“No matter where I serve my guests, it seems they like my kitchen best.” It’s a common sentiment, don’t you think? When I was a kid (and probably an adult) my grandma had a little sign in her kitchen with this saying on it. It’s true. People always seem to gather in the kitchen. Sometimes it’s to help prepare a meal, sometimes to clean up, and sometimes just because that’s where the magic happens. Food brings us together.
And while mealtimes are a great opportunity for connecting with those we love, sometimes the process of getting food from the fridge to the table is a stressful one. Cooking is a skill, and it is not a skill that everyone learns at home. There are mechanisms to teach us to read and write, to drive a car, to do long division and understand the stars, but not much instruction when it comes to cooking outside of the basics. I had a friend in college who did not understand the instruction, “Brown the meat.”
Fortunately, all hope is not lost for those who never learned to cook as a kid, or who want to help their kids learn to cook. For Christmas one year, I signed my oldest son and I up for cooking classes through Community Education and we made a bunch of pasties. We bonded, and we came home with food—win/win! Community Ed is a great way to engage in cooking courses, but we have a few other local options as well. Frosted: Sweets by Jessica offers cookie decorating classes, and A Fine Fit offers seasonal cooking classes to hone your skills in the kitchen.
Frosted: Sweets by Jessica, Duluth
Making delicious food is part science and part art. Frosted: Sweets by Jessica is here to support your artistic side. Not only does she make exquisite cookies, cakes, cupcakes, and cake pops, but she teaches others to do so as well.
Jessica Kraft hosts pop-up classes at businesses and restaurants throughout the Duluth area. She provides pre-baked cookies and all the supplies you need to make your own beautifully decorated set. Attendees will receive step by step instruction, so no previous experience is necessary.
If that’s not your style, Jessica also offers custom-baked sweets for your event, from birthday parties to weddings and everything in between. Cookies with adorable and sweet sayings and impeccable design are certainly her forte, baked in her signature brown sugar flavor, or you can choose vanilla, funfetti, chocolate, or lemon. Jessica also makes colorfully decorated unicorn cakes, creatively themed cakes to match your party, and simple-yet-elegant cakes that match any occasion. Each piece is truly a work of art!
A Fine Fit, Thunder Bay
Rhonda Bill, the chef at A Fine Fit in Thunder Bay, believes in the importance of connecting over food. She says, “I believe the art of cooking together is getting lost as we prioritize efficiency and tend to outsource much of our cooking to the industry.” Rhonda offers a variety of cooking classes that help attendees reconnect with the art and science of cooking so they can create meaningful experiences in their own homes. In fact, she intentionally scales back her catering business in the winter time to accommodate more opportunities to connect with guests to “break out of their comfort zones and get more creative in the kitchen.”
A Fine Fit offers dinner party styled cooking classes in their studio monthly, generally focusing on a specific ethnic or dietary theme, and in the summer months classes turn to local fare, helping guests learn how to eat within the season, and perhaps take advantage of their home gardens or local farmer’s markets. Additionally, they offer in-home cooking classes, where the chef comes to you.
Besides cooking classes, A Fine Fit offers catering services for weddings and other private events. They offer packages with meals of every kind, from breakfast, brunch, coffee and pastries, to a casual taco bar, or formal dinner of locally-sourced trout, stuffed chicken, or roasted vegetable lasagna. No matter what your event, Rhonda and her team will work to make it perfect (and delicious!).
Community Education, Your Town
Perhaps one of the most underrated venues for courses and classes is your local Community Education department. Classes are often taught by local folks who are passionate about what they do, and skilled in the department they choose. If you want to take up bread-making, there is a class for that. There are options for various ethnic themes, dishes like gnocchi or pasties, and even some courses targeted to younger kids. Check out your local Community Ed program for their offerings. If you don’t find something you like, make sure to check back when the next season’s schedule comes out, or perhaps you could consider teaching a class of your own!
Whether you could consider yourself an award-winning chef or not, it is clear that food brings us together, and creating food for your family and friends to gather around is a learned skill. My 12-year-old son is working on a “bachelor merit,” so he made dinner a few weeks ago: easy skillet lasagna. I was on my way home, and he called me two or three times to verify where an ingredient was, and when I got home the meal was done! I took a bite, and quickly a perplexed look crossed my face. It was sweet, with a hint of spice that did not track with an Italian dish. I was perplexed until I saw the jar of marinara sauce still in the cupboard, at which time I became extremely perplexed. I showed it to him, and he said, “I couldn’t find it…Oh yeah, that’s why it tastes sweet—I put barbecue and taco sauce in it instead!” Clearly, we haven’t learned about proper substitutions yet, but I do admire his ingenuity in getting a meal finished and to the table, even if no one really ate it because it was…weird.
So, keep the weird away, and consider taking some cooking classes to sharpen your skills, or learn new and creative ways to bring food to your family’s table. Certainly classes will help you to make better choices than substituting barbecue sauce for marinara, so check out Frosted: Sweets by Jessica or A Fine Fit, or your local Community Education department.
