The fun way to step up your culinary skills
Although I have been cooking most of my adult life, I am always looking for ways of improving. The best way is through classes. You don’t have to go to Cordon Bleu or George Brown, why not try a local cooking class in your area. Prices of classes depend on if they are hands on or demonstration only. Hands on classes help hone your skills, look for hands on classes where the instructor demonstrates a dish then you go to your station and duplicate the recipe. These are the classes where you make every dish as opposed to those where you are paired up with another participant and you get to make the salad dish instead of the main course. Don’t get me wrong, those classes can be a lot of fun if you know many of the people in the class, but if you get a dud of a partner , you are destined to go home disappointed because all you got to do was tear lettuce. Hands on classes tend to be more expensive as the venue needs to have multiple stations with expensive equipment.
The best place for hands on classes that I have taken is The Dirty Apron
in Vancouver on Beatty Street. Average price is $150 per class but you get to cook an average of 3 courses, a folder with the recipes, an apron and wine with each course. The class I attended in January was one called “On the Bone”. The recipes included Korean Style BBQ Beef Short Ribs with a Shiso and Thai Basil Salad, Hoisin Glazed Baby Back Ribs with an Asian Sesame Slaw and Dijon Crusted Rack of Lamb with red Wine Sauce and Roasted Roma Tomatoes. It was an evening full of surprises as other participants included, a good friend of my niece, a neighbour my sister had never met, a high school friend of my culinary mentor and a fellow who worked for someone I know in Moscow.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Demo only class. The most inexpensive and best value for money are the ones run by the provincial liquor stores. In Vancouver you could attend a Demo only class for $35. These classes were taught by local chefs and include 3-4 recipes, a recipe booklet and a flight of wines for each course. Here you get a chance to sample wines from around the world that can range from $10-100 per bottle. The class I attended was called the “Lime in Winter” featuring recipes that included lime zest or lime juice. Featured were Winter Asian Soup, Thai curried chicken and veg, Salmon wellingdon and a fabulous lime panna cotta. The class was headed by Canadian television and print personality Nathan Fong. One of the other instructors is good friend Celine Turrene who invited us to her place to test drive her Valentines day class of lobster ravioli plus. Yummmmmm!
Do a little digging and I’m sure you can find a cooking class to suit you where ever you live.
The fun way to step up your culinary skills
