Our fabulous jewelery designer-friend, Easter Ahn-Lee opted to take a private group class with her husband, John and 8 of their friends. I gave them a choice of 3 different classes they could take, but they chose to take “Pasta! Pasta!” This was good for me b/c the hard prep-work was already done from the first class I had in June. The recipes were basically the same as my first class, but the interaction and experience as a whole was pretty different. I also switched from baking banana bread for dessert, to roasting peaches with almond crumble to serve with vanilla ice cream, as a tribute to summer.
I can honestly say that in the beginning, this was a slightly tougher crowd to please because I knew right off the bat that not everyone was that interested in cooking, but came to the class just to hang out and eat. That’s totally fine, but it did have me sweating bullets because I was trying to be extra hard to be entertaining. However, surprisingly towards the end of the lesson, every single person got their hands in the tomatoes or rolled up the meatballs and had a good time. They even stuck around for a few extra hours to relax, laugh, eat and chat, which was very fun and nice. I ended up having a blast, and Joe was of course right there in the action, capturing the events of the night.
I’m sure I was saying something HILARIOUS here. I see some smiles…or maybe that’s nervous laughter.
I LOVE love LOVE this picture of Ken’s note-taking. What a great student!
Wow intense! Now that’s some concentration!
Nikki perfectly sweated the onions to the correct consistency and color.
Here’s Easter at work, as meticulous as a jeweler would be.
Pesto pasta with green beans and sun-dried tomatoes
Spaghetti with turkey meatballs and scratch made tomato sauce.
A grateful thanks to Easter for organizing her group taking and taking our class. We had a great time!
Some nice comments from the class:
“Thanks so much, Julie!!! You’re a great chef & teacher. The class was so much fun and the food was DELICIOUS!! Hope to do this again soon” -Jennie & Ernie
“Chef Julie, Thank you for the cooking lesson! It was fun, easy to learn & nice tips on chopping & dicing! Especially with the rolling the basil!” -Easter
“Chef Julie, I love you!” -Ludie Lee
“I don’t cook. Or at least I never saw the point of home cooked meals when you can easily pick up something from a restaurant and save time. Boy, am I inspired to go home and try cooking myself! Julie was an awesome instructor. She gave us very easy steps to make dishes and be practical at the same time. Thank you so much! The turkey meatballs were amazing.” -Anonymous
