Culinary Club Learns From a Master Chef

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Culinary Club Cooks at the Bourbon House with Chef Darin Nesbit, Executive Chef for Dickie Brennan family restaurants
Ben Franklin’s Culinary Club toured the kitchens of the Bourbon House restaurant on Saturday, October 24, 2009, and was given an extensive lesson in stocks and sauces. Twelve Culinary Club members and two sponsors were taught by one of New Orleans’s master chefs, Chef Darin Nesbit, Executive Chef for the Bourbon House, Dickie Brennan’s Steak House and the Palace Café, three locally inspired and nationally known restaurants. Master teacher, Chef Darin has been teaching and mentoring people beginning their culinary careers for years. He told the group he gets a charge out of working with young people because they don’t have as many preconceived notions about cooking. He encouraged club members to learn by doing because his hands on experience working at Commander’s Palace and other restaurants taught him much more than he learned in culinary school.
Franklin students learned everything from the definition and classifications of stocks and sauces to the ingredients and the necessary techniques to be sure the finished products have the desired flavor and texture. He answered questions and explained the appropriate match up for sauces with meats, fish, shellfish, vegetables, desserts, etc. Then it was on to the hands-on participation. Students made a white Buerre Blanc sauce and a Marchand de vin sauce all under the watchful eye of Chef Darin and the occasional encouraging word, “Whisk that sauce faster, find your passion, and stir like you mean it.” Later after touring the kitchen and tasting other sauces that had already been prepared based on the recipes they had learned earlier, Culinary Club members were served a delicious steak specialty topped with the sauce they had helped create earlier in the morning. According to one young chef, “There is nothing like tasting the “fruits of their labor.” Thanks go to Mr. Steve Pettis, co-owner of The Bourbon House and Chef Darin for their efforts on behalf of Ben Franklin High School.