Cooking with Chef Elmer
MidWeek’s intrepid reporter learns how to cook from Chef Elmer Guzman, then she and classmates dine on their yummy creations
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MidWeek’s intrepid reporter learns how to cook from Chef Elmer Guzman, then she and classmates dine on their yummy creations
There are some job assignments where you just really have to suck it up and tough it out. Like this one. The editor asks if I can I do a cooking class with Chef Elmer Guzman? Well, goodness, twist my arm a little, please.
So here’s the assignment: 6 p.m. at the glorious Servco appliance center in Mapunapuna. Chef Elmer will hold his monthly cooking class for Gourmet Cooking Hawaii with an intimate group of about 10. He’ll demonstrate. We’ll do our best to copy.
Things get off to a great start with a glass of bubbly. Then class begins and we all gather around a fabulous marble island with Chef Elmer at stage center. Eeww, actually I feel a bit like I’m in class. I mean, Chef Elmer’s reputation precedes him. He’s the local boy began his career with Alan Wong on the Big Island, studied at the Greenbrier, then went off to work with Emeril “Bam” Lagasse in New Orleans before becoming Sam Choy’s executive chef. He’s since gone out on his own with the popular Poke Stop in Waipahu, featuring gourmet plate lunches and fresh poke, and a newly opened second Poke Stop in Mililani. This talented chef just might get worried when he sees the way I wield a knife.
But as class gets underway with a sundried blueberry and banana bread pudding (Ah, yes, life’s short: Do dessert first!), Chef Elmer’s laid-back style begins to spread. Michael Franzen, who’s standing in for the sommelier tonight, helps things along with very attentive pours of the wines that are paired with each course.
“You know, we’ve had some folks come here, a few sips and they’re the best cooks that evening,” the chef confides.
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Bread puddings dispatched to the oven, we’re off onto the chicken summer roll. This dish poses the biggest hazard of the evening as we attempt to julienne cucumber and carrot. I quickly hide my log-like attempts in the rice wrapper and roll it all up. My classmates appear from their stations with their efforts. I think we’re all a little surprised that they look so good. And, oh my, they taste so good, too - the ginger scallion sauce is a real keeper.
“Oh, this is sooo good,” says Vicky Aquino. “I can’t wait for dessert!”
As we happily contemplate our efforts, I get to know my tablemates a little better. Vicky is an O.R. nurse at Queen’s. Her husband, Brian Sheldon, is a firefighter at the Kalihi Station. (I’ll bet the firefighters in Kalihi have some of the happiest opus in the business after this class.) Our other partners in cooking are Ivan Muraoka, whose class was a thank-you gift for emceeing his cousin’s daughter’s wedding, and Stefy Matsumura, a triathlon-performing Italian dynamo who’s out for a fun evening doing something different.
By the time we head back to the central cooking station, the class has definitely kicked it up a notch. We’re fortified by our success - and a few more pours of wine. The next thing Chef Elmer has in store for us is a miso crab-glazed island fish with choi sum and caper sauce. Fancy name, but Chef Elmer’s style is to keep things simple, and it’s a snap to prepare.
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“At the beginning, you want to do everything extravagant,” he says. “As you get older, you simplify. You use the best three or four ingredients. I want to teach that simplicity so you can duplicate it when you go home.”
As he cooks, the chef talks about other stuff: how to select a good piece of fish at the market; how to add some zest to your kitchen with compound butter; how to blanch vegetables for quick, crunchy results; how his mom used to make him pork knuckles and cow’s feet, and how his dad clear-cut his whole patch of fragrant lemongrass, thinking it was a weed.
Chef Elmer studied at the elbows of two of today’s top celebrity chefs, where he picked up a few pointers on cooking as well as cooking for entertainment.
“As you’re doing Emeril’s mis en place in the background, you see the little techniques he uses, the way he works a crowd,” Chef Elmer says.
This crowd has definitely livened up. As we sauté our choi sum, folks are yelling to each other across the stations and Stefy warns Chef Elmer that she’s got his job. An appreciative silence falls again when we sit down to dine.
“This is a baby-making dinner, baby!” Stefy eventually declares.
With a happy glow and our hands clutching our certificates of completion, our recipes and our signed photos with the chef, we call it a wrap. It was a tough assignment, but we made it.
Gourmet Cooking Hawaii is a meeting and event-planning company that offers culinary classes with celebrity chefs in Hawaii. The hands-on class with Chef Elmer Guzman is held monthly; the next classes are scheduled for Sept. 11, Oct. 8, Nov. 13 and Dec. 11.
For more information, call 735-7788
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