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In the News- School of Yum
Columbian Home and Lifestyle March/April 2008 issue Text-only excerpt from the article on Class Cooking:
Kim Mahan is so devoted to her cooking school that she recently moved and remodeled a house just to accommodate her students. The proprietor of Class Cooking and Catering will also cater your party or let you throw a dinner party in her home-- she’ll clean the house, help you cook and even do all the dishes.
A native of Portland, Mahan’s past boasts an impressive culinary education that is nothing if not diverse, from her training with Chez Philippe in Barcelona, Spain to her stint with Vancouver Pizza right here at home. Her beautifully remodeled kitchen features eight fully equipped workstations for students. “My classes are very hands-on,” she explains. Mahan prefers her students full involvement to demonstration-style classes because she feels that the student gains more confidence by actually cooking the meals themselves and gaining new skills as they work. “I’m very specific about techniques, and also about cleanliness and food safety,” she says.
Mahan sets up about one class a month, information about which is available through her web site at www.class-cooking.com. She also welcomes custom classes. With a minimum of six people, she can design a class to accommodate any group. Typically, her classes will revolve around a course (such as appetizers), or some ethnic cuisine, in which she will prepare a full meal with at least two entrees. In a recent Moroccan food class, students learned to prepare Tagine of chicken with olives and preserved lemons, spiced meatballs, a grilled three pepper salad and a diced carrot salad with cinnamon and orange dressing. Students even prepared the preserved lemons in class, to take home along with a traditional Tagine cooking vessel.
Her classes for children, if infrequent, are not to be missed. “I like science-based classes,” she says as she explains the concept behind pizza-making classes for ages five through nine (“seeing that dough rise is always fascinating”) and the peanut butter cookies for which students made not only the peanut butter, but the butter as well.
Check out the Class Cooking and Catering web site for upcoming class information as well as photos of classes and a monthly recipe. Interested parties can also sign up for the monthly newsletter via the site.
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