Pam is an assistant for a kitchen school called Kitchen on Fire and this week the school offered their assistants a 2-for-1 deal on a class called Pork: The Other White Meat. Neither Pam or I cook very much pork and some of the recipes looked really interesting so we decided to take the class together!
When we got to the class, I was a little baffled as to how the class would work because there was only one stove. There were a few ovens, but it was clear that the majority of the work was going to be done on the stove. I was also immediately turned off because the owner of the school wasted the first 15 or so minutes doing shameless advertising of the other classes available. Look, I paid a lot of money to learn how to cook, not listen to you talk about how cool your classes are. I'm fine with you handing over a pamphlet with the schedule of upcoming classes or something, but I'm not going to listen to you advertise. You even have more chance of my signing up for another class if you just hand me a written schedule. Anyhow, after the guy finished babbling on, the Chef took over and provided us a brief overview of all of the recipes. After 45 minutes or so, she had gone over all of the recipes, and told us that each recipe had a little station, and we could pick which recipe we wanted to work on and just work on it.
It was a madhouse. There were probably 12 or so people in the class, and I have never felt so uncomfortable in a kitchen! People were walking around clueless with hot pans, hot baking sheets, people would be crowded around the one stove trying to work on various foods, and all of the Chefs seemed to tell us different instructions. The main chef kept telling Pam and I to check the pork ribs every 30 seconds, and every time we went to check or re-apply glaze, another Chef would tell us that we should only check every 10 minutes. It was a little frustrating, and I didn't really like it. I had imagined something very different.
However, most of the food was really good, and I would make 4 out of 5 of the recipes again! There was a pulled pork recipe that you can do in the oven, which is really cool! I always thought you needed a smoker, but you don't. I don't even like smokey flavors all that much, so it's nice to have this version! There was a pork ribs recipe that tasted delicious, and I think Tim will really enjoy that recipe. My favorite was probably the recipe with pork chops and a rosemary mustard sauce...it was so tasty! There was also an indian spiced pork burger that was mild for indian food, but still really tasty. The only pork recipe I didn't like was a pork tenderloin that was braised in thyme milk. It wasn't bad, but I've had much tastier pork tenderloin that didn't need nearly as long to cook!
All in all, I think it was pretty successful! I'm not sure whether I'd take another cooking class at Kitchen on Fire, though. I need to take a cooking class somewhere else to see what other schools do. I guess I had a more home-ec like vision of a cooking class in my head where everyone had a stove and an oven and worked in pairs to make all of the meals together. Maybe that's unrealistic, but I was hoping I'd have more hands on experience with all of the recipes, rather than observations of a chaotic kitchen!
When we got to the class, I was a little baffled as to how the class would work because there was only one stove. There were a few ovens, but it was clear that the majority of the work was going to be done on the stove. I was also immediately turned off because the owner of the school wasted the first 15 or so minutes doing shameless advertising of the other classes available. Look, I paid a lot of money to learn how to cook, not listen to you talk about how cool your classes are. I'm fine with you handing over a pamphlet with the schedule of upcoming classes or something, but I'm not going to listen to you advertise. You even have more chance of my signing up for another class if you just hand me a written schedule. Anyhow, after the guy finished babbling on, the Chef took over and provided us a brief overview of all of the recipes. After 45 minutes or so, she had gone over all of the recipes, and told us that each recipe had a little station, and we could pick which recipe we wanted to work on and just work on it.
It was a madhouse. There were probably 12 or so people in the class, and I have never felt so uncomfortable in a kitchen! People were walking around clueless with hot pans, hot baking sheets, people would be crowded around the one stove trying to work on various foods, and all of the Chefs seemed to tell us different instructions. The main chef kept telling Pam and I to check the pork ribs every 30 seconds, and every time we went to check or re-apply glaze, another Chef would tell us that we should only check every 10 minutes. It was a little frustrating, and I didn't really like it. I had imagined something very different.
However, most of the food was really good, and I would make 4 out of 5 of the recipes again! There was a pulled pork recipe that you can do in the oven, which is really cool! I always thought you needed a smoker, but you don't. I don't even like smokey flavors all that much, so it's nice to have this version! There was a pork ribs recipe that tasted delicious, and I think Tim will really enjoy that recipe. My favorite was probably the recipe with pork chops and a rosemary mustard sauce...it was so tasty! There was also an indian spiced pork burger that was mild for indian food, but still really tasty. The only pork recipe I didn't like was a pork tenderloin that was braised in thyme milk. It wasn't bad, but I've had much tastier pork tenderloin that didn't need nearly as long to cook!
All in all, I think it was pretty successful! I'm not sure whether I'd take another cooking class at Kitchen on Fire, though. I need to take a cooking class somewhere else to see what other schools do. I guess I had a more home-ec like vision of a cooking class in my head where everyone had a stove and an oven and worked in pairs to make all of the meals together. Maybe that's unrealistic, but I was hoping I'd have more hands on experience with all of the recipes, rather than observations of a chaotic kitchen!
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