“I saw the week-long cooking class for $1,000 that you offer and said to myself, that’s crazy! But I am interested in going cooking school, so I checked into some of them and realized that they cost $2,000 per week. Now your class seems like a bargain!” said Carol, who did attend our five-day Mastering the Art […]

Where to find the best burger? At home, if you make it yourself. A delicious burger is made from freshly-ground meat, lightly packed, cooked on a high heat for a short period of time, and served on a homemade bun with homemade sauce. Yes, you can make this delicious treat. Once you taste your own […]

“I made your recipe, but I changed it and now it’s better,” said a customer. How so?
“Well, I didn’t read the recipe, but just put all of the ingredients together in a pot and cooked it. So I didn’t realize until later that I was supposed to roll the nuts in sugar.”
Ah, the challenge of writing […]

French foods are back in style, finally! Our historically-French city now has several French restaurants: Brasserie and Chez Leon (their chefs teach cooking classes at Kitchen Conservatory), plus Atlas, Cafe Provencal, Franco, and Pomme. Julia Child would be so happy that we are rediscovering her favorite foods (only two spots are available for our Julia class […]

Say what? Banh xeo! These irresistable Vietnamese crepes, pronounced bunn SAY-oh, are a crispy thin pancake filled with flavor. Although no one in the cooking class had ever heard of them, banh xeo was the favorite recipe in our recent crepe class. This crepe is made without the traditional ingredients of eggs, milk, or flour, but tastes […]

“I was pleased to sample the bouillabaisse last night when I was at a cake decorating class– I would love the recipe if at all possible. It was simply delicious!!!!”
Chef-instructor Katy Colson taught an international soup class that included Vietnamese bouillabaisse. Traditionally, bouillabaisse is a French fish soup flavored with saffron, tomato, parsley, and garnished with a spicy mayonaisse called […]

Crepes are sunshine: round, yellow, and hot. On a dreary February day, think of the sun and eat crepes! My first taste of a crepe au Grand Marnier was taught to me by an eight-year-old French boy, who declared them to be his favorite! Crepes are street food in Paris and the kiosks always have a bottle of […]

Mardi Gras is a great excuse to indulge in favorite New Orleans dishes. Load up on fresh oysters and prepare a sumptuous dish, Oysters Rockefeller, which was named after the richest man because the dish is so rich. The fresh oysters in the shell are twice sauced: spinach-pernod and creamy cheese sauces.
The best knives for […]

The “Let’s Eat” section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch featured an article by Shirley Corriher about pound cake, which drew a lot of attention.
She calls for baking the cake in a pullman bread pan, because the right-angle sides (most bread pans have slanted sides) produce a pretty dessert when the slices are cut on the […]

Simple, hearty foods can be turned into gourmet treats with one simple addition: lobster. Fold in some lobster meat to such comfort-food favorites as macaroni-and-cheese or mashed potatoes or risotto or pot pie and everyone wants to eat!
An elderly customer told me yesterday, “I bought a live lobster and while I was driving home, it broke out of the paper […]