I recently had the pleasure of taking part in a cooking class with a friend at Sur La Table. The location at The Grove offers regular classes. While I have taken classes before, this was more fun as we moved from station to station during the evening and actually took part in the preparation. We learned techniques from several chefs. We began with Gruyere Fondue. We each savored the hot, gooey cheese on chunks of fresh bread. I could have eaten that for dinner. We learned how to cook Crispy Flattened Chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and black eyed pea succotash. The recipe is Ben Ford's, the chef and owner of Ford's Filling Station. We learned that the secret to the crisp skin and moist chicken is is brining the chicken over night. For dessert we made tiny pine nut cookies.
While the food cooked we were given an opportunity to shop to our heart's content. The store manager pointed out all of the tools we had used in preparing the meal and where we could find them. After shopping we sat down to a delicious meal. It was a fun evening - the only disappointment was the huge amount of butter used in the chicken and vegetable dish. If I ordered this in a restaurant I would feel good in knowing I was eating something healthy and that clearly was not the case. The good news is that I made the chicken at home with much less butter and it was still delicious.
