sauces and sautes

After my last cooking class experience (flying solo at the "Tuscan Romance" class), I decided to take Suzy with me this time.

We returned to The Cook's Station for another hands-on class taught by Chef Corie Martin of The Pink Lady Catering. This class' theme was using citrus in sauces and sautes, perfect for a warm late spring evening. There was an orange or a lime or some lemon juice in everything. (I just knew I would get a small cut at the beginning of the class and be in constant pain for the rest of the time. Instead, I just didn't cut anything the entire time...never picked up a knife.)

We made a citrus vinaigrette for a spinach salad, bruschetta with ricotta and citrus salsa, lemon chicken with capers, and bananas foster with orange liqueur. Sadly, I didn't remember to take any pictures, but here are the recipes:

We broke into three groups of four, and our group assembled the bruschetta, and everyone did the bananas foster - a rich, buttery, caramelized fruit, drenched in rum, set on fire, and poured over ice cream... What's not to love?! Now that I know how to make it, I'm worried I'm going to keep bananas, dark rum, and vanilla ice cream always on hand at my house...and gain 200 pounds...and burn down my house.

This is how I like to imagine I looked as I made Bananas Foster...
(and if you sprinkle cinnamon over the flame, it sparkles!)

...but this is probably a more accurate depiction.

One of the nicest parts of the entire evening was chatting with the other two ladies at our table. One was a professor at a nearby college; the other was a mother of two who runs an investment company with her husband. We shared great conversation around the table, talking travel, food, careers, kids...

But one comment stuck with me. At one point, the professor said, "It is so nice to just be able to sit together with other people and talk and get to know them."

Indeed. It's sad that we need a cooking class to force us to sit together (and cook together) before that actually happens. It's easy to strike up a conversation over food. But we would have to be willing to sit down at a table with people different than us and spend the length of a meal making "small talk," which is no small task.

Our chef told us that all of these sauces and salsas are even better if you let them sit for a while. It allows the flavors to blend together. The longer you do allow it to sit, the more the sauce "comes together," with the different flavors adding complexity and deliciousness to the sauce, making each individual flavor more tasty because of it's relationship to the other flavors, and making the sauce as a whole better. All it takes is time - time to just sit...together.

My guess is we'd all be better if we did that more.

tuscan romance

Despite the title, I was going it alone. 

When I first got the gift certificates for my birthday, it never crossed my mind that I would be going to these cooking classes by myself. But as the hour approached, I couldn't shake the mental image of me sitting at a prep counter with several other couples on date nights, engaging in awkward conversation and getting the typical pity jobs in the kitchen. "Greg, while Chris and Amanda are caramelizing the top of this creme brulee, will you hand me a spoon?"

Thank God it didn't turn out that way. There were 11 of us in the class: a few middle-aged foodie couples,  two pairs of girlfriends taking the class for fun, and me to round out the group. I talked some with the couple at my table, and the conversation came surprisingly easy. We talked about the food at first, but then branched out to hobbies, family, life, dreams...

Ultimately, though, it was about the food. Each table took a course and our chef-instructor--Corie Martin, owner and chef of Pink Lady Catering--prepared the side dishes. She was wonderful, answering all of our questions, having fun, and even offering to send some of her other recipes to us. I would highly recommend her. Four stars.

The place was great, too. The Cook's Station hosted the class, and we were able to use all of their best equipment: subzero freezers, commercial gas ranges, convection ovens. It made me want to renovate a kitchen (with someone else's money, of course). This was one of my favorite pieces, though:

Breville mixer with digital timer. It's super fast, super quiet, and about the same price as a Kitchenaid. 

So here's what we actually fixed and ate, including photos of the recipes and instructions we received as part of the class (if you can read my handwriting, I also took notes):

I forgot to take pictures until after we had already had the appetizer and I had finished the entree. But here's what's left of the steak and root vegetables.

This was our table's creation: Dome cake (zuccotto) with chocolate ganache.

The outer shell is made of brownie, and the inside is two different flavored frozen whipped creams

Plated. Beautiful!

The food itself was unreal. And it seemed so easy to prepare! I walked away thinking, "I could fix this entire meal for the family and not go crazy trying to pull it off." For me, that's success. 

I think next time, though, I'll trade in my two remaining classes and get two spots in one class so Suzy can join me. That way, we can caramelize creme brulee while somebody else gets a spoon.