Product Description

A must for every home chef, MASTERING KNIFE SKILLS demystifies the arcane art of using a knife, based on a system so simple that it can be applied to literally anything edible on the planet. Filmed at the acclaimed KITCHEN ON FIRE cooking school in Berkeley, MASTERING KNIFE SKILLS features Chef MikeC., one of the Bay Area s most popular instructors, with appearances by award-winning cookbook author Chef Olivier Said. An action-packed 45 minutes, divided into bite-size chapters for easy navigation, each step has been vented through hundreds of knife skills classes taught by MikeC. since 2002. A sell-out wherever the class has been presented, it was recently named by SAN FRANCISCO Magazine as one of the best-ever for honing your inner chef.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6480 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-12-03
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Format: NTSC
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 45 minutes

About the Actor
An honors graduate of the California Culinary Academy, Chef MikeC. is one of the Bay Area s most popular instructors. After beginning his professional career in the mid-1990s in upstate New York and moving to San Francisco in 2001 to study at CCA, MikeC. co-founded Xfusion Personal Chef Services - one of the originators of the concept of turning private parties into exciting cooking events for guests to participate in. While still in school, he was also hired to co-manage and teach at Sur La Table's San Francisco culinary school. Within months, MikeC. was put in charge of the program, which included assisting such visiting celebrity chefs as Martin Yan, Jamie Oliver, Alton Brown and Michael Chiarello. In 2003, he founded Party Lifestyles and taught international cuisines at cooking schools and retail outlets up and down the West Coast. At the same time, he became the official spokesperson for Furi Knives, appearing at trade shows and culinary fairs around the country to demonstrate proper knife skills. Over the years, MikeC. has led countless corporate team building cooking events for such companies as GAP, Yahoo, Microsoft, Adobe, GE Capitol, and Charles Schwab. Born and raised in France, Chef Olivier Said is the descendant of at least five generations of restaurateurs in France, dating back to the early 1800s. After beginning his career at the age of 15 in his mother s Paris restaurant, he moved to Los Angeles in the early 1980s, and worked at Ken Frank's LaToque, one the first restaurants in the country to feature California nouvelle cuisine. In 1987, Said returned to Paris and opened his own restaurant, the popular Texas Coyote, which included three sprawling bars and a night club. After returning to the States in the late 1990s, he joined the management team at Berkeley's César Tapas Bar, founded by three Chez Panisse alumni. Said has co-authored two notable cookbooks: CÉSAR: Recipes from a Tapas Bar (named one of the year s Ten Best by Food and Wine magazine in 2003) and THE BAR: A Spirited Guide to Cocktail Alchemy. He also writes a regular column for Trump magazine.

Customer Reviews

Great for folks new to food preparation with cutlery
I'm a guy and was never taught how to cook. I learned on my own. I used to make a mess when preparing food! This is the second copy of this DVD that I've purchased. I included it along with a fine cutlery set as a wedding gift for my niece. I bought the first copy for myself as an alternative to attending a cutlery skills class taught in Chicago, way too inconvenient for my location in the suburbs. It demonstrates so many useful, valuable tips ideas and techniques regarding cutlery and food preparation, that it has improved my life in my kitchen tremendously! The presentation is fun, and what is presented is highly valuable! The videography is also quite good, as its very easy to see the presented techiques. Unless you're already a trained chef or your mother/father was gifted with cutlery and passed those skills along to you, you can learn from this DVD!

Thoroughly, enjoyable and informative
I really wanted to give 5-stars to this wonderful DVD on Mastering Knife Skills by Chef Mike C. & Chef Olivier Said, except for one aspect that was disappointing for a kitchen amateur, like myself. After making only one passing reference to the traditional French Chef Knife, the remainder of the DVD focused on using the shorter, flat, Asian style, Chef Knife. I can understand this is because it's Mike C's preface, but for more complete instruction, I really wish there could have been equal time for the use of the French Chef Knife. Nevertheless, the excellent information in this DVD is delivered in a very entertaining manner by two very funny characters. I would definitely purchase any future presentations they produce. Their Website is www.KitchenOnFire.com

Awesome DVD and I still have 10 fingers!
This was a complete guide to using knives in the kitchen, which may sound dry, but was funny and entertaining. It is a great price and great value for anyone looking to sharpen their own cooking skills.

Plus these guys teach cooking classes in Berkeley at Kitchen on Fire, so I can check them out in person!