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In "Ecole de Cuisine," Jill Prescott masterfully lays out the basics of classic French cooking. She shares tips about ingredients ranging from anchovies to zest, outlines the cookware and appliances a well-stocked kitchen should have and provides helpful information on cooking techniques like blanching and braising.
"When I was signing up for one, my partner, Larry, a retired physician, said he thought it sounded intriguing and would like to come along," Kaplan says. "He's been in the kitchen ever since." I haven't been so lucky yet. Jack is a workaholic and my office is at home, so it's still simpler for me to do the shopping and prepare dinner. But after retirement, we're likely to become like many other senior couples interested in food and wine.
We'll probably take more cooking classes and sign up for some of an increasing number of food-and-wine-oriented tours, special-interest cruises and events at resorts and hotels. And he'll have more time to spend in the kitchen, sharing the masterminding of menus, food shopping and cooking.
During the five-day participation course Jack and I chose, we spent four to six hours a day on our feet preparing dishes we would later devour. Additional time was spent on discussions of techniques, equipment and ingredients, and a half-day to explore markets, spice importers and other suppliers, and sample the recipes and presentation of a well-respected local chef.
Ask about your instructor's culinary credentials, experience and teaching abilities.
Find out if the kitchen was designed for instruction or if it is a home or restaurant kitchen. The ratio of students per instructor is particularly important in participation classes--the smaller the group, the more personal attention you receive. Find out what activities are scheduled outside cooking time and what is included in the cost.
Ask for the names and phone numbers of two or three people who have taken the course or made the trip, and question them about how it was organized, how much time was spent in hands-on or demonstration sessions, and whether instructors were supportive or overbearing.
Child will present two demonstrations at Jill Prescott's Ecole de Cuisine in Mequon, Wis., near Milwaukee, in the program sponsored by the Milwaukee chapter of the American Institute of Wine and Food.
Prescott, who studied cooking in France and Italy, emphasizes classical techniques and traditional ingredients, including butter (don't even think about margarine), cream (she won't use packaged sour cream) and eggs. Convenience foods do not have a place in her repertoire.
Many classes run consecutively to accommodate out-of-state students who take several courses in one weekend. Classes range from rank beginner ("How to Boil Water") and "Meals in 30 Minutes" to "Trattoria Italian Cooking," "The Cooking of Provence and the Mediterranean" and all levels of classic French cuisine. There even are team-building sessions for corporate groups.
Beautiful fresh ingredients formed French still-life art on the white counter tops: bright green bunches of fresh spinach; perfect pink veal shanks; baskets of ripe, red plum tomatoes; aromatic bundles of basil, thyme and parsley; a fortune in saffron threads; fragrant fresh mozzarella, parmesan, fontina and Gorgonzola cheeses, and rough-textured hearth breads.
In teams of two or three, we browned veal shanks, made tomato-and-basil sauce, stemmed about a bushel of fresh spinach, mixed up pizza dough, assembled bouquets garnis, peeled tomatoes, grated lemons, reduced beef stock to become glace de viande (meat glaze), and learned how to thicken a sauce with equal parts flour and butter (to make a beurre manie) and how to judge the degree of doneness in meat by feel.
Since the school opened in February, L'Ecole de Cuisine has drawn students from the Chicago area and all over Wisconsin and has hosted some culinary heavyweights, including Jacques Pepin and Guy Legay, the chef at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Legay, not knowing what to expect from a cooking school in the American "provinces," was impressed.
Framed certificates and advanced diplomas from three French culinary schools in Paris_Ecole Lenotre, Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne and Ecole de Gastronomie Ritz Escoffier_plus additional studies in Italy and in French restaurants and bakeries, attest to her skills and her dedication to her dreams.
Prescott is also the star of the PBS cooking show, The Jill Prescott Culinary School: Professional Cooking for the Home Chef.
On our first day alone, we learn how to clarify butter, hold a knife properly for safe chopping, carmelize sugar, emulsify one ingredient in another, and use a piping bag to make decorative duchess potatoes. We also cover how the best pots and pans are constructed, the differences between supermarket and fine vinegars, and how to choose a good cookbook.
Bill Wernecke, Jr. runs a lumber business by day, a world of 2x4s and power tools. At his wife's urging, he went along to Jill Prescott's Ecole de Cuisine and learned to concoct a seven-course Italian meal. "A guy like me, who knew nothing about cooking, can now whip something up when friends come over," says the lumberman. "It's great fun."
Couples get to do a fun project that doesn't involve the stress of putting an addition on the house, And as Dennis Ghetto , a restaurant critic in the Midwest, says, "A lot of these people are executives who work with their heads, not their hands, so they enjoy getting involved making the dish."
