Central Market - Knife Skills 101

The cooking class was fun! It was $55.00 but they had 2 chefs teaching in two groups, it was a "hands on" class where some of the classes are just lectures and they show you how to cook and then you get to eat. However, I think the classes are reasonable and I plan to take one with my sister and her husband at least once a week.

My sister Precious doesn't realize this but I am actually paying to spend time with her. I rarely get to see her and so the class is worth it to me to get to spend time with her even if it is just for a few hours. Now I need my other sister Dena to slow down (she is going to school full time at the University of Texas at Arlington and working full time) so we can spend more time together too. My sisters are like my best friends, but better, they "get" on so many levels, and they know EVERYTHING you have been through to get where you are. And my sister are super supportive of me, that is the best thing about being the younger brother.

Now, back to the cooking class...

It started with a very brief intro of the various types of knives and the most important knives to every chef. Then we circled around a really large island and we all had our own Wusthof knives (about 100 bucks each) and we started chopping, slicing, dicing, julienning, and so on and so forth. We chopped up celery, green peppers, red peppers, onions, avacado, carrots, and ginger.

The entire time we were cooking a chef was coming around picking up our freshly chopped items and cooking them. After about 2 hours of cooking class we ended at 8:30 and the food was already cooked for our first course. Which was Asian Stir-Fry with a nice Teriyaki sauce, and a salad made with peanut oil and freshly chopped ginger, celery, green and red bell peppers, and avacado- it was all delicious.

For dessert we had orange slices in the almond float which wasn't too tasty. I am not a big fan of oranges, but there were these chunks of white jello like substance floating in some type of juice. It didn't have much flavor and I wasn't impressed with dessert, so I went back for more dinner.

Dinner was served with tea, wine, or beer, and the class was well paced and I learned a lot. It was also fun to get out of the house on a Tuesday night and do something different. However, I did have to miss American Idol and I am NOT happy about that.

So Jimmy, the Almond float may contain monkey brains in Shanghai, China- but in the US of A it is just some plain oranges and some juicy almond gelatin. The carrots, rootbeer and bluebell with the lemon cilantro paprika glaze probably would have kicked it up a notch!

I love you all...