Are cooking classes worth the price tag?

[Lindacakes]

I take classes at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York from time to time.

I try to choose carefully and take classes that will teach me a skill not easily acquired on my own and when I get in class -- I work. Hard.

Most people who take classes are not overly interested in pushing their skill level, they want to have fun or pass the time. The smaller number of students, the better, and if you can get near-private instruction, all the better.

It helps to talk to the teacher about what you want. I took a pie class with Carole Walter, not because I wanted to learn how to make pie, I wanted to push my skill level through the roof. When we had a lunch break, and we were sitting around the table, I told her this in the form of the story that I wanted to make pie like my mother -- who made the best pie I've ever had and ruined a lot of pie for me.

Carole took me under her wing and helped me, pushed me, and at the end of class said to me: "I want you to go home and make six more pies this week." It took me a couple of weeks but I did it.

And I accomplished my goal -- I'm an accomplished and confident pie baker and my pies are better than anything I could possibly buy and as good as my mom's.

I was lucky with Carole, she's an excellent teacher. Not all of them are, and you have to be aggressive in the class, making sure you can see the demonstration, making sure you get to try everything with your own hands.

[Todd in Chicago]

Folks....

I'm lucky enough to live in Chicago and have several choices. I recently found Kendall College which specialized in culinary degrees. They also offer "non-professional" courses as well and thus far I have taken a 6 hour "Sauces" class @ $120 and a 3 hour "Knife Skills" class @ $60. Both were well worth it. Below is my play-by-play of the "Sauces" class, and hopefully you can see why I think it was worth it. It may very well be worth someones while to seek out a similar institution in their area.

Cheers...

Todd in Chicago

I had a great time today attending a 6 hour “Sauces” class at Kendall College in our neighborhood. Kendall College is known for their culinary program and offers full career training as well as these “Enthusiast” classes. I was very impressed with the quality of the entire process of the class - from Chef Brandy who was our teacher, the four (yes FOUR) additional assistants who made everything run smoothly, the facilities themselves (cool to work in a professional kitchen), the organization and quality of the content. Oh yeah, and the tastes and smells! I would rate this overall experience very high.

I arrived about 5 minutes prior to the class and checked in at the lobby. Everyone meets in the lobby and then they take you up to the working floor when everyone has arrived. Before they take you up, they go over some of the ground rules; such as where the washing stations will be, restrooms, and things like if you use your phone or camera to take a picture, you are supposed to wash your hands at the washing station. They also passed out the recipes that were going to be covered in class. **Note….at this point I realized I was the only male in the class since my cooking buddy Rex decided to head to Mexico…<sigh>.

Once in the kitchen, everyone was provided with a workspace and a place to put their jackets, etc. Each workspace was set up with a cutting board, a chefs knife, and a wooden spoon. Also, chef’s hats, an apron, and a side towel were provided. Once everyone put on their “Chef” gear and washed their hands, class started.

We spent about 15 minutes introducing ourselves and covering the basics of sauces such as that there are 5 mother sauces:

• Sauce Bechamel

• Sauce Veloute

• Sauce Tomat (AKA Tomato Sauce)

• Sauce Espagnole (AKA Sauce Brune or Brown Sauce)

• Hollandaise Sauce

Most all other sauces are derivatives of the mother sauces or derivatives of derivatives of the mother sauces.

And with that, we jumped right in.

First up was to create our first mother sauce, Espagnole. Lucky for us, they already had the brown stock so we didn’t have to waste several hours making this. ;-) Chef Brandy split us up into teams and I was working with Joan (a personal chef who cooks meals for families, etc) and Tracy (just a gal from Lincoln Park who wanted to learn how to make sauces!). I think we made a great team. We chopped our veggies and got it started and made our roux, and then put in our stock. This would now need to simmer for 45 minutes.

While our Espagnole was simmering, Chef Brandy taught us about vinaigrettes. A vinaigrette typically has 3 components, an oil, and acid, and seasonings. The usual ratio is 2-3 parts oil to 1 part acid. Different types of oils can be used (for example olive oil for Italian, Canola with Sesame or Mirin for Asian, etc) for different flavor profiles. The acid can also vary from vinegars to citrus. Most often a touch of Dijon mustard is also added as an emulsifier. Chef Brandy seemed to think that you can almost never miss by adding a touch of shallots and garlic as well. The teams were then provided access to many different oils, acids, Dijon, and seasoning (fresh herbs, etc) and each team was to create a vinaigrette which would then be tasted by Chef Brandy for critique. We chose a standard red wine vinaigrette with shallots, garlic, thyme, parsely, Dijon, olive oil and red wine vinegar. I thought it was just “ok” and for some reason didn’t blow my mind. The rest of our team thought it was the best of the class.

By then our Espagnole sauce was about done simmering and we would move on to our next sauce. This sauce would be a derivative of the Espagnole sauce and is another classical French sauce – a demi glace. All of the sauces that we would make today would follow the traditional techniques, and actually the demi glace was an easy one. Simply mix 1 part Espagnole with 1 part brown stock and reduce by half – i.e.; more simmering.

While our Espagnole and brown stock mixture was simmering and becoming a demi glace, we began our next project – a caramel sauce for Mexican chocolate soufflé. For this we had to create a double-boiler to melt the Mexican chocolate and the butter, and whip the egg whites with the mixer (this was one part of the class which was not perfect as we had some delays as the mixer was refusing to cooperate – eventually we got it work and everyone got there whites whipped). I also got the opportunity <sigh> to butter and sugar 8 ramekins. My teammates were making the caramel (very easy) and mixing the chocolate and butter. I also whipped our whites into shape and Tracy then folded in our whipped whites into the chocolate/egg mixture. I then filled the ramekins while our caramel sauce finished.

By this time we were just heading into our lunch break, but one last thing to do. Create two last sauces! Turn our demi glace into a Madeira wine sauce! Ok…this is hardly a new task/sauce, but it really does make a difference – when the demi glace is complete, stir in 2 ozs of Madeira wine and reduce to sauce consistancy. Voila! Madeira wine sauce!

The other sauce we made right before the lunch break was a classic (and another mother sauce) – Hollandaise! This actually is a bit tricky for one person and it is recommended that two people do this one. Although I’ve made it at home by myself, it is much easier with two people (or even easier using the blender method!). We mixed our egg yolks with freshly squeezed lemon juice, and over a double boiler added our melted butter. Everyone in the class had success with making the Hollandaise….yay! Chef Brandy and team checked all sauces at various steps in the process offering us valuable insights and tips not found in the printed recipes – they were fantastic! For this sauce I worked with only Joan as this was a two person sauce and Tracy paired up with someone else. Joan and I had great team work on this one and actually had enough time for her to do a batch and for me to do a batch.

Time for lunch and to sample our work!

Lunch consisted of Beef Tenderloin cooked by our great kitchen assistants, topped with our own Madeira sauce, a salad with our own vinaigrette, and grilled asparagus with our Hollandaise sauce! How fun…..and good!

We had about 30 minutes or so for lunch and upon our return we had our chocolate soufflé’s with our caramel sauce. I was not as impressed with this one – maybe it wasn’t sweet enough for me.

Time to start our after lunch session. The first sauce after lunch was a Gastrique! The recipe we were making was for an Orange Gastrique. This is done by adding sugar, water, orange zest, star anise, orange juice, AND of course, the ubiquitous brown stock. This gets boiled and reduced to a syrupy consistency. While this was reducing, off to our next recipe/task!

This was a simple and fun one – we got to make compound butter. Everyone got slab of butter and access to fresh herbs and veggies. This was an individual task and everyone would end up getting their butters rolled tight and stuck in the icebox for them to bring home. I used Thyme, Shallots, and a bit of Garlic in mine. Smelled wonderful!

Our next sauce would be another mother sauce – Sauce Bechamel. Lucky for us Chef Brandy had already started part of this which was to create an onion piquet (a half an onion with a bay leaf “nailed” to the cut side of it using cloves) and simmer it in whole milk for 20 mins. All we had to do was to make a light roux, add the warm milk and whip into velvetiness – and then for the coup de grace, we added cheddar cheese and cayenne. Of course, everyone’s béchamel based cheese sauce was critiqued by Chef Brandy and then all were emptied into a giant pan of pre-cooked macaroni. Those were then mixed well, covered with breadcrumbs, and yes, more melted butter and popped into the oven.

At this point, our Gastriques were just about done and Chef Brandy seared up some duck breasts and sliced into thin slices and plated them for tasting. At the very end of our reduction of the gastrique, it was pressed through a chinois and then honey and butter were added. This was the most AWESOME sauce (I think) of the class. This was then drizzled over the duck breasts. OMG…..delish! And my teammates Tracy and Joan didn’t really want their samples – so I lucked out and got them. YUMMO!

We then moved on to our last sauce and project of the day – Poached Sole with a Beurre Blanc sauce. We poached extremely thin sole fillets in a liquid of Clementine juice, white wine, butter and shallots. Chef Brandy showed us how to use parchment paper to make a “poaching lid” so that the fish would be cooked from not only below but from above as the steam built up under our parchment paper lid. The fish cooked very quickly and was removed. The poaching liquid was then pressed through a chinois and was put back into another pot and was reduced. We then used this to make the beurre blanc. Chef Brandy really indicated the importance of using cold butter when making the beurre blanc. Cold butter was added slowly to the reduce poaching liquid over gentle heat. The sauce was then ladled over the fillet of sole and the plates were garnished with Clementine supreme’s and mint chiffonade. This was very good…..how could it not be?

Oops we forgot about the mac ‘n cheese! It was pulled out of the oven in the nick of time and everyone got to sample that as well. We thanked Chef Brandy and our 4 assistants and everyone agreed what a great time it was.

Woohooo! What fun!

Cheers....

Todd in Chicago

[ElsieD]

Todd, what a great write-up!

[Alex]

So regional classes are out, but what about a good bread-baking class?

Come to the next Heartland Gathering if tino27 will be there -- like this one in 2010. (Actually, come to the next one anyway.)

[mskerr]

So regional classes are out, but what about a good bread-baking class?

Come to the next Heartland Gathering if tino27 will be there -- like this one in 2010. (Actually, come to the next one anyway.)

Wow, Heartland Gatherting sounds like a great time. Will keep an eye out for updates on the next. I have passed through the heartland quite a few times, but I don't think my road food experiences so far have done the slightest bit of justice to the region. I can't wait to try some proper regional specialties!

Todd, cheers for such an in-depth account of the classes! I am occasionally in Chicago, and am also very keen to travel whenever I can afford it, especially when it's justified by some sort of food education. I think a good knife skills class is definitely in order. Thanks!

Edited March 7, 2012 by mskerr (log)

[David Ross]

Did a test run tonight for my April 15 class. The recipes are an updated version of some dishes I did on MasterChef USA on PBS. I need to up the spice quotient for the rub on the lamb, maybe a bit of cayenne. Other than that, I think things are ready to go.

The menu will be Five-Spice Rack of Lamb, Steamed Rice, (yes, there are some people who don't know how to properly steam rice), and Braised Baby Bok Choy. The sauce for the Lamb is a Litchee-Plum Conserve. It has the beautiful fragrance of fresh rose petals.

My classes have been selling out at 16 students and the fee for this class will be $35.00. A bargain really, considering the menu and personalized instruction.

[gfweb]

Beautiful and definitely a steal!

[David Ross]

Unfortunately, the Rack of Lamb class won't happen. Got cancelled today due to only 5 students having signed-up. We need at least 12-16 to make it worth it for the store in terms of my time, the ingredients and post-class sales. That's one of the cold, hard, realities of those of us in the kitchen who teach--there has to be a break-even point and if you don't meet it, (regardless of how important it is to the students), you can't make a cooking class work.

[Dan Rose]

Any tips on where to go to learn artistic plating techniques?

[john mike mitchell]

cooking classes are good but it you daily got some new ideas about new delicious recipe..

[et alors]

If you are keen to travel, can I recommend Thailand?

I have taken many of the half-day market tour + learn a couple recipe Thai tourist classes, but never got my head around Thai cooking. Then I decided to take the intensive class at SITCA, and it just really built the Thai approach and way of thinking into my muscle memory. Truly amazing. Now, admittedly, it's expensive (especially in Thailand where everything is ridiculously cheap) but it's aimed at chefs and advanced amateurs, so there is no talking down to you and teach is a former five-star restaurant chef and knows her stuff. All her recipes are adaptations of family and friends.

http://www.sitca.net/

My last meal in Bangkok was at David Thompson's exquisite nahm , and I realize that my time at SITCA had not only made me a better cook but a better diner as well... I understood the food I was eating the way I understand French (the cuisine I know best). There is a definite philosophy to Thai cooking, and when a fellow referred to it as fusion Thai, I could correct him and speak to the classic principals Thompson's food so richly and tastily embodies.

I have silly amounts of photos from SITCA here I hope to write up recipes with them upon my return.

A wonderful wonderful experience.. I recommend it highly.

A couple other small points; I got my knife skills at a Draeger's course, and it was very useful. Cheese making was valuable also. But most aren't... you just follow recipes together. bleah.

And check out Wild About Mushrooms... his mailing list hits on forays and he's extremely knowledgable.

http://www.wildaboutmushrooms.net/

Finally a question; anyone know of butchering classes in SF/bay area/peninsular? I'd like to understand how to take apart fish, chicken, pigs...

(edited for clarity and splling)

Edited April 24, 2012 by et alors (log)

[Todd in Chicago]

Folks....

I'll be attending a bread making class ($85) at Kendall College in Chicago this weekend. I'll report back on the class, so far I've taken 3 classes there and they have been FANTASTIC! Well worth the $$ in my opinion. I also see that Le Cordon Bleu is offering "MasterChef" classes based on the TV show. Those also sound intriguing but haven't seen any that pique my interest yet.

Cheers...

Todd in Chicago

[rod rock]

Folks....

I'll be attending a bread making class ($85) at Kendall College in Chicago this weekend. I'll report back on the class, so far I've taken 3 classes there and they have been FANTASTIC! Well worth the $$ in my opinion. I also see that Le Cordon Bleu is offering "MasterChef" classes based on the TV show. Those also sound intriguing but haven't seen any that pique my interest yet.

Cheers...

Todd in Chicago

Congratulations, and good luck! I hope you will share your new experience and knowledge with us

[mskerr]

So almost a year has passed since I started this thread, and I have yet to take a cooking class nor find one that teaches what I'm looking for at an affordable price for me. Funny enough, I could take an entire yearlong non-degree program for aspiring culinary professionals at the City College San Fran for free ($500 for supplies) if I could handle living in the city for a year (not gonna happen), but the three- or five- day classes that interest me run $600-$2000 - usually $1000+ for three days, without accommodation. I have found plenty of three-hour classes that I'd take if traveling (on knife skills, for ex) but as far as just getting a bit of basic instruction on proper roasting, braising, sauté etc, or baking artisanal bread, the multiple-day courses I've looked at (Zingerman's Bake-cations, CIA bootcamp, Santa Fe Cooking School bootcamp, San Fran Baking Institute, to name a few) are just shockingly expensive to me.

(As an aside, I sometimes wonder if these classes are geared toward the sort of home cook who has a Viking Range and copper pans and a primo stand mixer with all the attachments, but hardly cooks, to paraphrase another thread on here... you know, someone with money to burn who would be thrilled to spend $85 on a class to learn what Harissa is).

I could take some community college classes, but for one thing, I'm not sure how good the local school is. Also, my schedule and my partner's are both totally erratic and we share a vehicle and the school is an hour away, and we are hoping to take off for a few months, etc, etc, so I can't really commit to regular attendance for a 4 month class.

Any more leads for me?

Or can someone lend me their Italian grand mom for some cooking lessons?

In the meanwhile, I have just used my latest paycheck to order some James Peterson's books (Sauces, Soups, and Cooking), the Zwilling (sp?) knife skills book, Taste What You're Missing, Ideas in Food: Why Great Recipes Work, and some new kitchen equipment, so that should keep my self-education truckin' for a while, plus the constant stacks of cookbooks from the library, America's Test Kitchen and Ripert videos, McGee books, not to mention eG.

[Todd in Chicago]

So almost a year has passed since I started this thread, and I have yet to take a cooking class nor find one that teaches what I'm looking for at an affordable price for me. Funny enough, I could take an entire yearlong non-degree program for aspiring culinary professionals at the City College San Fran for free ($500 for supplies) if I could handle living in the city for a year (not gonna happen), but the three- or five- day classes that interest me run $600-$2000 - usually $1000+ for three days, without accommodation. I have found plenty of three-hour classes that I'd take if traveling (on knife skills, for ex) but as far as just getting a bit of basic instruction on proper roasting, braising, sauté etc, or baking artisanal bread, the multiple-day courses I've looked at (Zingerman's Bake-cations, CIA bootcamp, Santa Fe Cooking School bootcamp, San Fran Baking Institute, to name a few) are just shockingly expensive to me.

(As an aside, I sometimes wonder if these classes are geared toward the sort of home cook who has a Viking Range and copper pans and a primo stand mixer with all the attachments, but hardly cooks, to paraphrase another thread on here... you know, someone with money to burn who would be thrilled to spend $85 on a class to learn what Harissa is).

I could take some community college classes, but for one thing, I'm not sure how good the local school is. Also, my schedule and my partner's are both totally erratic and we share a vehicle and the school is an hour away, and we are hoping to take off for a few months, etc, etc, so I can't really commit to regular attendance for a 4 month class.

Any more leads for me?

Or can someone lend me their Italian grand mom for some cooking lessons?

In the meanwhile, I have just used my latest paycheck to order some James Peterson's books (Sauces, Soups, and Cooking), the Zwilling (sp?) knife skills book, Taste What You're Missing, Ideas in Food: Why Great Recipes Work, and some new kitchen equipment, so that should keep my self-education truckin' for a while, plus the constant stacks of cookbooks from the library, America's Test Kitchen and Ripert videos, McGee books, not to mention eG.

There is so much "free" good stuff out there in terms of audio and video on the web. Something I stumbled across which I thought was awesome was The Stella Culinary School podcast. I have a somewhat longish commute (about an hour each way) and listened to this whole series. Look it up on the web....I think it's amazing that we have these great people who put this content out there for "free". Unbelieveable that I can listen to "How to make stock" on my ride home!

Todd in Chicago

[mskerr]

Nice! I happen to have tons of time to listen to stuff as well, so that works great. will check it out.