Back in the last century, when I was completing my bachelor's and master's degrees in foods and nutrition, I enjoyed the college classes I took in food preparation, but I saw them more as something to check off the "required to graduate" list----a "means to the end", rather than an "end" in themselves. But fast forward to this century, the food network, the dozens of magazines dedicated to nothing but cooking, the proliferation of cookbooks, the
internet, celebrity chefs, etc., and we see that there are cooking classes people pay good money to be in because they WANT to, not because they have to. It is for that reason that I planned a trip for a group of ladies to attend a "Super Foods" culinary class at the Viking Cooking School in Memphis, Tennessee. (There are numerous Viking Cooking Schools across the country---probably one in an area close to you!). Granted, it was not an easy sell-job. One of my friends commented, she just didn't see how a cooking class was going to help her do a better job on the dry cereal and milk that she and her husband had for supper every night. But having participated recently in culinary classes at Balboa Park in San Diego, the New York Wine and Culinary Center, the Vermont Culinary Resort called The Inn at Essex, as well as one as the Culinary Institute of America at
Greystone in
Napa Valley, I knew that such events were not only helpful, they were fun! In fact, there is a niche market called "culinary tourism" that is addressing this very subject. Many organizations offer culinary tours of foreign countries for regular folks, not just professional chefs, to partake of. So next time you are bored with your normal kitchen routine, check out all the exciting ways you can add some excitement to your meal planning by taking a group cooking class!
Cheers!
