other than what I had seen on shows like ‘Worst Cooks in America’. You know the show: where the chef shows a dish, then the students who don’t know dick about cooking have to recreate it, and ridiculousness ensues. Even though I was battling a crippling sickness, I was not going to miss this event. I left work with plenty of time, and heavily dosed myself on cold meds – I waited outside of Auburn Watson for them to kick in.
Couldn’t help but notice, being a sign guy – that their sign needed help.
I walked in, and I seriously didn’t know if I was in the right place, but I saw people milling around and grabbing aprons. I grabbed an apron and was handed a ‘menu’ packet that had a couple recipes with it.
Well well well, it appeared that we were going to be doing a journey into maple syrup! awesome!
Mind you, this recipe pack only had about 1/3 of the components required for the 3 dishes that were demo’d, and had I known, I would have taken way better notes, I’m getting ahead of myself in the story here, but this is good info to know for next time.
My buddy showed up, and we found a station to set up at. We started talking with other people that were there who couldn’t say enough about the classes, and how they’ve learned so much from them.
There were 16 people total in the class – which was sold out – and Mike A was just casually preparing things for class as we milled around in slight confusion. Eventually he called us over to his station where he went right into a little bit about himself, then right into his lesson.
People asked questions, people took notes, I really just enjoyed watching a master who cooked on a level that looked so effortless and casual – I was just in awe. At one point, he poured some ingredients into a bowl, and after pouring one of the ingredients, someone in the class asked ‘wait, how much of that did you just put in there?’ He looked up slowly at the person who asked it, and just said, ‘I don’t know – for this, it’s more of a feeling’. My respect for the man doubled in that moment. I love the activity of cooking, specifically just winging it and experimenting and when everything just links up perfectly and you feel like you have your shit together – man, that is a great feeling. That doesn’t happen all the time for me, but when it does, it feels pretty damn awesome. I’m not saying that Mike A is ‘winging it’ at this point – I’m saying that I could tell with the look he gave, that he cooks with that level of ‘I got my shit together’ from the moment he sets foot in a kitchen to the moment he leaves – and that is very admirable.
Look at this calm bastard holding a killer Napoleon like it’s no big deal – that’s a $12-15 plate, all day!
He showed us some stuff that was basic, but also showed us some simple tricks and techniques that seeing first hand made total sense. One of the things he built, was a ‘Waldorf Salad’ – which consisted of layers of independently dressed components. I had always thought of salad as a ‘build it, dress it, toss it, add toppings’ type thing – the salad he showed us was incredibly advanced! Lettuce dressed in one dressing, chicken dressed in another, topped with grapes and walnuts, then topped with a quick pickled celery – There were essentially 3 dressings on one salad – Yet it all worked together great! Eyes opened.
Now, as Mike wrapped up his lessons, I really wished they would have prepared us for the next portion of the evening. It was as if a gun went off, and everyone just started grabbing up ingredients and running off to stations – it was a goddamn free-for-all. I started asking people ‘what do we do now?’ and people were just casually like ‘cook!’ Cook? cook what? Are we working together? Separate? Working with the people that were next to us? What should I start with? There were 3 courses he showed us! Do I pick one? Do I ask him? He was already fielding crazy questions… ahhhh what do I doooo!?
I began to panic! I felt like a contestant on Worst Cooks of America who was having a melt down and Anne Burrell was about to yell at me to get my shit together any minute. The cold medicine was in full swing, I was panicking, getting dizzy, and people were running circles around me putting things together and grabbing up all the shit I needed!
Eventually my buddy reeled me in and started putting ingredients in front of me and telling me what I could do – almost instantly, he and I started working together as a team – we clicked, and things started happening – and FAST!
My crepe skills were killer –
Chris rolled up some fatty crepes with maple butternut squash filling – nice nice!
Funny side story, there was a bottle of bourbon in the mix that was needed for an bourbon maple glazed apple topping that was for the Napoleon. Chris swiped it and dumped some out into his water glass. It was really good bourbon! It kept ending back up on our station – and after both of us had a nip, and realized that we actually knew our shit in the kitchen, everything was comfortable and fun – we started knocking it out of the park. Our dishes started coming together – our time management was killer, we were a well oiled and slightly buzzed machine. At one point other people asked us if we were chefs somewhere, honored, we told them ‘No, but we just really enjoyed cooking.’ I owe it to Chris for pulling me out of the dizzy meltdown, I would have just walked out if it weren’t for him.
Mike A came over and checked on us, and remarked that our crepe game was awesome (compared to other people in the room shhhhh), and that we looked like we had our shit together – Coming from a definite master, it was a great compliment. He helped us wrap up some of our dishes, and because the class was out of cream and couldn’t make whipped cream, he made us a whipped maple mascarpone for our Napoleon. Everything came together and we couldn’t believe we managed to get all 3 dishes done. I don’t think any of the other people there achieved what we did, and I don’t think the people could believe we actually did. We had a good chat at the end with Mike about some of our passions with food, beer and spirits – What a nice guy, seriously. I strongly recommend taking a class with him, bring a good friend that you know you can work well with, and the evening is worth the price of admission – 100%. I cooked out of my comfort zone, and I learned some great new tricks and recipes.
The best part? You don’t have to do the dishes –