Classes are OK--not great. My birthday is in December, so hubby found this school and purchased the Christmas Brunch class for 3. (Hubby, myself, and our adult son.) The food was all good, but wasn't really full of things I needed to learn how to make. As a home cook who watches her fair share of cooking shows, I was unimpressed. Here was the menu:
Baked Brioche French Toast with Fresh Berry Compote
Holiday Crab Cakes with Smoked Tomato & Red Pepper Sauce
Pomegranate Arugula Salad
Fresh Fruit Parfait with Greek Yogurt & Homemade Granola
Pumpkin Pecan Muffins with Cardamom Honey Butter
They kind of talked through the menu with the whole class (about 24 people), and then--as some others have mentioned--everyone picked a dish and then worked only on some portion of that one dish. I HATE cilantro, and have no idea why you would put that into a crab cake (love or hate, the amount that they used would mean that you would lose the other, subtle crab flavors), so I worked at that station with about 4 other people, so that I (and another classmate) could get a cilantro-less cake. Son made granola with 2 others, and hubby made muffins with a group. All of the food was good, and everyone got a little bit of everything, there were seconds available on many of the dishes, and nobody left hungry.
Here's what I learned: buy lump crab meat from Costco (Phillips brand). If you are going to put goat cheese on a salad, toss the salad with the dressing first, and add the goat cheese on top at the end.
And, as the recipes go, they email them out the day before, and don't provide printed copies or anyplace to take notes while you're actually there. (If you do take a class and want to take notes, print at home before you arrive.) The good thing is that this does make it easy to make changes. Like the fact that the "Smoked Tomato and Red Pepper Sauce" didn't actually have red peppers in it... but they did not change the recipe title on the set we were emailed.
As a gift, hubby also bought me a knife skills class, as I have expressed an interest to hone (get it !?!) my skills a bit more. This time I used the "Notes" app on my my phone. As with the first class, first they talked through the skills and the menu (stir fried chicken with veggies) with the whole class. Then everyone rotated around each of five stations: onions, carrots, celery, bell pepper, and deboning half a chicken. Everything we cut up was used by the chefs to make "lunch"--which ended up being more of a light snack than a meal.
Here's what I learned: the Japanese knives that I own and love so much are the wrong ones to be cutting carrots with (blades are too delicate). Always cut onions in half (top to stem) first. Bell pepper ribs are bitter. To fry chicken breast chunks, dredge in 1 part flour to 2 parts cornstarch (cornstarch adds crispness, but won't brown.) And something they didn't teach, but I did notice: use a piece of rubberized shelf liner under your cutting board to keep it from slipping.
While helpful, this just wasn't what I expected. Which kind of cutting board should you use: wood or plastic? Why? (They use plastic.) Nothing about cutting herbs, chiffonading, or rocking a knife to cut. A small demonstration of knife sharpening, with no hands on experience to see if you're doing it correctly. Save your money and watch the 12 minute knife skills video that Epicurious posted to YouTube. read more