I went with two friends and we all had a great time. I plan to use my new dumpling making skills to make a few batches of dumplings to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

If you're interested in learning how to make your own dumplings, check out the Confucius Institute's webpage:
http://confucius.ucdavis.edu/programsevents/index.html

All the dumpling classes for this quarter are full at this time, but you can get on their mailing list so that you know when registration opens up for next quarter. The Confucius Institute also offers workshops on tea and paper-cutting, as well as language classes.

What's better than reading a great book about food? Getting to read it and eat many of the tasty dishes mentioned in the memoir with some new friends. Last night, was Community Tap and Table's Foodie Book Club night and we discussed, cooked and tasted our way through Nigel Slater's bestseller, "Toast."




Since pictures oftentimes tell a better story than just words, I snapped a few photos of the various dishes we had:




Cream Soda Cocktail: St Germain Elderflower Liquor, Vanilla Cream Soda, and Lime Juice over ice. Quite scrumptious!




Toast: Fontina Cheese w/ Caramelized Leeks and Mashed Peas atop toasted bread.






Tea Sandwiches.




Hearty Lamb Stew with Sweet Apricots




Pommes Dauphinoise: Baked potato slices layered in cream and milk.





Trifle: Berries soaked in Rosewater, layered with Ginger Whipped Cream and Booze Soaked Ladyfingers. Finished with Blueberry Marshmallow Cream.


September's book choice will be, "Four Fish" by Paul Greenberg. For more information contact Community Tap and Table.

Do you love to eat food? Do you cook to relax? Do you devour chef memoirs, cookbooks and food magazines like they're made of bacon and chocolate? Well the nice folks at Community Tap and Table might have the perfect thing for you then. They're starting up a foodie book club. Each month a new food-centric book will be chosen. Members will complete their book by the designated meeting day; then gather at Community Tap and Table, where they'll get to cook and partake in a delicious 3-course meal (complete with beverage pairing) while discussing the book with other culinary literature lovers.

The current book schedule is:

July: "Toast" by Nigel Slater

Culinary Center, 4315 Arden Way, Sacramento, CA, 95608. (916) 488-2800 ext. 261
http://wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/sacramento/culinary-calendar/

I love to cook, but I'll admit my knives skills could use some work. I'm definitely no culinary samurai in the kitchen. When I'm cutting, I exert too much force, I have a tendency to hold my fingers too far away from the blade or too close...in 37 years somehow I've miraculously kept all my fingertips, but there's always room for improvement. So for our date night last night, I thought it'd be fun for Mr.S. and I to check out the Knives Skills 101 class offered by the Sacramento Whole Foods on Arden Way. (I had stumbled upon their class calendar several months back when some friends and I had thought about taking a class.) At a mere $9 for the class, I was willing to give it a shot...it was cheaper than going to a movie and I figured I was bound to learn a skill or two.

We showed up Thursday night at the Whole Foods Culinary Center (a small instructional kitchen located within the store) through the rain, hail, thunder and lightening. The classroom was ready to go with cutting boards and knives for each student. We were there a bit early so we got to chat a bit with the instructor, Chris Chisholm (who teaches several other cooking classes at Whole Foods as well). The class began with a brief introduction to knife safety, choosing a knife and knife care. The majority of the class, however, was devoted to hands-on learning. We learned how to chop, cut on the bias, batonnet, do a large and small dice, and julienne. During the class we worked on carrots, celery, potatoes and onions to learn how to cut vegetables of different shapes. Mr.S. turned out to be a natural at cutting; he was whizzing through stuff like he was Richard Blais. I, unfortunately was not. For some reason, sticking the knuckles of my left hand against the blade of the knife, really freaked me out. Flashbacks of knife injuries in the past kept flipping through my brain, causing me to tensing up. Our instructor was extremely patient, friendly and helpful though. He just kept gently reminding me to keep my knuckles against the blade. He also suggested a smaller, lighter knife for me which helped a lot.

Class ended up running longer than it was scheduled for which was great. The instructor also stayed after and showed several students quick ways to smash and cut garlic and how to hone knives since they were interested. Overall, both Mr.S. and I had a wonderful time and felt that we learned a lot. Mr.S. liked it so much that on the ride home he commented that he would be up for attending another cooking or food related class. As for me, I'm thinking I need to make a batch of vegetable soup soon so I can practice all the new knife skills I just learned.

* Whole Foods Sacramento usually offers this class once a month. You can check their calendar, it's updated monthly.
* Must 18 to attend this class.

http://communitytapandtable.com/

Every so often my friend Beth and I get together for a drink and some eats in the Grid and catch up but this last time around we were looking for somewhere/something new to try. So when I happened upon the Sacramento Press' article about Community Tap and Table I decided to run the idea by her to see if she'd be interested in checking it out. After all it did have the major components we look for- food and beer...the only difference was we would have to do the cooking ourselves but that might turn out to be kind of fun.

Community Tap and Table is described as a club for "beer bellies with a cooking problem." It was started by couple, Emily Baime and Darin Michaels, and offers cooking classes, brewery tours and beer dinners. The cooking classes can range from four to eleven people. The night we went was a Tuesday and the class consisted of five "beer bellied cooks". Both Baime and Michael were quite welcoming when we showed up at their South Land Park home and extremely hospitable throughout the night. The class we chose to attend was called, " Grilled Flatbreads and Homemade Summer Flavors," and the menu consisted of:

- Green tomato jam served with sliced baguette (not what I expected at all- the cinnamon made it almost dessert-like, yummy!)
- Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote served with goat cheese and water crackers (absolutely divine!)
- Tea-Smoked Salmon, Homemade Ricotta & Fresh Tomato Sauce on Grilled Flatbread (yum, the salmon was so good I could have eaten it by itself)
- Wild Plum Cardamom Syrup & Pork Belly over ice cream (crisp chunks of pork belly!!!...seriously, need I say more?)



Baime handled the food portion of the evening. Several stations were set up and ready to go in their gorgeous kitchen with the appropriate ingredients (all fresh seasonal fruits, veggies and herbs from the farmers' market) and needed tools. As we started our respective dishes and chatted with each other; Baime circulated and talked, joked, and answered questions. Baime's laid back nature makes the cooking fun and stress-free, so don't worry if you haven't spent much time behind an apron, you'll be fine. Once all the courses are ready, Michaels takes over at the dinner table with the beer pairings. We received a brief but informative overview on beer making, then he describes each American craft or micro brew that's been chosen for the course we're eating. We got to try- Blue Moon Summer Honey Wheat, Lagunitas Undercover Investigation Shut-Down Ale, Imperial Barley Wine Ale and Trumer Pils. They were all tasty but I think the Lagunitas was my favorite both in taste and in back story.



On the whole, I love what Baime and Michaels are doing. They're marrying the concepts of food, beer and people. What's not to love about that? If you're looking to meet new people, looking for a fun night of beer tasting or to hone a few cooking skills give CTT a go I think you'll have a great time. You'll definitely come home with a full belly, a big smile and maybe even a few recipes and a leftover or two. It's a great addition to the Sacramento food scene and I look forward to attending another one of their events.

Learning Exchange
1111 Howe Ave, Suite 115. (916) 929-9200
info@learningexchange.com
http://learningexchange.com/

It's strange how certain memories remain crystal clear in your mind, even decades later. I remember when I was a kid, there was one time that my mom made a bunch of sushi for the ladies at her Buddhist temple. I remember sitting at the table, leaning over on my elbows watching her as she rapidly fanned her rice which was in a large hangiri. I remember inhaling deeply and savoring the wafts of rice vinegar emanating from the sushi rice. I remember it like it was yesterday. So when the Learning Exchange (LEX) contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in taking a cooking class there, I decided that the sushi class might be a fun choice. I wasn't sure what to expect and to be quite honest, even though I'm a pretty outgoing person I was a wee bit nervous.

I got to class a bit early and was surprised to find that the classroom was already almost full.  The instructor, Laura Thorne, greeted me and asked me to check in, wash my hands and fill my water bowl. Right on the dot, she started with her introduction. Laura has been in the sushi business (making and teaching it) for thirteen years and is the proprietor of Way Yum Sushi in Nevada City, a sushi catering company that provides custom sushi boats and sushi bars to a lot of Sacramento's premiere events. She has an easy going manner and peppers her instructions with hilarious anecdotes. I liked the fact that she explained the sushi terminology as she went so that the newbies could follow. Her mission statement was that before we left the class we would:

1. Have fun.
2. Know how to make sushi at home.

Can't ask for more than that, right? Now let me interject here...I'll confess, I figured she'd probably teach us how to make a few rolls and call it a day. Color me wrong, wrong, wrong! We learned SEVEN different types of techniques in two hours. We did learn how to make the "standard" sushi roll of course but she also showed us how to put together the inside-out rolls (the rice is on the outside), temakis (the cone shaped roll), 3 types of nigiri, inari (the ones that look like little footballs), rainbow rolls (inside out with aesthetically arranged toppings) and a cucumber bite (a thickly sliced cucumber piece that's been hollowed out, filled with Kanikama (faux crab) mix and topped with a sweet soy sauce. She provided numerous helpful tips, tricks and being a big proponent of using organic and fresh products she recommended local places to buy items and what brands she found to be the best quality. The tuna and eel she had us use in the nigiri was of very high grade which surprised me. We also learned how to make sushi rice and the various sauces that are trendy in the sushi bars now.

Now if you're like me, you're probably thinking a community cooking class? It's going to be full of blue haired grannies or bored housewives. Wrong again! Our class had a nice mix of young/old, male/female and singles/couples. Everyone was super friendly and eager to learn. I ended up chatting with my table buddy Bruce and opened up the world of Oto's to him, he had never been there and had no idea there was a Japanese grocery store in Sac! I felt like a fairy godmother cluing him in. The class turned out to not only be a great learning experience for me but a fun social activity as well. Several students commented that once they perfected their sushi making skills they had plans to throw a sushi-making party. Having gone to one of those before, I can attest to the fact they they are a blast!

Now, in these budget-conscious times I'm sure you're thinking, "It's a little pricey." It's actually not. If you factor the massive amount of sushi we made (which you can eat as you go along or take home your creations with you in a to-go container), it's a bargain. Even my giant sushi gullet couldn't come close to eating everything we got to make. It's seriously cheaper than going out to eat at a sushi-ya. Plus if you bring a friend or significant other, it's a meal and a fun evening out! The Learning Exchange offers a wide variety of cooking class (located at the LEX, the Steel Magnolia Commercial Kitchen and the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts). Now that I've realized how easy it is to sign up and fun it can be, I'm thinking of taking Mr. S. to the empanadas class or the olive curing class or the knives class...aack, so many choices! So if you're looking for something fun and interesting to do or you're trying to fulfill that New Year's resolution of branching out and learning something new, I highly recommend checking out the Learning Exchange. Maybe I'll see you there!

Here's a few pictures that the instructor snapped with my camera when we first started as my hands were covered with sticky rice. She only took one sushi photo and it was fuzzy so I didn't post it, but at least you can see what the class is like.