Seasoned Culinary Classes

Did I just make that?!
So I consider myself a reasonable cook, not great, I can make a few things and lord knows I can eat. Nothing wrong with trying to up your game though, right? A friend gave me a recommendation (and they REALLY ought to post a review here too, since they were so happy with their experience, but hey, not everyone has a big mouth like me I guess). So I decided to venture into new territory and see what comes of it.
Starting with a pleasant phone consultation, chef Ryan went through several questions with me — how large a party, what do I enjoy making, what do I think I need help with, is there something in particular I’d like to serve our dinner guests or would this be more of an adventure? He asked about our equipment (don’t giggle, jeez!) and we hammered out a plan.
Chef picked up all the ingredients and showed up promptly. Things were a little awkward in our kitchen, we don’t admittedly have a ton of room — part of the whole idea is to learn how to make things with what we have in the house already, I would advise you to have enough room for say, a cutting board per person that wants to actually BE in the kitchen (1 guest opted out of most of the experience, to be fair, he was kinda talked into it in the first place, and who cares about football? bleh.) not to bore people with the nitty gritty but chef Ryan couldn’t have been friendlier, he was great at showing knife techniques, straining lemon juice to catch the seeds, that sort of thing. Everyone in the kitchen had their own strengths and weaknesses, so while I picked up my own tips about things in our kitchen, another guest learned how not to cut his fingers off, always a valuable skill.
Our dinner was Tuscan lemon chicken, glazed brussels sprouts (so good!) we went back and forth on a spinach salad or simpler mixed greens with a pear balsamic vinaigrette, decided spinach salad would be too hearty — but I got some great ideas for my next dinner, spinach salad with crumbled pancetta and boiled egg which I think will be a winner. Also now I can make polenta, something with which I had no previous experience but was so good I could have just eaten that all by myself with a glass of wine. It’s possible I made it again and ate it all by myself.
Overall everyone enjoyed the experience for several reasons — first and foremost the food and the cooking of it, learning about a few things in the kitchen we could buy to augment our skills (I have good knives, I need a bigger glass casserole dish with lid) and what we could ditch. Chef Ryan has a great sense of humour and is fun to be with — which makes him an interesting addition to your regular bunch of friends, plus he laughed at all my jokes so that’s a plus: D This was a really fun night, ending in a great meal. So good to sit back and say «wow, I rock!» and when you divide the cost, especially over the time spent among 4 people, it’s totally reasonable. Thanks chef, good times!