Hi all, My first cooking class is tonight! It's only 4 people, 3 of whom are good

J

joe

Well-known member
friends of mine, so I have absolutely no rational reason to be nervous.

But of course I'm nervous anyway.

Thanks for all your encouragement last week when the first class was cancelled. I'll let you know how it goes. Here's the menu:

Black Olive Tapenade

Pear and Walnut Salad with gorgonzola-topped fig bread croutons

Coq au Vin with egg noodles

Brussels Sprouts in brown butter

Baked Apple slices with creme fraiche.

 
Wah! I wish I could be there.....

I'll be thinking of you as I am cheering on my 9 y.o. in his Pinewood Derby race and eating take-out pizza.....

Have a great time, Joe!

 
It went fine, not perfect. I had five students, a good number to start. My coq au vin was watery...

I got off to a slow start, figuring out a tricky stovetop. Also, the Le Crueset Dutch oven I used to start my roux was stained, or so I thought, but it was actually dirty and flecks of brown started appearing in the roux. I had to start over with a different pot. (There are lots of chefs who teach there and I guess they don't all clean the pots well).

So I didn't really have time to reduce my sauce how I like, and I got a little messy and disorganized, and I accidentally brought Scotch with me instead of brandy to flambe the chicken. It didn't matter, it tasted great, but because it was an electric stovetop and I'm used to tipping my pan into the flames to ignite it, I had to go out to my car and fumble around for matches while the class talked amongst themselves. In the end, I didn't have the time to reduce the sauce as much as I like.

The kitchen is very well stocked, except for matches, and next time I will have a better grasp of how to use it. I wish I could go back tonight and redo my coq au vin but that will have to wait.

The rest of the menu was just fine, and we had fun. I learned a lot, and I hope the students did too. One friend told me it was worth it just to see how to saute mushrooms without them getting shrunken and watery. (Thank you Julia.)

The owner seemed happy, had a few constructive suggestions, and he liked my friends.

I think I have something to build on here. Thanks again for all the good wishes.

 
When I taught, the students loved to see something go wrong, so I made lemonade out of..

those lemons and used it to my advantage.

You could have gone into an explanation of thickening agents to rescue the thin sauce.

 
Good for you, Joe! Sounds like a big success.

Part of a good cooking class is learning new tricks and techniques, and it sounds like you gave your students good tips. I always think of Julia whose souffle didn't rise, so she renamed it and served it anyway. And my all time favorite Julia when dealing with mistakes she said "Remember, you are alone in the kitchen". I'm sure that you're being too self-critical. Seems like a great class to me.

 
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