Chef du Jour

I don't know why I'm like this, but I pretty much know what Ron gets me for every gift giving occasion before I even open the present. It's a curse, really. I wish I didn't know. It's not like I set out to figure it out. It just happens. This year, of course, was no exception. A couple of weeks before Christmas I saw a rather large package underneath the tree. By the time I had walked into the kitchen I knew what it was. A Cuisinart. A BIG one. I have a little baby one, but just a few weeks earlier we were watching "Barefoot Contessa" and she was using one to grate parmesan cheese. Because we have gone through a couple of cheese graters I said, "Now it would be nice to have a big one for that."

So, there it was, under the tree. I truly appreciate Ron's thoughtfulness, but I had to tell him to take it back. We have a galley kitchen with not a lot of storage and all I could think of is that we'd have no place to store it. And that I'd maybe use it once or twice a year. So, crestfallen, he returned it. "I'll get something for both of us," I offered.

I got us classes as the Kansas City Culinary Center, located in downtown Overland Park. If you haven't had occasion to drop by you really should. It's beautiful and always smells really yummy. They have a wide variety of classes, from beginner to experienced and many of them are hands-on. We had our first class tonight: Soups and Stocks. The perfect way to spend a snowy winter evening. Our teacher was Chef Cody Hogan, the Chef de Cuisine at Lidia's. It was a small class (only nine people) and in the span of two and a half hours, Cody whipped up chicken stock, vegetable stock, a potato soup base and, eventually four or five different soups. Oh, and we had a hummus/pesto appetizer that put me back in Italy in seconds. And, in a freestyle moment, Cody took some of the veggies he used in the stock and made a "salad" with a red wine viniagrette, which was really simple and unbelievably delicious. He also told us how he cooks chicken in his fireplace hanging from a string. Ron Martin was all over that. I'm sure we'll have a chicken hanging in our fireplace soon.

The only downside . . . he used a Cuisinart . . . made me kinda want one.