If you have ever found yourself dreaming of what it would be like to be a culinary whiz and impress your friends and family members with your knowledge of coveted cooking secrets, you may have considered taking private cooking lessons at one time or another.
Private cooking lessons have become increasingly popular in recent times thanks to the well known cooking programs that are being aired on cable television each and every day. Television cooking shows are showing ordinary people how to create extraordinary meals quickly and easily.
If you would like to have a private cooking lesson, the first step is to find yourself a chef that offers lessons either in home or out of the home. You can do this a few different ways.
If you know anyone that has taken a private cooking lesson before, you can ask them to tell you about their experience and ask for a referral. Be sure to ask them the pros and cons of using the chef that they chose so that you can make an informed decision as to whether or not you would like to hire that person.
The internet can be a very useful tool when it comes to locating a chef that offers private lessons. From the comfort of your home, you can fire up your web browser and perform a search for private cooking lessons in your local town or city. You may also be able to read reviews of the chef and learn about the experiences of others.
You also have the trusty yellow pages that you can turn to. Your local phone book is a great resource and can be extremely helpful and easy to use.
If you are lucky, you may be able to find a chef that will travel to your home and allow you to take the lesson using your very own cooking utensils and kitchen. This is particularly lovely because it allows you to learn in your own environment, which boosts confidence and shows you that you are able to create delicious meals at home!
Not all chefs will offer in home lessons, so you may have to travel in order to get your private cooking lessons. One of the benefits of commuting to your lesson is that there is a very high likely hood that you will be using the chef or school's utensils. This typically will ensure that you will have everything necessary to complete a lesson, while if you were taking the lesson at home, you may not have an item or two.
Whether you decide to have the lesson at a school or in your own home, you are sure to learn a few new things. It may take some time and effort before you are able to whip things up at the blink of an eye, but with a bit of determination, anyone can learn to cook! It won't be long and you may just find that your friends and family will be coming to you for culinary advice!
Interested in affordable Private cooking lessons? Get the exclusive low down on the best lessons now on http://greatcookingtoday.com/Online Cooking Classes, Learning To Be Comfortable in Your Kitchen
Friday, May 21, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Hands on Cooking Class, How to Become a Cook
The journey of becoming a good cook usually begins with a hands on cooking class. For me growing up in a family of 8 kids, the journey started early. After so many years of simply being in the way in the kitchen I was finally given a job to keep me in one place. As time went on each of us kids were taught at least one recipe that we could put together for a family meal and soon we had a cooking team that was responsible for one meal each week.
Learning to cook was fascinating; I was always amazed at my mother's ability to walk into the kitchen, look in the refrigerator pull out something for the entree and then an hour or so later have a meal on the table. She never seemed at a loss to figure out what ingredient went well with another. I rarely if ever saw her use a cook book, and when I did she would simply scan the ingredients, head for the cupboard and start putting things together.
The process of becoming a good cook is like that, learning to know your ingredients and quantities so well that you are able to select your main entree and build your meal around it. The best way to learn is through hands on cooking.
I started working in a professional kitchen as a dishwasher, when I was 14. My first cooking tasks were of course peeling potatoes. I graduated to peeling and deveining shrimp and eventually boning trout. As time went on I was given a knife and taught how to use it to cut vegetables for soups. Finally I was given an opportunity to actually make a soup. What a thrill that was!
As I had discovered at home, so I discovered in the restaurant kitchen; cooking is a formula or rather a bunch of them. A good cook or chef does not use recipes, or at least use recipes the way they are usually intended. The recipe is simply a guideline or springboard to get the process of cooking started. By learning a set of formulas and techniques a good cook can substitute different taste combinations and textures to get completely different meals out of that same boring breast of chicken.
Fortunately for me I had some very good trainers who were patient enough to explain the basics to me as I went along. The best advice that I got came from a chef who told me to get very close to anyone I saw who knew more than I did.
There is really no mystery to cooking. Once those you learn the fundamentals.
It starts with learning enough of the fundamentals to be able to know what to do with the ingredients, to change them to suit your tastes. Along the way you will need knife skills, and some kitchen tools. Next you need to know about methods of cooking, like saute, bake, braise, grilling and frying. As you learn the techniques you will begin to acquire a knowledge of the properties of certain ingredients. Learning how to combine things to get different results will lead you into learning about the whole world of herbs and spices.
The knowledge I have described used to be locked up in the heads of a few chef's. They would only share it with a few of their trusted employee's in a hands on cooking class. Today we live in an age of instant communication; we no longer have to wait or spend years looking through cookbooks and experimenting to learn how to do these things. They are available at the click of a mouse. See the video below.
Learning to cook was fascinating; I was always amazed at my mother's ability to walk into the kitchen, look in the refrigerator pull out something for the entree and then an hour or so later have a meal on the table. She never seemed at a loss to figure out what ingredient went well with another. I rarely if ever saw her use a cook book, and when I did she would simply scan the ingredients, head for the cupboard and start putting things together.
The process of becoming a good cook is like that, learning to know your ingredients and quantities so well that you are able to select your main entree and build your meal around it. The best way to learn is through hands on cooking.
I started working in a professional kitchen as a dishwasher, when I was 14. My first cooking tasks were of course peeling potatoes. I graduated to peeling and deveining shrimp and eventually boning trout. As time went on I was given a knife and taught how to use it to cut vegetables for soups. Finally I was given an opportunity to actually make a soup. What a thrill that was!
As I had discovered at home, so I discovered in the restaurant kitchen; cooking is a formula or rather a bunch of them. A good cook or chef does not use recipes, or at least use recipes the way they are usually intended. The recipe is simply a guideline or springboard to get the process of cooking started. By learning a set of formulas and techniques a good cook can substitute different taste combinations and textures to get completely different meals out of that same boring breast of chicken.
Fortunately for me I had some very good trainers who were patient enough to explain the basics to me as I went along. The best advice that I got came from a chef who told me to get very close to anyone I saw who knew more than I did.
There is really no mystery to cooking. Once those you learn the fundamentals.
It starts with learning enough of the fundamentals to be able to know what to do with the ingredients, to change them to suit your tastes. Along the way you will need knife skills, and some kitchen tools. Next you need to know about methods of cooking, like saute, bake, braise, grilling and frying. As you learn the techniques you will begin to acquire a knowledge of the properties of certain ingredients. Learning how to combine things to get different results will lead you into learning about the whole world of herbs and spices.
The knowledge I have described used to be locked up in the heads of a few chef's. They would only share it with a few of their trusted employee's in a hands on cooking class. Today we live in an age of instant communication; we no longer have to wait or spend years looking through cookbooks and experimenting to learn how to do these things. They are available at the click of a mouse. See the video below.
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