We’ll continue to work together through every step of the recipes we make in class, but now you’ll also get to confirm and expand your learning experience with playful homework and a follow-up review session. Read more about this new opportunity below.
Cooking Classes with Review Sessions
CLASS 83 • Wed, Sept 7 [1–5pm]: DROP COOKIE CLASSICS
with Review Session on Wed, Sept 21 [10am–12pm]
CLASS 84 • Wed, Oct 5 [10am–2pm]: STUFFED VEGETABLES
with Review Session on Wed, Oct 19 [10am–12pm]
CLASS 85 • Wed, Nov 2 [10am–2pm]: HOLIDAY STEW POT
with Review Session on Wed, Nov 16 [10am–12pm]
CLASS 86 • Sat, Dec 10 [4–8pm]: THE OLIVE HARVEST
with Review Session on Wed, Jan 4, 2012 [10am–12pm]
Tuition: $95 per class with review session.
For Sign-Up and general class info, refer to: Class Information.
For more information about the new Review Sessions, these Class Descriptions, and Private Party Group Classes, please read on...
Confirm and Expand Your Learning
After you’ve had several weeks to use the class recipes on your own at home, we’ll gather again to report back, problem solve and exchange new insights. To learn from and support each other in the ongoing practice of discovering how to most easily make good cooking an essential part of our lives.
Because we don’t have to do this alone. Both the backbone Mother Recipes and a vital sense of community can help us redefine our relationship with the daily need to nourish ourselves as well as others. To even start looking forward to and find joy in that process. To inspire both our confidence and creativity. To own it and use it.
So why not begin by signing up for a fresh commitment? To make the most of these guidelines for energizing your self and your cooking as you leave frustrating limits behind. To choose retention over detention. Any day of the week. And to take time out with other good cooks to share in a generous helping of coffee talk and cookies.
Class Descriptions
CLASS 83 • Wed, Sept 7 [1–5pm]: DROP COOKIE CLASSICS
with Review Session on Wed, Sept 21 [10–12pm]
Chocolate chip must be the most beloved drop cookie ever known. People crave them mounded, flat, cakey, crunchy, barely cooked, two bite-sized and ginormous. We each have our favorite qualifiers. I go for crispy on the outside and chewy soft on the inside. Apparently so do all the students who have eaten them here and urged me to offer this class. No matter what your personal preferences, the basic formula for making drop cookies is always ready and willing to accept countless additions and subtractions. You do the math. Simply cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs and vanilla, stir in the flour mixture and then add the goody bits. Just for a start, that could mean chocolate chips or chunks, nuts, dried fruit, oatmeal, and/or coconut. Then what about cocoa powder, molasses, rum, brandy, candied orange peel, praline, crystallized ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and allspice? The trick is in knowing when to add how much and many of which, and that requires more experience than regular raw dough snitching can provide.
So come get acquainted with the easy guidelines and favorite combinations you can learn to depend on in my Mother Recipe. Then you’ll get to scoop and bake these satisfying cookies to eat hot out of the oven, composed but still gooey warm, actually cooled on the rack or grabbed later from your own stash in the freezer. Whatever makes your mouth water. We’re heading back to school right after Labor Day with cookies for our lunch box, an afternoon snack or late night treat. To make for a friend or have on hand for the holidays. My husband even thinks if oatmeal’s in the mix, then they qualify for breakfast. But we’ll savor our class creations at teatime after the oven’s turned off and we get to sit down around the table with a cuppa. Bring your crayons and I’ll pour you a glass of milk instead, if that makes everything all better.
CLASS 84 • Wed, Oct 5 [10am–2pm]: STUFFED VEGETABLES
with Review Session on Wed, Oct 19 [10–12pm]
What’s not to love about a stuffed baked potato? Creamy, crusty mouthfuls of heaven oozing butter and cheese, maybe slippery sweet onions and salty bites of bacon. As far as I can tell, there’s only one answer to that question. But let’s not forget about all the other vegetables out there just waiting to get stuffed. The last of our sunny summer fling with tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. Both premature and out-of-control zucchinis, hearty autumn pumpkins and keeper winter squashes. Umami mushrooms from the damp forest floor. And don’t forget onions — always eager to please the whole year round.
So many different sizes, shapes and varieties offering themselves up for a little nibble, side dish or even full-on meal. It’s up to you how involved you want to get. Because this harvest garden of Eden is ready to be taken advantage of. For either an occasional one-night stand or as the basis for developing a reliable and sustaining relationship. We’ll consider the options in class. From your first choice of host vegetable to all the possible fillers, binders, enrichments, herbs, spices, meaty hits and flavor spikes that could be invited to join in. This Mother Recipe will give you sound advice. So you can go home knowing how to keep things simple or else encourage them to develop into something as deliciously complicated as your little heart desires.
CLASS 85 • Wed, Nov 2 [10am–2pm]: HOLIDAY STEW POT
with Review Session on Wed, Nov 16 [10–12pm]
The holidays. I know. We have such a love-hate relationship with them. All the planning, shopping, cooking, cleaning, drinking, eating, laughing and crying. The hopes, the dreams, the dread. The disappointment, frustrations, and eternal joy to the world. Every thing and body all decked out and dressed up. Of course, we only want what’s best. But so much else seems to get in the way, no matter how hard we try. Well, here comes Mother. Only this time she has a whole menu in mind. A Mother Menu. One that not only honors our memory foods, but considers the real needs of everyone involved — the cook included! So this year we get to take a lesson from the past and opt for turning down the heat. To take ourselves out of that logistical pressure cooker and into one harmonious pot full of everything wonderful. In fact, there’s no more traditional fare than a slow-cooked stew. For any night’s dinner with your family, friends or relations. Imagine moist chunks of the already roasted bird, be it turkey, chicken or duck. (You could even use ham, lamb or pork. In class we’ll do duck.) The mushrooms, onions, carrots and butternut squash braised into sweetness. The broth gone to gravy. Then everything folded together for a brief communal simmer. And if you’re wondering about the mashed potatoes, rest assured they’ll be there at the heart of things. Made in a simpler waste-not-want-not way and lavished with creamed leeks. All the components cooked ahead in stages, dishes done and flavors left alone to mingle and marry.
Then on the day of celebration, just heat up, ladle out and pass around. Your glorious harvest stew topped off with a mound of mashed potatoes right in the center of each bowl. Yum. All you need is a spoon. What more could you want? I think it’s that special dressing we can’t stop eating as well as the salad there’s never enough room for. So why not let everyone get right to the goods by pairing up those ingredients to lead things off with a refreshing new twist? What I’m suggesting here is a bright winter greens salad studded with both fresh and dried fruits (like apples, pears, persimmons or pomegranates; dried cranberries, currants or raisins) and tossed into a mother lode of crunchy yet fork tender croutons with balsamic citronette and toasted nut oil. Now all bases are covered. Even any leftovers are already assembled. Guess it’s about time we learned to leave our stewing for the pot. To free ourselves up to sit down at the feast. Of giving and gratitude all season long. Thanks for your help, Mom.
CLASS 86 • Sat, Dec 10 [4–8pm]: THE OLIVE HARVEST
with Review Session and epiphanies for the New Year
on Wed, Jan 4, 2012 [10–12pm]
‘Tis the season and this year, Beth Sylver and Gene Sexton of Sylverleaf Olive Oil will join us as the bright stars in our annual holiday appetizers and aperitifs class. You may already have had the complete pleasure of getting to know Beth while sampling their handpicked and cold-pressed extra virgin olive oils to buy at either the Petaluma or Marin farmers’ markets. And as a highly trained professional taster, Gene is not only their oil blender (and an all-around great guy), but also a founding member of the University of California at Davis’ prestigious international olive oil tasting panel. So bring along any questions you might like to have answered by experts literally in the field.
We’ll be making both sweet and savory recipes developed to showcase the fruits of their considerable labor. In fact, their organic Verde oil will only be two days old when it arrives full of spice on our doorstep along with them. And then there’s the organic Estate, Foothills and End blends. Each one a different composition of aroma, taste, intensity, balance and complexity. You’ll not only see, but get to smell and taste the differences along with hearing illuminating explanations about how it all comes into being. So start thinking baked goods with rosemary, olives, pine nuts and lemon. Dried fruits and chocolate. And something seafoody with seasonal red and green sauces. Then the simplest of all dressings for vegetables still crisp from the cold. Come lift your glass to feed body and soul. With timeless dishes brought to us down through the ages. Now let’s toast the past and our future together!
NOTE: Students will get to pre-order Sylverleaf olive oils and hand-crafted soaps to take home from class ⎯ for stocking stuffers, holiday hostess gifts or to have on hand for your own cooking!
For more of the juicy bits in their serendipitous story, please read it all at: www.sylverleaf.com
Private Party Group Classes
You initiate the gathering and we'll take care of the rest! Hassle-free and easily Dutch treat, this is a great way to enrich your life by making it simple to get together with your own group of friends, family or co-workers for a shared and joyful experience.
EITHER pick the current schedule class subject that suits you best and arrange to book it for sometime that same class week -OR- inquire about alternative available menu options. Please contact me to discuss all possible dates and times. (refer to Contact)
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