New Twists on Thanksgiving Sides Class

Showing class how to mince a shallot

You may notice something different about the blog, I'm excited to debut my new logo and banner designed by the talented Margaret Chayka, who has designed all of my logos and graphic design pieces. Depending on when you read this post, you might not be seeing the final design, I just loaded a draft on today, and there will be a few tweaks.  What do you think? Leave me a comment. The start of more new things to come, including a new camera and better photos.

Back to the business at hand, Saturday marked my first hands-on cooking class at The Cucina at Gervasi Vineyards. As you saw from the last post, there is a big beautiful commercial kitchen space for the students to work.

The class featured new twists on Thanksgiving side dishes, plus a few of my most requested holiday recipes (red ones have links to the recipes):

Pumpkin Pie Spiced Nuts
Pumpkin Pie Dip with Pie Crust Cookie Dippers
Celery, Date, Walnut Salad with Pecorino
Chinese Five Spiced Glazed Sweet Potatoes with Toffee Topping
Green Beans with Lemon Vinaigrette and Toasted Parmesan Breadcrumbs
Roasted Cranberry Sauce with Herbed Candied Nuts
Savory Pumpkin & Herb Bread Pudding 

We had a nearly sold out class of fourteen students, and everyone got to take part in creating the recipes.  I brought along some fun gadgets, new cookbooks, and some of my most useful kitchen tools, to give everyone a head start on making their holiday wish lists.  Here's a shot of one of the students modeling my onion goggles, which were a gift from one of my clients.  Especially in late spring, when all of the onions have been in storage all winter and are extra pungent, they come in handy and actually do work.

Karen modeling Onion Goggles

We had a five hour class time, so I invited my friend Scot Jones, formerly of VegiTerranean, to come and do a demo.  Scot made a delicious Celery Root and Parsnip Soup featuring cashew cream, which can be substituted for heavy cream in recipes to make them dairy free. The class really enjoyed Scot's demo and soup, plus some inside scoop on his new restaurant venture in California with Chrissie Hynde, Ellen DeGeneres, and Portia DeRossi.  We'll miss him here, but it's a great opportunity, and I can't wait to hear more about the menu and new restaurant.

Scot Jones soup demo

After all of the dishes were completed, the class plated everything and a buffet was set up just outside the kitchen.  While the class enjoyed the fruits of their labor, Cucina Director, Jennifer Wolfe Webb, provided some helpful information on pairing wines with the Thanksgiving meal, which can be a tricky one to pair, given all the different flavors involved, as the class sampled Gervasi's own versions of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Jennifer recommends the book What to Drink With What You Eat (I do too), which includes beer and other beverage pairings in addition to wine, by simply looking up what you are planning to eat.  The same authors, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, have also just released their newest book, The Food Lovers Guide to Wine, which is definitely on my to buy list.

The class was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to my next one, which features all mushroom recipes, including some client favorites, Mad for Mushrooms, and by popular request, Fighting Cancer from the Kitchen, which will feature ingredients shown in studies to help fight cancer, plus some nourishing recipes and tips to help those currently in treatment.  I am working on a few more classes for the March - May calendar potentially, including Cook Like a Personal Chef, and Cooking a Farm Share & Farmers Market Finds.  If there are specific classes you'd like to see, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail.

With the Student's Dishes

*All photos courtesy of Jennifer Wolfe Webb