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Excerpt From LA Weekly’s Squid Ink
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, April 18 2011

Squid Ink: Many of the most interesting conversations in the book take place around the dinner table. What was the Bender family dinner table like? Did your family eat together? Was it loud? Was it quiet?

Aimee Bender: There are three [daughters] in the family; I’m the youngest. My mom cooked a lot of seventies dishes in the seventies. Beef Stroganoff. Tuna Casserole. Turkey Tetrazzini. It was generally pretty loud and funny and fun. Being the youngest I was always sort of trying to catch up and I was a little bit in awe of my sisters. Then it got more low-key when they left for college. It was less rowdy, but still talkative.

SI: Do you cook?

AB: I do.

SI: Did you feel that to understand Rose you had to cook ?

AB: I did take some cooking classes at the New School of Cooking in Culver City which was really fun. I was writing the book at that point and I could [incorporate] the tools from my basic knife skills class. But probably the cooking came first. What probably happened was that I was enjoying cooking a lot and it led me to write about food. Cooking is such a good antidote to writing: It’s a non-verbal activity, very sensory, not symbolic, and then it’s over.

SI: The cooking craze. What say you?

AB: Cooking is in a renaissance right now but twenty to thirty years ago cooking was a symbol of women not being able to get out and work so then it was NOT appealing. It felt like it was all of a piece. I think cooking then was the oppressor. Now I think cooking has become an enjoyable thing again. For women, I think it’s a more complicated relationship.

SI: What do you like to cook?

AB: I like easy things. I’m not good with details. I like roasting, braises, pot roast. I make kale chips last night. I think it’s a Michael Pollan recipe. You cut the stems out and put a little olive oil and salt on them and roast them at 425 degrees for 10 minutes and they became like a potato chip. I honestly felt like something was wrong. It felt too easy to eat and yummy for it to be any good for me.

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NSOC DIRECTOR ANNE SMITH INTERVIEWED ON KCRW’S GOOD FOOD MARKET REPORT February 26, 2011

Click here to listen to Anne Smith talk about carrot soup on Good Food’s Market Report.

EAT: LOS ANGELES, DECEMBER 1, 2009

WHY One of the best consumer-oriented cooking-school programs in Southern California, with an underlying love of food and a general joie de vivre. Good summer kid and teen programs, too.

WHAT Well established and very well run, the New School has a mouthwatering roster of classes for both the amateur and professional: Izakaya: Japanese Small Plates; Essential Knife Skills; Summer in Provence; Yeast Breads and the all-important class in Cupcakes. Acclaimed Thai-cuisine teacher Jet Tila is on the faculty, as are several other accomplished cooks and bakers.

L.A. TIMES: DECEMBER 1, 2009

Culinary schools rebound from recessionary slump. Aspiring professional chefs and ambitious home cooks fill rolls again.

Just a few months ago, the cooking school business was deflating like a punctured souffle. But at several culinary academies around Los Angeles, enrollment has taken a turn for the better.

Spurred by out-of-work cooking enthusiasts seeking training for food industry jobs and by foodies brushing up on their skills so they can eat well without paying restaurant prices, sales are starting to recover — even bouncing to pre-recession levels.

“People are taking advantage of the economic downturn and looking to change careers,” said Eric Crowley, who with his wife, Jennie Shields Crowley, owns Chef Eric’s Culinary Classroom in Los Angeles.

Crowley is adding classes at his school, such as Everyday Cooking for Families and One-Dish Meals, and booking more private parties and corporate team-building events. He sold out his most recent 20-week professional chef program and 10-week professional baking program.

The Crowleys only recently began taking salaries again after forgoing paychecks earlier this year to cover business costs.

At Chef’s Inc. in West Los Angeles sales have rebounded almost completely from a 70% drop earlier this year, said owner Leslie McKenna. Particularly popular, she said, is a class based on recipes from famed chef Julia Child, whose popularity was renewed last summer by the film “Julie and Julia.”

“Every one of those classes sold; they have been unbelievable,” McKenna said.

Those classes, as well as several budget-minded offerings, have helped fuel a 65% rebound in sales at her recreational cooking school in Los Angeles since the beginning of April, she said.

“Everybody needs to eat, and there are always jobs in kitchens or at catering companies or even as personal chefs; those are still in demand,” said Callie Beckmann, who is studying at the New School of Cooking in Culver City.

Recounting how she learned to grab the gills of a slippery, 3-foot-long Alaskan king salmon so that her teacher could slice it, Beckmann said she has learned, among other things, not to be squeamish.

Beckmann paid $2,500 for a professional cooking course at the school in hopes of landing a job in the food business.

The increases locally mirror an upward trend in cooking class enrollment nationwide, said Lacey Griebeler, managing editor of the trade publications Chef Educator Today and Chef Magazine.

Interest dropped dramatically during the depths of the recession as people who might have signed up for cooking classes for the fun of it stayed home. Now, people who want to change jobs or save money by cooking their own meals are returning.

“The popularity of cooking shows on TV . . . have really driven interest in the general public about learning more about food,” she said.

The recession has made students look at the classes as something more than just entertainment, said Bonny Giardina, who manages two locations for L.A.-based Hipcooks. Many are now keen to learn how to be thrifty shoppers and more efficient in the kitchen…

At the New School of Cooking, owner Anne Smith has also had to add courses.

“Classes are filling up faster and waiting lists are longer,” she said.

Many of her students sign up because they want to save money by cooking for themselves rather than eating out…

Still, the recession has been hard on cooking schools, and not all survived the slump to ride this new wave of popularity. Others are still in business but struggling, experts said.

Women’s Health Magazine, May 2008, page 8
PREP SCHOOL: A takeout addict learns the joys of macerating at the prestigious New School of Cooking
By: Sarah Miller

I always saw it like this: Either you had a great-grandmother who whispered age-old recipes to you on her deathbed or you didn’t. That decided your culinary destiny. Since I fell into the latter category, my epicurean fate was sealed: eat cereal and be the one who brings a good bottle of wine.

Then my friend Jennifer, a non-foodie like me, took a cooking class. In my view, she might as well have auditioned to play first oboe in the L.A. Philharmonic-you can’t outlearn your destiny. But weeks later, I sat down as she served me a hearty ragu, a perfect salad, and a light airy cake. “Cooking’s actually kind of easy,” she said.

Is there a more beautiful word in the English language that “easy?” I thought. So I called up the New School of Cooking in Los Angeles and enrolled in its four-week basic cooking course. Could I really learn to cook in a month? Or was Jennifer just a big, fat liar…

[Four weeks later]…In the confines of class, I’m Nigella-meets Julia. But how would I fare beyond the gaze of the helpful May and my partner-in-ineptitude, Carolina? The test would come in the form of a dinner party for my foodie friends Brett and Talia as well as the former cook-a-phobe, Jennifer.

I made Tom Ka Pak, chopped salad and strawberry shortcake. My soup: fragrant and spicy. My chopped salad: every vegetable bite-sized, perfectly roasted. My strawberry shortcake: a slice of heaven. “This is good,” Talia and Brett admit. Or I think that’s what they said. Their mouths were full.

Forget destiny. I’ll take the expensive knife, a little professional help and a heaping slice of patience.

LA WEEKLY, 2005
You know that boning knife that came with your knife set? Ever use it? Me neither, until I too a “knife Skills” class here at learned to hone, sharpen, alice and dice. Afterward, we all made lunch. If a school can be both adorable and serious, this storefront cooking academy is.The open room of aluminum worktables, KitchenAids and 22-pound blocks of chocolate set the stage for six chefs and a roster of visiting culinary types to teach everything from 20-week professional courses to quickie three-hour classes on topics as varied as sushi to barbeque and towering croquembouche. Most individual classes are on evenings or weekends, cost $75 and you get to eat what you make.