Experience the art of old-time retro cooking in a 1940s East Asheville log cabin.

You’ll think you’re in granny’s kitchen as you tie on a vintage feed-sack apron and bake up pies, biscuits, our garden veggies, and more using retro kitchen gadgets, mixers, bowls, and a 1928 Home Comfort wood cookstove. Recipes are heirloom, and ingredients are seasonal, local, and organic when possible. All classes hands-on and include recipes and take-home food or in-class feast. Beginning and experienced cooks welcome. Cost includes materials fee. Class size limited to 8.  

Vegetarian substitutions available for all classes.

New!!!   The "I don't cook" series of classes for beginning or lapsed cooks. I hear this all the time, I don't cook, and I can never quite believe it. In fact, I find it shocking! So I'm just going to do what little I can to encourage everyone who wants to, to get in the kitchen and whip out some healthy, easy, seasonal, and mostly relatively quick slow foods that will tickle your innards.  Future classes will include I don't make soups and stews, I don't bake, I don't prepare fresh seasonal vegetables, I don't throw dinner parties, the possibilities are endless! We'll also learn knife skills, ingredients, kitchen equipment, seasoning know-how, and what kinds of foods pair well with others.

I Don’t Cook … PIZZA                                                               Wednesday, February 27     5:30-8:30  $35
For beginning or lapsed cooks. Learn how to make an easy and delicious pizza crust  from scratch that can be baked on a pizza stone or sheet pan. We’ll use the same dough to make herbed breadsticks and calzones as well. A light marinara sauce and a variety of  veggies and regionally-made Italian sausage will top off our creations. Class ends in feast with seasonal salad and a glass of Chianti.

   Upcoming classes for all skill levels:

Home Comfort                                                                                 Wednesday,  February 6     5:30-8:30 $35
Step back in time and come in out of the cold and cozy up to our 1928 wood fired cook stove. We’ll chop some kindling, feed the fire and talk about finding and caring for these wonderful old stoves that are so much a part of our local mountain culture. Evening starts off with oat cakes with local smoked trout & a glass of wine followed by chicken and dumplings, seared winter greens with saffron butter, warm spiced lumpy apple sauce, and sour cherry/pear almond cake. Everything can be cooked using your conventional electric or gas stove as well.

Blackout!                                                                                     Wednesday, February 13    5:30-8:30pm  $35
You’ll wish the power would go out because now you can make a delicious hearty winter meal in your wood-burning fireplace or campfire. We’ll start the evening off with a mug of hot rummed cinnamon apricot nectar and then hand grind corn for crunchy sage cornbread. Other dishes include heirloom marrow beans ember-baked in a flask served in roasted butternut squash bowls topped with grilled local sausages, seasonal herbed vegetables baked in foil packets and desserts on sticks…home-made s’mores and 1930’s toasted mock angel food cake.

Artisan Hearth Breads Baked in Your Dutch Oven             Saturday, February 23     1:00-4:30 $35
If  you don’t have a wood-fired oven for baking your breads, here’s the next best thing. Learn how to make breads that can be baked in cast iron pans in your fireplace, griddle or home oven (with or without a dutch oven). We’ll grind our wheat with a hand-cranked grinder and use pre-ferments to make the now-famous New York Times no-knead dutch oven bread, whole wheat bread studded with cointreau soaked currants, and skillet baked English muffins. We’ll practice mixing and kneading, then work with pre-leavened doughs for our baking.

Granny’s Biscuits                                                                                 Wednesday, March 5      5:30-8:30 $35
Master the art of tender buttermilk biscuit baking. Then take off with apricot ginger scones, smoked cheddar, ham, and roasted red pepper rolled crescents and 19th century fluffy riz (angel) biscuits. Evening ends with a glass of wine, lots of biscuits, and a seasonal salad.


Upcoming Appearances:

March 8, 2008 Organic Growers School   http://www.organicgrowersschool.org

March 16-22, 2008 John C. Campbell Folk School, http://www.folkschool.org  "Lost Art of Old-time Cooking"

July 14, 2008 Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts,  http://www.schoolofculinaryarts.org, Asheville

Other cooking classes in Western North Carolina

I'm just one of many offering cooking classes in the Asheville area, be sure to check out the following terrific classes as well  (I know they're terrific because I've taken classes with all these folks):

Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts this summer right in your own back yard at Warren Wilson College July 13-26  http://www.schoolofculinaryarts.org                                                 http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080127/LIVING/80125086/1004
Cooking Classes and more all year at John C. Campbell Folk School http://www.folkschool.org
Slow Food Asheville, monthly events you won't want to miss, check the events link http://www.slowfoodasheville.org
Italian Cooking Classes with Wally Maria Mazzucco Wyatt  http://www.discoveritalian.com
Thai Cooking Classes in your home or hers Kade Espy http://www.majorkade.blogspot.com

Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center in Robbinsville NC  http://www.visitsvcenter.com
Vegetarian, Vegan, Macrobiotic Cooking with Lenore Baum http://lenoresnatural.com
There will also be cooking classes at the Organic Grower's School March 8 http://www.organicgrowersschool.org  and also
The Asheville Artisan Bread Festival March 29    http://www.asapconnections.org/bread2008.htm
 

For more information, call (828) 298-2270 or (828) 299-7031