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(Photograph by George Sakkestad) Milva Gobbi is the assistant manager of the Los Gatos Sur La Table, where Cooking with Class will offer summer cooking camps for kids ages 6-12. Chefs of all ages learn culinary skills in classes at Sur La Table (By Suzanne Cristallo) Summer school begins next week, both for the cooking-challenged and epicures seeking more ways to make food art. At Sur La Table in Los Gatos' Old Town, there will be 15 weeks of culinary instruction covering such exotic subjects as tandoori cooking, regional Thai, a meze table from ancient Greece and sushi. A cooking camp for kids and fruit and vegetable carving are among the 73 sessions being held from June 10 through Sept. 25. Classes will be conducted by star chefs, authors and restaurateurs. Local personalities like Mark Hopper, executive chef from Paolo's in San Jose, and Miles Neal, chef at Los Gatos' California Cafe, will be offering hands-on classes. Hopper plans to explain his concept of flavor stacking, called the critical link between technique and creativity. His menu for "Tastes of Summer" on July 17 includes tuna sashimi with watermelon tartar and crispy duck confit (preserved through slow cooking) with summer melon-green bean salad. On June 19, he will offer another class on how to create homemade compound butters and soup bases for use as building blocks for more complex dishes. Neal will show how to use fresh summer berries in desserts from sorbets to cakes on July 8. He will also demonstrate how to work with puff pastry and offer tips on presentation. A fresh and fragrant approach to cooking is "The Lure of Lavender Cookery," offered by Sharon Shipley on July 13. The owner of Mon Cherie Cooking School and Catering Company will show how to enliven dishes with the taste of lavender, as in lavender honey and citrus-marinated shrimp, cold cantaloupe-tangerine soup with a garnish of lavender or skewers of smoked apricot-lavender chicken on a bed of apples and pecans. At cooking camp for the junior chef, Nancy Wokas, chef-proprietor of Cooking with Class - a gourmet cooking school for all ages - will be conducting two sessions: July 24-28 for ages 6 to 8, and June 25-28 for ages 10 to 12. "The kids are really creative," says Milva Gobbi, assistant manager of the Los Gatos Sur La Table. "They come up with things adults wouldn't come up with - or even eat," she adds, laughing. The planned menu for the 6- to 8-year-olds includes smoothies, hot and cold wraps, homemade French rolls, cheeseburgers and crinkle fries. It will all be topped off with a meal for families that features chicken-in-the-pot with roasted veggies, torn-up greens with shredded apples and carrots, and fresh fruit cobbler. The older kids get to make waffles and fried eggs, marinated and grilled chicken stuffed in a pita, chicken a la King, alfredo sauce on fettucine and peanut butter cookie bars. Wokas will also teach a basic cooking skills class for teens Aug. 20-22. One session is devoted to selecting and preparing seasonal produce, another to selecting fish, poultry and meat, as well as handling them properly while cooking. Teenagers also will learn how to prepare marinades and rubs. The final class will concern the cooking of wild rice, basmati, brown rice and arborio. Perfect polenta and savory gratins are the goal. Sur La Table has also scheduled tours through San Francisco areas of culinary interest, including one through North Beach and another through a chocolate factory. Closer to home is a tour of the Watsonville wood ovens of Andrea Mugnaini. She will teach everything from lighting the ovens to creating desserts. Not just for pizzas, the wood-fired ovens have been used since ancient times for roasting, braising, sauteing and grilling. Sur La Table is located at 23 University Ave. in Los Gatos. To register for classes or to receive a class schedule, call 408-395-6946. |
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