Last week, I had the good fortune to attend Amy Rowat's last class/demo for her Science and Food class at UCLA.

I had connected with her about my terra cibus project when she was teaching at Harvard, and she's now since relocated to California and bringing all of her great knowledge to us!

The day started with a really fun presentation by Sherry Yard, from Wolfgang Puck's. She explained to us the genesis for her amazing hydrid between a canele and a popover. Yum!

That was followed by a talk from Jimmy Shaw, of L'Oteria Grill, where he talked about ingredients used in Mexican cooking to control the viscosity in the foods prepared at the restaurant. Yes. I'm serious. Cool, right?

[Please excuse the iPhone photos taken in a dark auditorium.]

We then got to partake in an exercise called Flavor Tripping, where we chewed a tablet (by Mberry) that inverted our tastebuds. There were limes and salt-n-vinegar potato chips out for sampling. What was supposed to be tart to the tongue, were very sweet and delicious after chewing the tablet.

We wrapped up the day by watching William Yosses, pastry chef at the White House, demo several techiques, one of which included freezing whipped cream with liquid nitrogen.

All of this glitz should not overshadow the amazing student work, presented as their final projects, which included testing on how to best clean strawberries, and monitoring the hottest sections of your microwave depending on size of the object you are cooking.

It was a real treat all around and I feel so lucky to have attended.

For more on the work Amy is doing, please check out her site at:

https://scienceandfooducla.wordpress.com/