Has Anyone Taken Cooking Classes Here in SD? (Poway, Sonoma: school, low cost)

[djxpress]

I was thinking of doing HipCooks or maybe Poway Adult School. I can't cook to save my life and figure this might be a life skill worth learning.

Curious of recommendations. HipCooks classes look like they teach you how to cook one or two different things. I'm more interested in learning the basics of cooking like knife skills, when to use a pot or pan, how to use oil and butter, how long to cook things, when to bake or fry or steam...etc...

[moved]

You could probably do that through Continuing Ed. www.sdce.edu But I can't imagine someone not knowing how to cook. Although I used to know someone that didn't even know how to boil water....

[BizrulesSD]

The basics are easy and can be found through various channels on youtube or watching the food network. I am a big fan of Alton Brown as he teaches the basics of why certain ingredients work together and when to use them versus like you mentioned putting together a single dish but not having any clue on how it works.

Besides Hipcooks, there is Sur la Table. They do have into classes as well.

[psychmd]

Originally Posted by BizrulesSD

The basics are easy and can be found through various channels on youtube or watching the food network. I am a big fan of Alton Brown as he teaches the basics of why certain ingredients work together and when to use them versus like you mentioned putting together a single dish but not having any clue on how it works.

Besides Hipcooks, there is Sur la Table. They do have into classes as well.

Williams Sonoma also has classes. A lot of classes at stores are free or pretty low cost because part of what they're doing is trying to sell you stuff. It's a good place to start though, especially with stuff like knife skills.

As long as you're willing to make a huge mess, take 2-3 times as long as you think you should take to prepare a meal, and be ok with it not tasting right the first few times you do it, then learning on your own through watching Food Network, Youtube, and printing off recipes from food sites/blogs is a lot of fun. Even better if you have someone you're learning together with. Then 4-5 years later when you love to cook and are pretty good at it you'll look back with a lot of fondness for those days


Also, cooking is one of those things where you learn by doing it. So when you see a class that says it'll teach you how to make 2 or 3 things, you will also be learning and practicing all those basic skills along the way.