Stewing and Braising Lesson
Cooking classes are fantastic both in terms of being a better cook, but also the sociability of it all. The added bonus of sitting down together with new friends and tucking into the creation at the end of the class is pretty great too. However, committing to a time and a place will sometimes prevent me from signing up in the first place…. Unless I’m on holidays and then I look forward to a little bit of structure to an otherwise ‘floaty’ existence.
The location factor gets me too. Not everyone lives in the thriving metropolises’ of Sydney, Melbourne…or Paris, where an abundance of cooking classes are popping up every day of the week! Between you and I, one can get quite jealous of our big city cousins for many reasons, not just for their food, but also the shopping and seminars (but I won’t go into that one or we’ll be here all day.)
For some of us, living in a small coastal town can be quite, well…. small really. After reading Dianne Jacob’s blog Will Write For Food, I discovered America’s Test Kitchen. So you can imagine my gasps of oxygen when I stumbled across their New Online Cooking Classes.
These a just a few of the lessons on offer… and no I’m not receiving a dime or any other form of reward for this. I just love it the concept.
Chicken Italian Style Lesson
Steaming and Poaching Lesson
Classic Sauces Lesson
So a small prayer of mine has been answered here with this wonderful innovation. The only downside is that it doesn’t have that one-on-one people contact thing where you can look your new cooking buddies in the eye. But really, sometimes I just want to cook and not worry about being polite or what I’m going to wear to the cooking class… And when time comes to go to the class, sometimes I really don’t feel like cooking. Now, it is American (in Boston actually) but so what! We’re all global and everyone needs to get out more anyhow (even if it is virtually.)
Below America’s Test Kitchen explains all the benefits of this online cooking school.
- “Learn how to cook—not just follow recipes—and guarantee a lifetime of better cooking
- Work one-on-one with real test cooks to help find solutions and get personalized feedback
- Learn the America’s Test Kitchen way and discover our revolutionary methods and techniques
- Enjoy the best of “traditional” cooking classes combined with our cutting-edge technology
- Start anytime—day or night—and take lessons at your own pace and on your own schedule
- Membership is monthly, so you can take as many courses as you like — cancel anytime”
So I took out the free trial, which is perfect for seeing how well this baby runs! So far, I think it’s the Bom, plus the forums are interactive so you get to hang with like-minded foodies. AND you can take a pic when you’re finished and send it to one of the lovely test chefs for feedback and discuss what went well (or wrong.)
It would be fun to get a couple of pals together at someone’s house and do the cooking lesson together, and this way the one-on-one box is clearly ticked!
Excellent tip and thanks for sharing!
Online cooking classes- sounds like a good idea, especially for those of us who feel more comfortable cooking in the comfort of our own homes. Thanks for sharing this.
What a fabulous idea! thanks for the tip!
This is a good point and I like it!!
I’ve always wanted to start cooking classes, but I’m working full time. This tip makes me want to consider since it won’t occupy much of my time. Thanks for this tip!
I am curios as to how you can learn cooking online apart from your starndard recipe posting