Prospective Students

• 12 state-of-the-art specialty cooking, bar and wine labs
• fully equipped classrooms and computer labs with Smart classroom automation/AV and featuring the most current industry software
• The renowned Siegfried's Dining Room, a 120-seat restaurant staffed by students and open to the public offering student prepared gourmet meals
• Chef School faculty and staff are top industry professionals with experience at some of the world's finest hotels, resorts and restaurants and who continue to be involved in the industry
• New "City Café - Bake Shop"

Top Honours:

• Our Chef School students have won over 100 Canadian and International awards
• 85% of our graduates were employed within 6 months of graduation

Come See What's Cooking at our "Discovery Days"!

To attend a Chef School Discovery Day Information Session, please register on-line.

Career Fairs
Every year the George Brown Chef School invites the industry to come in and join us for a career fair. Students have the opportunity to meet with industry, speak with human resources and enquire about future employment with our partners after they graduate. This annual event takes place every February at our campus.

VIDEO DEMONSTRATIONS

Culinary Techniques with Chef Peter Rohner:

The following videos were developed by Chef Peter Rohner, a member of the George Brown Chef School faculty. This demonstration of a variety of culinary techniques provides an example of ways Chef Rohner has linked learning in his practical and theory classes.

If you know your butt from your spine, read no further. Did I fail to mention we're talking about knives?

The anatomy of the knife might be too advanced for the average cook but as everyone who's ever lopped off the tip of a finger knows, you need the proper blade for the job. There's more than one way to skin a chicken - and it's not with a butter knife.

The workhorse of the kitchen is the chef's knife, a large, pointy, triangular blade that logs far more hours chopping, slicing, dicing and mincing than most of the metal in the knife block.

It comes in a glittering array of choices, from knives named after Samurai warriors to those endorsed by celebrity chefs. Anyone for the Rachael Ray Gus-to Grip? And who could forget the Gin-su knife, which was touted by a manic chef who sawed a pop can in half to prove how sharp it was.

At George Brown College, students learn that most knife blades are made from a combination of carbon and steel, carbon and stainless steel or just stainless steel. Knives made of the last material are the hardest to keep sharp.

And that should be the primary consideration when purchasing a knife, according to John Higgins, head of the college's chef school. A dull blade means you have to apply more pressure to the knife, which causes a deeper wound when it slips, as no doubt it will. A sharp knife lets the cook work faster and it doesn't bruise produce. The only downside to carbon and steel knives is that they tend to discolour and have to be oiled to prevent rust stains.

If a salesperson can't tell you what a knife is made of, "just walk out," Higgins advises.

How the knife feels in the hand is important. Higgins notes that he has big hands, while some of his students have more delicate digits. So one size does not fit all and the knife should feel like an extension of your fingers. Higgins prefers wooden handles but the school uses what they call poly reds, which have handles made of polypropylene.

A good bolster, which is located between the blade and the handle, helps protect fingers from accidents and give the knife better balance in the hand.

Knives that have been forged - fashioned from metal in a furnace - are considered superior to those that have been stamped, or cut out of a sheet of metal. The tang, the metal that extends from the blade into the handle, gives the knife durability, weight and balance and some aficionados insist it is better to have one that extends all the way to the butt of the handle, though the red polys used at George Brown, like most plastic knives, feature what's called a rat tail tang embedded in the plastic. They are perfectly serviceable. The school's bookstore stocks the red polys along with Gusthof, Henkel and Victorinox knives, the brand preferred by the chef, simply because that's what he has always used.

A knife is like a car: you should take it for a test drive. A sales person should be willing to take it out of the package so you can weigh it in your hand.

If not, you're in Ginsu territory, which the burly Scottish chef considers "cheap and nasty". But you don't have to pay $200 or $300 for a knife, either.

"It's not necessarily the name," he says. "Is it going to be easy to sharpen and will it last?"

Value added

There's one food on Earth that was not meant to be cut with a knife and that's the bagel. Emergency room doctors see so many tissue and ligament injuries from people who tried to saw one in half while holding it in their palm that they've coined a term to describe the injury: bagel hand. If the job falls to you, use a serrated knife and place the bagel flat so you can slice it horizontally. When half way through, stand it on end, grip the upper half with your hand, and finish the job by slicing downward.

KNIFE TECHNIQUES WITH CHEF JOHN HIGGINS

Do you have questions about how to select, sharpen or care for your knives? What are the different types of knives and what are their uses? Get the answer to these questions and many more on the video demonstration by Chef John Higgins, Director George Brown Chef School.

• Knife Techniques Introduction
  
  
• Knife Techniques - How to Purchase a Knife
  
  
• Knife Techniques - How to Sharpen a Knife
  
  
• Knife Techniques - The Sharpening Stone
  
  
• Knife Techniques - Safety
  
  
• Knife Techniques - The French Knife
  
  
• Knife Techniques - The Paring Knife
  
  
• Knife Techniques - The Carving Knife
  
  
• Knife Techniques - Care and Upkeep

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Revised: November 30, 2009