Come Home to Cooking

Learn How

To Eat Well at Home with Ease—

We could all use some help. More time, energy and resources. New ways to feel healthy, happy and satisfied at the end of each day. But sometimes the old tried and true ways, or at least what’s behind them, remain the best. And since our ancestors first hunted to gather and eat around the open fire, and later settled down to plant their gardens, orchards, fields and vineyards, we have always had to find ways to make and save things for more challenging times. To put up the harvest for winter, because our survival depended on it. When we couldn’t just run to the store or opt to eat out.

Perhaps our survival still depends on it, in this fast-forward age of distraction, stress and over commitment. To be able to come home to cooking and eating in good company. It’s primal stuff. The best. And what if we only had to think about putting things up for the week instead of the entire winter? To develop the practice of creating a progression of fresh and ready possibilities that could really make a difference in our everyday lives. Learning how to feed our real needs, while also saving our precious time, money and energy. That’s what this year’s seasonal menu and pantry stock classes are all about.

The next set of classes, starting on June 26, will help you set yourself up for summer. We’ll take full advantage of all the tomatoes, beans, squash, peppers and eggplant that flood our gardens and farmers’ markets in this growing season. Blanching, roasting, braising and sautéing them into a frittata appetizer, classic Italian soup, and selection of composed salads. Some for now and some for later. To dish up with wild salmon bellies, simply grilled hot and fast, and make way for shortcakes oozing with berries, peaches and cream. Of course, this is more than you would typically make on your own in one session at home, but these classes are designed to show you many different ways to get started and keep carrying on. All with the added comradery and assurance in many helping hands. So we’ll take our sweet time, pause for refueling breaks, and then feast on the finishing line. Playing together on a cooking holiday you get to take home inside and replay countless times over.

Don’t get me wrong. I love to go out. For a refreshing change, lunch with a friend, or romantic dinner with my husband. To pull myself away from the isolation of computer work, and feel recharged by spontaneous exchanges with other fellow villagers out for a cafe break. But most days when hunger suddenly strikes as we go about our business, I am so grateful to have a pot of soup already made. Vinaigrette, fresh bread and fruit, prepped vegetables and cooked meaty bits to simply provide or inspire the next meal. To take care of us right then and there. Why would I want to go out when I can so easily stay in? And put my feet up. To relax and expand like squash and ripe melons.

No matter how much you may or may not already love to cook, I hope you’ll come join us in class. To learn how good cooking with a flexible game plan can feed you even on the days when you don't have the time and/or energy to do it. So you can have all the tasty, nutritious, and economical benefits of cooking from scratch without always having to start from scratch. So you can learn how to make it easy, and then be able to take it easy all summer long.

Bon Appetit! Kay

For dates, times and sign-up details:
Please see our 2013 Seasonal Class Schedule.

 

Something for Everyone

When Class Starts in Two Weeks—

What do you crave when your tummy starts rumbling? Is it something salted and crunchy or sweet and creamy? Is it that first bite of salad so carefully well dressed? Tender vegetable hot broth soothing down? Or a slab of fresh bread all slathered in butter? Each one with plenty more to come. Or maybe it's a mound of potatoes, bowl full of pasta, or pile of roasted meaty things for nibbling to the bone. A plate of chilled asparagus with homemade mayonnaise or the energizing freshness in perfectly ripe fruit. I know what I'd say. Bring it all on!

What It's Like in Class (2013 update)

We start off by gathering around the central work table for introductory remarks and a description of that cooking session’s recipes and activities. Then we all get to work, either remaining around the work table and/or moving about the kitchen to accomplish the various tasks at hand. During this time we pause for specific directions, observations, tastings and technique demonstrations as appropriate. We also take little breaks to refresh and nourish ourselves, as we coordinate the timing to keep separate activities integrated and moving along. Questions and comments are addressed throughout, and everyone has the leisurely opportunity to learn all the steps involved in every recipe scheduled for that day. Then the moment arrives when everything's done and we sit down to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Having completed the hands-on cooking portion of our extended class experience, the shorter follow-up review session provides us with time set aside to focus our attention on analyzing and absorbing the recipes we've been using. To more thoroughly explore the variations and additional possibilities they represent. For this discussion we sit down around the table either in our dining room or garden courtyard, weather depending. The multi-purpose class recipes are offered as a vital guideline for understanding core concepts that will apply to both your everyday and special occasion cooking.

Many students come with, meet or make friends at Come Home to Cooking, but the intention of these classes is for you to leave feeling more confident and inspired about the supportive role real cooking can play in your life. We are here to celebrate learning as well as to share the joy of living and eating well.

Relaxed and Casual Cooking

With Something for Now and Later Too—

We've all seen that movie. The dreamy one where family and friends gather in the kitchen to work and play in warm light and open-ended time. Cooking, talking, flirting, fighting, learning, laughing, chopping, stirring, tasting side-by-side. No, it’s not Thanksgiving, but there is a real sense of celebration and abundance. We’re there with them for the moment when everything’s ready, someone opens the wine, lights the candles, and everyone makes a pilgrimage to the table, carrying aloft their parade of delectable dishes to pass around for yet more hours of eating and drinking and sharing and joking and debating. Until we all, audience included, finally sit back with satisfied sighs, because the only need left is for sleep.

A Fruitful Jam Session

It was our first. Review Session, that is. Just two weeks after the Drop Cookie Classics class. And although neither canning equipment nor musical instruments were involved, we did gather again to keep playing. To harmonize and improvise together. To share our individual riffs on the Mother Recipe. To figure out what still needed practicing. To continue creating and storing up ideas for the months and years to come.

2011 Harvest Season Class Schedule

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...

2011 Winter-Spring Season Class Schedule

This season we will learn to Cook with Confidence using Mother Recipes—those essential ones that countless other recipes depend upon for their own creation. Learn more about what this means below.

The Mother Stock & Soup Series

CLASS 78 • Wed, Feb 9 [10am–2pm]: HOMEMADE STOCKS & BROTHS
CLASS 79 • Wed, Feb 23 [10am–2pm]: BROTHY VEGETABLE SOUPS
CLASS 80 • Wed, May 4 [10am–2pm]: PUREED & CREAMED SOUPS

The Mother Sauce Series

CLASS 81 • Sat, May 21 [4–8pm]: ROUX & REDUCTION SAUCES
CLASS 82 • Sat, Jun 4 [4–8pm]: EMULSION & VEGETABLE SAUCES

Tuition: $85 per class.
For Sign-Up and general class info, refer to: Class Information.

PLEASE NOTE: If you are sending in your registration fee to sign up for classes in May or June, Kay is out of the country until late April, at which time she will collect and respond to her mail. As always, the postmarked date establishes your priority for claiming any available places in class, so it still makes sense for you to send in your check as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience while waiting for your class confirmation. (March 2011 update)

For more information about Mother Recipes, these Class Descriptions, and Private Party Group Classes, please read on...

2010 Harvest Season Class Schedule

Cycles of Celebration...

In a recent conversation with both friends and fellow cooks about why the same recipe usually turns out at least a little different every time you make it, I thought about how those magical variations hold true with same subject classes as well. Now that Come Home to Cooking is gliding into its fourth year, we’ve been doing this long enough for certain topics to rise to the top and establish themselves as seasonal favorites. Recipes and menus we can all look forward to coming around again and again. It’s reassuring. Like bread rising with the anticipation and fulfillment of the harvest. Like the press of grapes into wine, wild mushroom forays, crab season, blood oranges, the first asparagus, real spring greens, mustard fields, cherries, peaches and tomatoes. So we begin again here with sweet tomato madness and other ripe companions, moving on to balanced fresh salads, slow savory braises and crisp apple pastry. Then it’s time for our cassoulet, big pots of soup and the holiday bash. Cycles of celebration for all that we do have in this time and place together. Every class is different, even same subject ones. I love to watch them take on lives of their own—shaped and made possible by what’s in the market garden, by whether it rains or shines, by the whim of the day, by whatever life had in mind. By each and every one of you.

Hearty Autumn Salads

CLASS 72: Wed, Sept 29 [10am-2pm]

WHOLE GRAIN SALADS with FRESH GREENS & VEGETABLES

When you need something grounding but you still feel like salad, it’s time for a romp in the transitional garden. Everyone knows how we’re supposed to be eating more whole grains, but that doesn’t have to mean, “Now be a good girl and take your vitamins!” Far from the ponderous, muddied creations of hippy days revisited, this class is about tripping the light fantastic instead. We will toss together combinations of bright fresh greens; chewy grains; blanched, roasted and raw vegetables; fresh and dried fruits, lemon juice, wine vinegars, mustard and toasted nut oils for a lively balancing act of flavors, textures and colors...

Back to School

And the First Day of Class...

CLASS 71: Wed, Sept 15 [10am-2pm] 

 TIANS, RATATOUILLE & CAPONATA with Tomatoes, Squash, Eggplant & Peppers 

 

“Look around!” I instructed myself. “It’s such a no brainer.” 

When markets, gardens and countertops are all overflowing with vibrant displays of tomatoes, squash, eggplant and peppers, it’s clearly time to make ratatouille. To both eat right now and save for later. So that’s exactly what we did in the very first Come Home to Cooking class now three years ago. And lining up to debut along with the Ratatouille film created such additional animation that, in fact, one artful student was inspired to arrive with the playful gift of a stuffed Pixar rat to help guide us through the preparation of its namesake dish. [Thank you, Tina.] Re-reading the feedback from that class reminds me of how many students were thrilled to discover why ratatouille has become such a Provencal classic...