Courses focus on skills and confidence in the kitchen
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With Duke Dining’s cooking classes for students throughout the year, there’s reason to go beyond those simple pastas, cereals and sandwiches.
The Get Cooking series, offered in the fall, is a five-week culinary essentials class where students learn the skills to be confident in making meals and entertaining on their own. This year, it was led by chef and owner of Season to Taste John Eisensmith.
In this course, students develop knowledge of culinary methods, techniques and the basics of cooking, covering topics such as mise en place (having all ingredients all ready to go before cooking), kitchen safety and knife skills, sauce preparation, and meal timing. They learn to cook a wide variety of dishes with an emphasis on healthy approaches to preparing meals.
This spring, Duke Dining will offer the Keep Cooking series in the same format, but goes deeper into the science behind things. It teaches how to create sauces and emulsions, different cooking techniques for specific items such as eggs and pasta, as well as baking methods behind sweet and savory items.
Students do not have to attend the first series to attend the second.
Other highlights: Duke Dining brings in guest chefs from the area to perform hands-on demonstrations. And as part of the “Wild Kitchen” series, local clinical herbalist Lisa Fouladbash will show how to transform nature’s ingredients into delicious, nourishing foods and beverages.
