Cooking Class at Sur la Table - “A Tour of the French Quarter”
Starting with Gumbo, with a middle of Shrimp and Grits, and as a finale Bananas Foster...
If you ever have a chance, take a cooking class, even if you think you know it all, as I did with the gumbo. You will quickly discover you don’t. Starting with knife holding and chopping we learned how to cut herbs among other things and I was amazed to discover I knew nothing. The herb cutting was a revelation like no other. I can only say folding them into a little package of sorts and then chopping them was a herb-chopping miracle. If I learned nothing else today, that herb cutting made it all worth it.
The second course was shrimp and grits. I made it perfectly, with lots of step-by-step instruction and using the best tools Sur la Table could provide with a ten percent discount on anything in the store after class was over. Smart! The class makes you want to step up your game and I hope to be able to take another class before too long.
We ate all we cooked so by the time the class was over three hours later I was ready to take a nap. The Bananas Foster was a grand Finale and as I lit mine I was so surprised by the giant fire bomb I created. This I will be doing outside at my house. There is no sense in burning it down. Our teacher was amazing and had studied at several famous cooking schools and for the Bananas Foster she even made homemade vanilla ice cream for us. Our teacher explained the history of Bananas Foster which was created by the chef at Brendan’s in New Orleans. In the late 1800s, the produce boats were bringing in exotic foods from South America and Bananas were among them.
Bananas it seems were the rage and Brendan’s chef was asked to create a dish using them. Bananas Foster was born, named after a friend of the chef who, we were told, did not appreciate the honor! Little did he know his name would be famous. Like all culinary creations, Bananas Foster has taken on a life of its own.
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