Sur La Table...Natick, MA

For Christmas, my sis-in-law gave me a two hour, four course, fabulous French Bistro Classics cooking course at Sur La Table.  It.  Was.  Awesome.  I really didn't know what to expect at first, as this was my initial cooking class.  It turned out to be fun, informative, tasty, and educational.  Chef, Tim Doherty instructed the course in a manner in which I found very funny and entertaining.  He managed to keep my attention so he definitely deserves credit where credit is due. 

The class was held in the rear of the Natick Sur La Table.  The good sized tidy kitchen set up was pretty damn cool and included every little gadget, burner, oven, pan, pot, accessory, appliance, etc; you can imagine.  Right when you walked through the glass doors, there were twelve stations set up with cutting boards and ginormous knives for the culinary students.  Word. 

As you may have assumed, mostly women were in attendance with the exclusion of one dude, who we found out at the end of the evening, was from France.  How ironic.  We were invited to be hands on at various times throughout the evening, with such duties as peeling and chopping some veggies and preparing our cheese souffle dishes with Parmesan cheese.  For the rest of the class, we mostly listened and watched as the chef did his thing. 

Chef Doherty started his lesson with the making of Beef Bourguignon which is a classic French stew made with beef, onions, carrots, thyme, garlic, red wine, etc.  Delish.  After prepping the main dish and letting it finish in the pressure cooker, he moved onto the French onion soup recipe (Soupe a l'Oignon).  And I am totally including shallots and leeks in my next batch of deliciousness.  Topped with the thinly sliced baguette and grated Petit Basque and Gruyere cheese.  YUMMO!  Letting the soup simmer, the chef taught us how to whip up a cheese souffle which I was not the least bit crazy about.  As you know, I dislike the apparent taste of eggs and the souffle tasted like mildly cheesy eggs.  Uck!  Well, you can't like everything.  Three out of four ain't bad.  Which brings me to the final recipe we observed being put together. 

The dessert and final concoction of the evening was Vanilla Creme Brulee.  Lots of cream, sugar, vanilla bean, and egg yolks with a candied coated, crunchy outside.  Freaking fantastic.  Some of the brave class members even torched their own treat. 

The best part was seeing everything being prepared and cooked and then enjoyed.  The chef taught me some more time management skills, what to cook first, when to add garlic to the frying pan, how to get the onions sauteed just right.  Multiple cooking methods which I thought I had mastered.  The most valuable thing I learned was that we should all be rinsing our eggs off before we crack it open on a flat surface.  It's not as easy as it looks but practice does make perfect. 

I have already researched future cooking classes at Sur La Table.  They offer everything from baking cupacakes to tapas making to four course dinner menus to bread making to pasta classes, on and on.  I am totally looking forward to dragging the hubs to a Soul Food class in the next couple of months.  OMG.  I just love food and the making of spectacular dishes!!!  Totally check out their calendar if you love to cook and care to embrace a new experience!
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