Salud! at Whole Foods - Culinary Knife Skills class

Back in September for our anniversary "date day" Himself and I went to a culinary class at the Whole Foods store in Nashville (Green Hills). The class was one of the "value meal" classes on making lentil soup. It was great fun and I was hooked!!

Last Saturday I took another class through them. This one was on culinary knife skills. This has always fascinated me - how can they do slice-dice-chop like that without taking off a finger?!


We met at the bright and airy cooking classroom upstairs from the store. Each of the 12 students present had a packet of recipes, an apron, and waiting on us in the kitchen area - a chopping block full of veggies and an 8" chef's knife (we were also told to bring our own chef's knife if we had one).

I had just purchased a Swiss made 6" chef's knife in St. Louis, so that is what I brought. Isn't the color fun!? The store owner promised me it was indeed a serious knife and said to try it. If I didn't like it he would give me a full refund.

We practiced on a lot of vegetables that afternoon.

Then we broke into 4 teams and used what we had practiced on to make a meal for the whole class. The menu was Salad with Classic French Vinaigrette & Warm Goat Cheese Croutons, Old-Fashioned Vegetable Soup, "Escalope de Poulet Aux Champignons (Chicken with Mushrooms), and Molten Chocolate Cakes.

I was on "Team Chicken". In the preparations my contributions were slicing up more mushrooms, and then preparing the mushroom sauce.

Oh man it smelled so good!

Team Soup was busy with their area with stirring and simmering.

Team Salad had more chopping to do. The lettuce was beautiful.

There was a tray full of ingredients for the dressing.

We learned out to make an emulsion so the vinegar and oil don't separate.

The ramekins of chocolate cake batter were ready to go in the oven...

....as soon as the croutons came out.

Then it was time to plate the meal.

Yes... it was GOOD!

The soup a meal in itself.

And the molten chocolate cake was pure bliss.

If you are interested in cooking, you might want to check to see if you have a Whole Foods store nearby that offers the cooking classes. http://www.wholefoods.com/ Actually many nicer grocery stores have started offering classes. I know in the St Louis, MO area the Dierberg's chain offers interesting classes. It's worth looking into!