Some people make it look easy. Brisk chopping, sautéing, seasoning, and violà — they’ve effortlessly created a meal fit for a king. Others consider cooking to be impossible after one too many failed attempts. One of cooking’s greatest fallacies is that you are either good or bad. While being a natural can make it easier, proper training and confidence can help anyone master the kitchen. For people hungry to develop their skills — from learning how to hold a knife to writing your own recipes — the Reno/Tahoe region offers a variety of cooking classes. Regardless of how much we like (or don’t like) to cook, we can likely agree on one thing: we all love to eat.
The Farm-to-Kitchen Class
If navigating farmers markets sounds overwhelming, Wolfdale’s seventh annual Farmers Market Workshops aim to make farm-to-table more tangible. Run by owner and chef Douglas Dale, each class meets at the Tahoe City Farmers Market, where a maximum of 12 students divide into four groups based on their cooking level and interests.
“I get some people that are panic-stricken in the kitchen, I hold their hands, and it’s that simple,” Dale said. “Some people come in and want no limits.”
With a small stipend in hand, the groups peruse the local produce. Beginners follow a provided recipe while the more advanced groups pick their own ingredients. Dale suggests asking what the farmers recommend or selecting an ingredient they have no clue how to cook. The class then moves to Wolfdale’s restaurant a short walk away, and gets cooking. In one hour, each group creates one of four courses with the help and instruction of Dale, two assistant chefs, and a kitchen helper.
Perhaps Dale’s favorite aspect of the class, the students then introduce their course and how they prepared it before serving and enjoying it alongside fellow students, instructors, and guest speakers like vintners, nutritionists, and farmers. Courses are paired with wines and sometimes a mixology lesson. New this year, each student receives a leather-bound book including all the recipes from class plus blank pages for personal recipes.
“It’s a holistic experience… They gain confidence, learn a ton, relax, and I make sure it’s fun for everyone,” said Dale. “This has been incredible inspiration for me. Even with the mistakes they make they do things I’ve never thought of doing before.”
Info: July 23 & 30, Aug. 20, $100/ingredients, wine or cocktails, recipe book, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wolfdale’s Cuisine Unique, Tahoe City, advance registration recommended, (530) 583-5700, wolfdales.com
The They-Don’t-Call-It-Boot-Camp-For-Nothing Class
An intensive five days following a custom-made curriculum is all it takes to make a creative, confident chef, according to Stella Culinary Chef Jacob Burton. Since 2012, Burton has based his boot camps on how he wishes he learned to cook, teaching the basic building blocks with his F-STEP program, which stands for flavor, sauce, technique, execution, and preparation.
“I can give you a cookbook but you don’t understand what’s going on in that recipe if you’re new to cooking … When you break [a recipe] down, it becomes very formulaic,” said Burton, who enjoys culinary education as much as cooking itself. “The culinary world is so massive and you can’t know everything, [so we] start piercing the veil formulaically. There are a lot of universal ideas that make recipes work.”
When Burton came to Stella in 2011, he rebranded his online culinary page — full of teaching tools, podcasts, videos, and forums — as stellaculinary.com. The restaurant’s extreme busyness made Burton worry about quality slipping and that he was neglecting the culinary education on the website. With support from Cedar House owner Patty Baird, last April Stella stopped regular dinner service to focus on culinary programming like boot camps and other classes, pop-up or underground dinners, and the ever-growing educational website.
Each boot camp course includes at most 12 students of all abilities, who stay at the Cedar House, attend morning and afternoon lectures, and cook lunch and dinner daily. Each student also receives a couple of chef jackets with their name on them. Burton, his sous chef, and chef de cuisine encourage students to write their own recipes using their F-STEP knowledge. On the final day, each student presents a dish they invented, consistently impressing Burton with their ingenuity.
“It would not be unfair to describe [the course] as intense,” Burton said. “We want to shock you into what’s possible … to put you in that environment and feel that stress here, but with our hands guiding you to pinpoint what went wrong.”
Info: July 20 to 24, Aug. 17 to 21, Sept. 28 to Oct. 2, Oct. 19 to 23, Nov. 2 to 6, $2,197/five-day course plus lodging and meals, Stella Culinary, Truckee, advance registration recommended, shop.stellaculinary.com
The Everything-but-the-Kitchen-Sink Classes
From the early days in 1995 before opening their cooking center, founders Jennifer and Jay Bushman held cooking classes around their kitchen table and in a local cooking store. Since then Nothing To It! has grown into a reputable culinary center including a school, gourmet deli, and kitchen store.
As cooking becomes more popular within mainstream culture, Nothing To It! has customized its extensive workshops and demo classes to include foodie trends as well as techniques, traditional classes, and special requests. Within the 200-plus classes on the schedule annually, some of the popular ones include the Taste of Tuscany featuring handmade pasta and sauces, Culinary Techniques series, Sushi, and Grilling. And every class makes plenty of food to eat.
“We have had many adult students come through the cooking school and start new careers in food,” said Jay, who runs the center along with the culinary director, Chef Lara Ritchie. “We always get a kick when we see kids and teens who participated in our cooking camps go on to culinary schools and beyond. We are most proud when someone just starts cooking for their family and friends.”
Ritchie, who came on board with the center in 2002, finds great fulfillment in working with students because each class is completely unique. In her eyes, cooking boils down to being comfortable in the kitchen, which allows more creative freedom and builds confidence. She and her team work to create a safe and conducive environment with a focus on fun.
“Food is so dynamic and cooking is so personal,” said Ritchie. “It’s just great how the students connect during class. It’s amazing to me that it always comes together, it lands on the plate and they drink wine and celebrate their great effort.”
Info: Nothing To It! Culinary Center, 225 Crummer Ln., Reno, (775) 826-2628, daily workshops and demo classes available, advance registration recommended, nothingtoit.com
