Local Cooking Classes

The holiday season took me out of writing commission. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t cooking and eating and enjoying what the local food scene has to offer – quite the opposite! Now I have some catching up to do.

As an end of the year celebration, my workplace organizes an office outing followed by a meal together. As we are an architecture firm, the outing usually involves something design related, such as a studio or house tour. During the planning this year, Scott looked across the table at several of us and said “Since we have so many people who love food, why not do something related”. Someone else then suggested a cooking class. In a subsequent internet search I discovered that La Cucina in Reading Terminal Market offers group cooking classes that they promote as good team building exercises. Perfect. We’d get to select our menu, cook together and then enjoy the meal communally. This activity would not be appropriate for every office’s holiday celebration, but it was a good fit for our group. I think I’ve said this before, most architects I know are good cooks and really enjoy it. A meal is a mini building project involving raw materials, creativity and problem solving.

We have a group with several food restrictions, particularly when it comes to eating animals, fish and animal products. Anna, the owner of La Cucina, was quite accommodating. She allowed us to customize our menu from her various preset options. The fabulous part of being located in the Market, is that she sources all her food right there. We were able to request that as much as possible come from the Fair Food Stand, which sustainably sources all its products. Being that Anna’s family is from Italy, the menu trended heavily towards food from that region. The first course consisted of two crostini’s – one a white bean puree and the other a carmelized onion with fig jam and gorgonzola. One of her pasta offerings was sweet potato ravioli with a sage butter sauce. At Blue Hill Restaurant at Stone Barns Center in November I had eaten the most memorable sweet potato gnocchi; light and airy with what seemed to be almost a filling of sweet potato. Ever since, I have been wanting to make it myself; however my success rate with gnocchi as been about as great as my efforts with homemade pasta. We asked if we might be able to substitute sweet potato gnocchi for the ravioli. Anna thought that would be an even better choice given its simplicity. The entrée was steamed branzino with capers. I love fish but had not heard of this particular fish. It’s the Italian name for what is also known as European seabass. It’s not exactly “local” if it’s the wild variety; although most of this salt water fish for sale is farmed. I am not even sure if it is a sustainable fish to eat based on my quick research on Green Living Ideas’ site that indicated you should stay away from farmed, carnivorous salt-water fish which included branzino on that list Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch’s site didn’t list this particular fish at all. Anna very generously included a second entrée, chicken marsala, which was a good thing given some of our group doesn’t like fish! The dessert was nice and simple – poached pears with marscapone cream.

The organization was straightforward. Anna had us break into groups around the long counter and some off to the side. We paired off depending on what dishes we wanted to help make. Of course I wanted to make gnocchi. I learned I need a food mill or potato ricer for starters – to make the puree from the baked sweet potato to be mixed with the flower. I also learned that sweet potatoes typically make the gnocchi a little denser than the standard baking potato. But most importantly, the big tip is to handle the dough as little as possible to keep the texture from becoming dense and gummy. That part seems like an art – rolling the ropes evenly with as little handling as possible. The end product was delicious, although I will still be searching for the perfect replica of the Blue Hill recipe. Another benefit of the class is that the participants are provided with copies of all the recipes made during the session.

Everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves while cooking as much as eating it afterwards. Of course the imbibing of wine and Root cocktails, munching on the crostini right upon their completion, and ribbing of fellow co-workers cooking techniques all contributed to the festive spirit. It was definitely an end of the year party that will be well remembered.

Post Script: La Cucina offers all sorts of interesting cooking classes like sausage making, knife skills and a traditional chinese feast for chinese new years. They cater to both groups and individuals. Definitely worth checking them out.