Cooking Classes

[jaxisastar]

Hi Everyone,
I want to take some simple (beginner) cooking classes. Preferable single sessions and not too expensive. Anyone have any tips??

[Heidi]

I highly recommend the New School of Cooking in Culver City. Their fall classes will soon be posted on the website. A little bit of lecture style, a lot of active cooking.

[tmauch]

I second this recommendation. I just took a sushi handroll class on Saturday that was excellent.

[FoodLover92]

I recommend Hip Cooks. You can check out the website at www.hipcooks.com

[miwine]

epicuriam, for great classes. Single subject,hands on, four hours.

[cookingodyssey]

I recommend Hip Cooks, too. I've taken 2 classes from them and I'm ready to sign up for my third.

[brattenheimer]

I "third" this recommendation. I love taking classes at The New School of Cooking. Unlike the more demonstration-based classes at Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table, you will get to do all of your own chopping, cooking, stirring and eating! There are about 16 people max per class. The instructor will talk about how to prepare all of the recipes shared in the class, and then you will get to work on one of the recipes w/ another classmate or on your own. At the end of the class, everyone gets to eat all of the food. It's a lot of fun.

The autumn 2008 catalog is already up: http://www.newschoolofcooking.com/

[OCEllen]

Perhaps not what you are looking for but the culinary arts program at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa is highly regarded - I believe they also have some one or two session classes offered to the public with really reasonable fees a few times each semester.

[hobbess]

IIRC, I think you also needed to enroll in some other classes, such as sanitation and intro to hospitality industry, at OCC first which probably wouldn't really interest the home cook.

[OCEllen]

Yes, for the culinary arts program, but I believe there are also inexpensive one session classes offered to the public, general interest, specific subjects.

[hobbess]

Do you have a link or website for such classes? When I've tried searching for it, I've never really found such classes. If you go to their extended adult education courses, you don't find such a class. The closest thing is a nutrition class about healthy cooking that's taught by a dietitian.

[OCEllen]

I've found everyone at OCC to be fairly approachable - you might give them a call and ask specific questions about their programs and about others in the area. But it does seem others have offered some good suggestions, too!

[COYS N17]

Sur La Table at the Grove offers nightly classes in various disciplines

[Emily227]

I've taken a few cooking classes at Chez Cherie (www.chezcherie.com) in La Canada and really enjoyed them. They are a tad expensive, but probably comparable.

[mangia]

[e-mail]

Tim Ross runs a lovely cooking school in his house in Silver Lake. It's very personal. I've taken two classes and one of them I was one of two students.

Highly recommend....

[Rizza]

Williams-Sonoma has some nice intorductory classes for around $45 per class (food included). They also have lunch-and-learn classes for less. Where are you located?

[hobbess]

With the WS classes, you don't really get to get to learn by doing the stuff yourself. Instead, you watch the instructor do the dishes but I'm not sure how much more you would learn from that than watching a cooking show on TV for free. For a cooking class, I'd ask how much cooking vs. watching the students will do in the class.

[Rizza]

Except you do get to taste the dishes and see how the flavors work. They also don't tend to whip a souffle, put it in the oven, and have one come out that is obviously not the same souffle. Plus you can interact with the chef and ask questions.

[yoginla]

I have a friend who took a baking class at Gourmandise and she loved it.

http://www.gourmandisedesserts.com/