After profusely calling the institutes's number, I locked a spot in "Essentials of Provencal Cooking" for a Saturday night in December. J-Food only landed the waiting list, but the woman on ICE's line assured her there would be no problem in attending the class.
The day finally arrived when J-Food and I would attend the highly anticipated cooking class- we, of course, had subway issues on the way down and were 15 minutes late. We found the school and got to the 12th floor to find a disgruntled disheveled woman asking us for our class confirmation letters. J-Food began to explain her predicament and was firmly interrupted to be told she will try to make an exception for her...but only this time. Again, we tried to explain the multiple phone calls, the 20 minutes hold times, and the calming reassurance that had been given to J-Food, but reception lady wanted nothing to do with it. Luckily, she took mercy on our poor foodie souls and told us to take a right to the stairwell and walk up a flight. As soon as the door closed behind us, I couldn't help but call her a "bitch!"
We silently walked into Kitchen 1 to find the class had already begun. Instructor Chef Loren Banco was going through all the recipes on our agenda and was already on the third dish- soup au pistou. Trying to rapidly throw our belongings under a table as to not disrupt the class, I already felt intimidated as the chef guided us through all of the recipe changes and I couldn't reach a pencil to mark it down. I had this feeling like I was in high school and about to get scolded, but Chef Loren was super breezy about it and included us in the introductions as he continued with the menu. J-Food and I tried to give each other sideway glances.
After the chef went through all of the 8 recipes (Tapenade, Brandade de Morue avec Croutons, Soupe au Pistou, Daube de Boeuf, Fenoul a la Provencale, Carre d'Agneau Roti aux Herbes de Provence, Tian d'Aubergines et Courgettes, and Compote de fruits Secs au Miel) he took the class to "Table 3" to give us a knife demo. At this point, J-Food and I started to figure out that each of the three tables in the kitchen would be in charge of prepping 3 of the dishes on the menu. It was a free for all as to which table we were at and I was determined to cook a meat (either the rack of lamb or the beef). After the chef showed us the proper way to cut an onion, he allowed us to pick our tables. J-Food and I stood at table 3 (the rack of lamb table) along with several couples our parents' age and I tried not to budge. J-Food began to nudge me, "Maybe it's just better to go to Table 1?" She was right; it wasn't worth the fight.
Table 1 actually ended up working in our favor. There were only 4 of us there so we got to be hands on with most of the dishes we were preparing. For some reason, I had this funny feeling that the students in the class kind of thought J-Food and I were these dumb girls in tall boots. I told J-Food my thoughts and she agreed but reassured me, "Melis, I think so too..but lets show em we're professionals.." I couldn't help but laugh when suddenly as I began to slice the onion, the Chef went over with me the proper way to cut an onion again in a 'rocking motion.' I got the hang of it and was off on my way to slicing, cubing, and wedging the rest of the vegetables for the Soupe Au Pistou. J-Food and I prepped most of the vegetables that went into the soup, while our other team members boiled the soaked beans, prepped the bouqet garni and started on using a mortar and pestle to blend the pistou by hand. I think after they agreed to the chef's suggestion, they later regretted it. This was an arduous task which tired both of them. Meanwhile, J-Food and I took control of the fennel. One of my favorite parts of cooking is presentation. Thats the time when I've done everything I can do to make the dish taste good and can now put an artistic touch to make it look as pretty as possible. We saved the tops of the fennels for garnish and when the dish was almost complete I cut this slices of tomato to line the dish with. I placed a few slices with the springy fennels branches on either side of the plate. It wasn't my ideal; but it was good enough for now.
Just as the lamb was finishing, we frantically tried to get all of our dishes to table 1. You could see everything from our soup and tapenade to the codfish and croutons and crustless tart. The end of the class was really nice because we got to sit down with our fellow classmates and enjoy each other's cooking. Chef complimented me on the presentation of the fennel (which being the loser that I am--I was excited about) and we sat down to eat. Chef complimented all of our dishes and I wondered if he ever said anything was bad in which he responded with his most horrific stories- salt used in a recipe in mistake for sugar and a tobasco sauce disaster. J-Food being the life of the party that she always is began to probe the chef on bourbon cooking. Being a PR manager for Makers Mark, she's constantly finding opportunity in every experience- that night, she found it ideal to plug my blog (this very one you're reading!) and her liquor. I sat red-faced.
By the end of the night, we learned that one of the couples our parent's age lived a block away from where J-Food grew up, another couple played Jewish geography with 25 year olds from Rockland County and other people asked me my favorite restaurants I blog about. I guess they didn't think we were those dumb girls in tall boots after all! As I left the institute with a shopping bag of left-overs, I vowed to do another class as soon as possible- one with J-food, another with my mom and a wine course with my dad. J-Food caught a ride home to her parent's house with the couple from her Hometown and I tried to figure out where I would go out that Saturday night. To be honest, the night was eventful enough..and although a different sort of Saturday night in NYC- it was a night I'd definitely like to repeat.
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