Linda B wrote:Doogy,
I have taken the class from Ed Bartush and it was fantastic! I had taken knife skills classes elsewhere but never totally got it. After the class with Ed I could handle a knife like a pro! And we had fun in the process!
Let Susan know you are a foodie;she'd love to meet you personally and put a face with the name!
I did and you are correct, the class was great and Susan is awesome. I now feel very confident with my new Wusthof Classic knives and even expanded my collection while at the class.
In fact, I wrote a very detailed review, as follows.
First of all I want to thank Susan Lukjan, owner of Campbell's Gourmet Cottage and Clark (sorry, didn't catch his last name), the instructor from Wusthof for a totally awesome evening. The knife skills class far exceeded my already lofty expectations. When I arrived I introduced myself to Susan and she recognized me as Doogy from the food forum. That was neat in itself. I strolled through the shop looking to add to my recent purchase of an 8 piece Wusthof Classic set. With the advice Susan and Clark gave me, I decided to add a Wusthof 4 1/2' boning knife and a Wusthof 2 stage knife sharpener.
Ok, enough of that, let's get onto the class. Clark is a really great guy in that he not only is full of knowledge but that he presents it in a way that's fun. For anyone who wants to improve their knife skills, this class is great. It's totally hands on. All the students sat down at tables and listened while Clark went over some basics about knives, but he made sure to tell us we would be up and working in short order. He went over which knives to use for what products and also the basics of using a steel and a sharpener. He also expected a degree of interactivity from the students.
First up were 2 roasted chickens that we needed to get all the breast meat from to make sandwiches. I learned a totally new way to slice breasts from poultry. Along the way we were learning the correct knife to use for the job. We used a 4" utility knife for this task. After we cut the breasts, it was off to the bread and tomatoes. Of course, we used a bread knife for the bread, but Clark showed us 2 knives we could use for the tomatoes. We used the chef's knife and a santoku knife. Both worked well, but I prefer the chef's knife. One cool thing we learned was to use the pinch grip on the chef's and santoku knives but not the others.
Well, after eating our yummo sandwiches it was off to tables with cutting boards, chef's knives and a variety of veggies. Time to put the old pinch grip to use and learn the rocking motion of properly using a chef's knife. I was really getting into it at this point and having a lot of fun. I felt like the next Food Network star. We had carrots, celery, onions, garlic, basil and parsley to prepare. I learned some really neat tricks doing all this. Methods such as leaving the root end on the onion after halving it. After cutting the end of the carrot off, leveling off one side so it will lie flat on the cutting board to facilitate slicing. I am sure many of you all out there in foodieland know these techniques but I didn't and this is why I took the class.
We learned the coolest way to cut up a bell pepper. We were instructed to slice off the bottom, stand it on end then just basically peel it down with the chef's knife. The seeds and stem are all that's left. Wow, how neato huh? Let me see, oh yeah, and then it was garlic time. Of course smashing the garlic is fun and it's simple to slice and mince, but then we learned how to make a nice paste by adding some salt and using the end of the blade to roll it over the garlic and more or less grind it to the correct consistency. I was in aroma heaven at this point in time.
Now it was herb time. First up, parsley. We pulled off the stems and sorta of rolled it into a ball. A few quick slices with the chef's knife, and voila, minced parsley. So easy, so fun and so cool. Next up, time to chiffanade some basil. I just love the word chiffanade and the fresh basil was lofting my olfactory nerve to aroma heaven. I had watched the Food TV folks do this but had never done it myself. By this time in the class, everything was coming to me so easily that it almost seemed natural.
What would all this food preparation be without dessert? We learned the proper way to prepare a whole pineapple and cut a pound cake. This all sounds so easy, but without the proper knowledge and knives, it is more of a chore than a thing of pleasure. The last part of the class was about how to clean and take care of the knives. Suffice it to say that if you possess a quality set of cutlery, never let it come anywhere near your dishwasher. Clark even said it's verboten in Germany to put knives in one.
So, to bring this lengthy review to and end, if you want to learn more about using your knives definitely schedule a class. I kind of left Susan out of the picture but she played an important role in the class as well. She would ask questions of Clark so he could further teach us about the everyday use of good cutlery. She also went around the classroom talking to everyone and was very busy cleaning up all the piles of chopped, diced, minced, sliced, chiffanaded and otherwise prepared food items we had produced. She is a very congenial lady and I was glad to finally meet her. I must say that I have met a lot of folks on this forum and everyone has been a sincerely nice person.
