Confessions of a Cooking Class junkie

photo courtesy of L'Academie de Cuisine

There are two unwavering facts about me: I love to learn and I enjoy cooking.

My mother frequently tells my friends that when I was in the first grade I cried because I couldn't go to school on Saturday. After reassurances that school was actually closed and I would be able to return to school when it reopened on Monday I reportedly stopped crying.  First grade is also about the time I received my e-z bake oven. After I outgrew the e-z bake oven I began perusing my mother's cookbooks and offered to help prepare dishes.

Today, I'm more inclined to sign up for a cooking class.

Friends and associates have asked me, 'why sign up for a cooking class, when you can just get the recipe on the internet?  Yes, I can get the recipe  the recipe from the internet, but it is the in person
guidance and feedback that draws me to class.  Recently my manicurist asked if I was planning to become a chef. The answer is 'no'. However, I would like to improve my cooking skills - whether that is how to hold a knife properly, how to cut an onion so that it can be diced or sliced as efficiently as possible, or how to cook with beer, so that I can be a  better cook.

I've attended cooking classes with friends, co-workers, direct reports, solo and as a date night. In many ways participating in a cooking class can tell you a lot about a person. Classes often have at least one participant who displays one of the following behaviors:

• Chatty: talks the entire time the instructor is talking and then ask others nearby to repeat what was said
• Competitive: rush into the classroom to secure the seat closest to the instructor and will rush through to prepare the food
• Contrarian: challenges the instructors directions and guidance to let the instructor and other participants  know they have cooking experience
• Dictatorial: very similar to the Contrarian, but attempts to instruct and correct fellow classmates on how to cook
• Sanitary challenged: constantly touching hair, face, nose, phone and other unclean items while cooking. In some classes the instructor takes on the task of reminding the Sanitary challenged to wash their hands. Other instructors tell the entire class that for the well being of all present, the instructor, volunteer teaching staff or classmates may ask students to wash their hands and not to be offended.

Most of the time the class flows smoothly and everyone leaves with a recipe packet and a tummy full of food.  Then there are the classes where something inexplicable happens - perhaps a personality clash, miscommunication, simple misunderstanding. More often than not the class participants just move on and focus on the task at hand because the class is only for a few hours.  Sometimes, the conflict seems unavoidable. One evening I was the last arrival at a setting for four participants. As the instructor reviewed the recipe packet with the class one  of the women at my table began talking to her friend and as the talking continued the instructor stopped and asked the woman if she had a question. The woman replied that she didn't have a question. When we commenced to making the dishes in the recipe packet the woman challenged the direction being taken on each dish. This behavior so infuriated another team member that she refused to work with the woman  the entire evening.  The woman and her friend made a hasty retreat shortly after eating the meal we had prepared.

 

Despite that tense group moment I still peruse course catalogs, emails, and booklets from organizations to learn a new technique or how to prepare a dish.  More friends have begun suggesting cooking classes or cooking organizations to me.

 

Where do you take cooking classes?

 

My name is Technicolor girl and I'm a cooking class junkie. I'll see you in class!

 

Be well,

 

Technicolor girl