Los Angeles Cooking Schools - Culinary schools & cooking classes near Los Angeles

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Excerpted from
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.

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.

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