I was offered an opportunity to do one of my personally designed classes at a cooking school called Kitchen On Fire in Berkeley- they were in need of people who can do Asia, and that's kind of my thing.
Strangely enough, starting with them came via a charming retro cold-call. Or cold-email, as the case may be. I gave them my name, my pedigree as an instructor, and gave the name of one of their most reputable guest instructors as a reference, a delightful woman named Maria, of Maria Teresa's Kitchen. Not at all a stretch to do so either- she'd been a guest instructor at my previous cooking school many times, and we always worked quite smoothly together. Ten minutes after I sent the email, I got a phone call with an eager offer. Pleasant!
Fast forward several months and my shadowing a class or two, to last night's sushi seminar. Fourteen people is a bit more than ideal for this particular class, which led to it feeling rather jumbled to me. I was apparently the only one that thought so, though. Everyone had naught but good things to say, even my assistant and the dishwasher!
I did spend a fair bit of time talking at first, which is inevitable. The goal of the class was not just to get everyone to practice what I was showing, but to ensure that they understood the principles behind the techniques. Mimicry only gets a person so far, after all.
First comes the briefest of sushi history lessons, and the slow evolution of the concept into what we know it as today. After which I hit them with the essential terminology, some interesting trivia, and then we take a break to get into some technique. Knife skills practice yielded a rustic but classic side dish, Kinpira Gobo, as well as some delicately julienned cucumber for the evening's kappa-maki. Some other vegetarian sushi options included crispy roasted sweet potatoes, green onions, and my specialty shiitake braised in shoyu and mirin with ginger.
Next, the fish. Tuna and salmon were the easy choices, since I'd been sandbagged with an attendee possessed of a shellfish allergy. A quick lesson on butchery, brine-freezing, and a few other tidbits kept them interested while I cut the fish. Regrettably I hadn't brought my knives, trusting the in-house tools. Mistake. I have not shanked a piece of fish quite that badly in several years. I had to skin the salmon with the heel of my hand- a tricky technique I learned in New England from one of the other cooks at a restaurant I worked in during my Johnson & Wales years.
Last, demos. Chumaki, Hosomaki, Temaki, and Nigiri. And then I turned them loose to practice and eat their fill.
While perhaps a little rough getting going, everyone was pleasant to one another, lots of useful tidbits were exchanged, lots of different ingredient combinations showed up, and everyone came away with smiles, full stomachs, and better understanding.
Ultimately, that's worth the price of admission and then some.
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