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Cooking Class Fun!


By Jocelyn Tatum 




Ready, set, GO! The big screen TVs reveal the stove top at the front of the room. Chef Christine bellows information to get the class started, and the first glass of wine is poured. It's time to play.

If you haven't guessed yet, I am at a Central Market cooking class. I tried this because it appeals to many passions—my love for cooking and learning new things, and my love for meeting new people and hearing their stories, and my love for doing something different.

Each group of four sat at one of the four assigned tables. That equals 16 people, which means the intimate feeling wasn't lost. We sipped wine, whisked egg whites until they held peaks, delighted in each other's stories, and learned things like "cooking light is about concentrated flavors [and] egg whites must be room temperature and in a metal bowl before they can hold peaks." Who
salad ingredients
knew?

Before we prepared each course, Chef Christine demonstrated on the big screen what to do next. Then each group divided up duties and walked to our station in the kitchen. The industrial gas stove flared its bright flame. The lady next to us joined in on the discussion of whether we should put the herbs in the wasabi rice milk slurry or directly onto our "composed" salad (composed means it's not tossed...another thing I learned). We decided to put it into the hot dressing because the heat kicked up the aromatics. This was later poured onto our fingerling potato, fennel, corn and avocado salad. It was time for our next dish so we scurried back to our tables.

Listen, cook, taste and repeat.

Folding the egg whites into the sugar and yokes.
Did you know sugar cooks yokes so you have to move fast?
No? I didn't either. 
The three-hour experience flew by, and at the end we got to enjoy the fruits of our not-so-hard labor. The first course was the aforementioned salad. The second course was grass fed bison filets, poached green beans with lemon juice and low fat au gratin potatoes. The desert was a lemon pudding soufflé that melted onto our palates. 

The Central Market cooking school offers everything from lobster dinner, cooking light (my class), grilling with Jon Bonnell to couples Chinese New Year. Classes typically cost about $75 each, but after eight classes you get to try one for free.

This is definitely something new and different I recommend in Fort Worth! And if you want to share this experience with your children, check out the Young Chef's Academy on Camp Bowie.

BAM!


We had to work for dessert!

Lemon pudding soufflé

Cooked fingerling potatoes, corn, herbs, fennel, avocado salad
with warm wasabi dressing.

Grass fed bison filet, herbed au gratin potatoes, poached lemony green beans.

*Side note: please remember that I do not accept gifts to write these stories. This content is pure and we paid for the class ourselves. This is important to me as a professional. 
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