Cooking Classes are the new awesome

My roommate loves cooking, and cooking shows. I think we have established that. So it is no surprise that she was signed up for a pasta making class with some friends tonight. She unexpectedly had to work late, though, and let me take her place in the class at the last minute. I was scared when I found out that "making pasta" was going to entail more than boiling water and tossing a few noodles in. I made sure to wear my apron so that no one would know that i was a cooking imposter. (As if the fact that everyone called me Betsy all night and I never answered did not make that obvious enough).

We all sat around a demo table, reminiscent of those junior high days where you learned to sew buttons on shirts and make muffins. Who would have ever thought that now we would be paying for those same skills that we thought were drudgery in Home Ec?

The difference might be that our teacher was a professional, personal chef. (not the gym teacher that got roped in to teaching home ec because he needed some extra classes). His jokes and catch phrases were almost as bad as Rachel Ray's. (Maybe that is what makes a good chef? A corny sense of humor?)( Get it? Corn-y?)

He actually used the phrases "dilly of a pickle" and "that really grinds my gears," among others, but man could he make a mean pasta.

Isn't that rad? Pressing out your own pasta! It is as easy as one, two, three (hundred dollars for a KitchenAid). It was Robin's birthday, and she was kissing up to the teacher, so she got to help make pasta too. It really is as fun as it looks.

Once he had demoed how to cook everything, he passed each dish around for us to try. Oh, how I love fresh pesto. Em does too, obviously.

And then we were turned loose in the kitchen with a sack full of groceries and told to make our own pasta!! Our group made some sweet potato gnocchi with sage butter ...

Robin, Liz, and a nice guy who looked a little like Larry David tackled the spinach and ricotta raviloi with shiitake cream sauce.

There are so many cute kitchen machines that I learned that I want tonight. Cute ravioli cutters, a potato smoosher, a melon baller, and this special wooden gnocchi roller, created soley to give the gnocchi those signature creases.

This is the kind of class I like to take. Instant gratification. Oh man. It was sooo good. Courtney and Heather couldn't help but dance about it.

I think we were the favorites of the class, because our illustrious leader invited us back to take his flambe course some time.

And, Emily C. (and all other readers of the new awesome), you will be glad to know that this post too reinforces one main message (as read in my cooking handout):