One of the benefits of being President of ICE, is that I can go to any class I want. So on Monday Feb 22nd, I joined the Culinary Management students at ICE for a special morning talk and tasting from Randall Grahm, founder of Central California’s Bonny Doon Vineyard, and one of the original “Rhone Rangers” (a term granted to those who preserve and produce Rhone varietals in California).

I've had a lot of "firsts" as a student in ICE's Culinary Arts Career Program, and cooking scallops was right up there with filleting a fish, making homemade pasta, rolling sushi and disjointing a lobster.

This rich pasta recipe features a sautéed mix of sun-dried tomatoes, creamy mascarpone, and delicate chanterelle mushrooms.

I’m not sure why, but I am always shocked and delighted by how ICE’s Asian food cooking classes sneak up on me and become my absolute favorites. Perhaps it’s because I spent some of my formative years in Asia, and so there’s an emotional attachment, or perhaps it’s because many of the recipes take a slew of ingredients that I don’t generally use and therefore will never have room for in my teeny-tiny kitchen. But most likely, my love of ICE’s Asian-themed cooking classes is a result of the vast number of techniques the classes expose me to.

In the last three weeks I have been able to cross off two major items on my never-ending culinary bucket list: learn how to make homemade pasta and roll my very own sushi.

Butter. Duck Fat. Pork fat. Olive oil. Pick your weapon.

Tie on an apron and sharpen those knives because ICE’s very own Joseph Margherita and Daniel Tighe will be going up against fellow top culinary school students in this year’s S. Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef competition.

The amount of butter, sugar, eggs and cocoa used in a matter of four hours was impressive, to say the least. But I suppose it’s to be expected when the recreational baking class I attended at ICE was called “Best and Easiest Chocolate Desserts.”

I lay a golden slice of Pommes Anna in the upper right third of the plate. Then seven sautéed yellow beans find their place parallel to the potato wedge while a scattering of bright green buttered peas are set across the beans like a bridge. I place two sautéed tournedos of beef in the bottom center and finish my canvas with a spoonful of truffle sauce. Welcome to my heaven on earth, where plate design transforms into an artistic movement and beauty is in the eye of the eater.