Spanish Getaway Paella
location_on Location shared after sign-up
Even if you know how to make paella, you may not have a two-foot-wide Valencian paella pan at home. But chef Gustavo Huapalla does, and he breaks it out to demonstrate the proper technique for the classic Spanish dish in his Shaw backyard. For larger class-es, Huapalla moves to the Latin food hall La Cosecha near Union Market. The paella class, “Flavors of Spain,” costs $115;hands-on courses in Peruvian, Chilean, and Argentine cuisines go up to $135 a person.
Disassembly Required Cooking Skills
The spiffy industrial kitchen at Mess Hall in Edgewood is a culinary incubator where rising chefs can launch restaurants of their own. It’s also a place where aspiring chefs—and everyone else—can learn serious skills such as breaking down a whole 180-pound tuna into sashimi, preparing pufferfish sushi, and understanding vermouth and sake. One recent highlight: a lamb-butchering class with Maydan chef Rose Previte. Most classes include dinner or a take-home component and cost $75 to $90.
World Capital International Cuisines
The Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital offers an international slate of cooking classes. This spring, offerings include basic knife skills, a course centered on Korean barbecue, and classes from chefs such as Peter Chang and Erik Bruner-Yang. Students can also learn how to make dumplings, sausage, and moules frites. Classes cost $49 to $200.
Serious Eats Cooking Skills
location_on Union Market District
Take classes in kitchen skills at Skillette, a cooking program in La Cosecha market. The lineup of instructors includes chefs such as Rachel Bindel (of the restaurants Gravitas and Michele’s) and Emily Horn (pastry chef at Blair House, the President’s guest quarters), among others. Each month features four different lessons—though you can pick and choose which to attend—as well as seasonal recipes, such as chilled soups in summer and hearty braises in fall. Classes are $50 each, or you can sign up for a four-class series for $185.
That’s Amore Italian Cuisine
location_on Union Market District
Many of chef Daniele Catalani’s classes at Toscana Market in La Cosecha focus on regions or cities in Italy: Tuscany (tortelli and pici pasta with wildboar ragù), Sicily (branzino, spaghetti alle vongole, and cannoli), and Torino (taglierini with white truffles). Others are hands-on crash courses in a single artisanal item such as burrata, limoncello, or everyone’s favorite Roman dish, cacio e pepe. Classes are $120.
Gouda News Cheese
location_on Mount Pleasant
You don’t need any special knowledge to love cheese, but Each Peach, the gourmet corner store in Mount Pleasant, helps you appreciate its many regional forms as well as figure out the right wine pairings. Each Peach hosts the event about once a month at neighboring cookbook shop Bold Fork Books. The shop also offers customized private classes.
Back to School Cooking Skills
Classes at Cookology are more immersive than the typical lesson—and the next-best thing to culinary school. The Ballston kitchen offers hands-on classes for all ages, including half-day, all-day, and multi-day cooking camps for kids five to 17. (There are also occasional kid-friendly options such as pizza making and gingerbread decorating.) For grownups, there’s continuing education: a six-week boot camp ($900) in which you learn essentials such as knife skills and fine French recipes. A single class starts at $79.
Sweet Escape Cake Decorating
Have you found your way onto CakeTok, scrolling through videos of pros decorating desserts? Go from spectator to student at Fran’s Cake and Candy Supplies in Fairfax, where lessons every weekend cover topics such as fondant and piping. “Introduction to Cake Decorating” is $120;specialty workshops, such as one on TikTok-worthy geode cakes, can run up to $185.
Grape Expectations Wine
location_on Friendship Heights
Gain the knowledge to navigate a restaurant wine list at Capital Wine School. Beginner classes, focusing on how to taste wine and pair different varieties with food, start at $95 and run two hours. For serious sommelier hopefuls, the school also offers levels 1 through 4 of the Wine &Spirit Education Trust certification course.
Learn How Now Shuck an Oyster
Begin by rinsing your chilled oyster to ensure that no dirt is caught inside. Wearing gloves, hold the oyster with a towel.
Insert a sturdy oyster knife that won’t break or bend through the back of the bivalve between the two shells. Turn it “like a doorknob,” Douglas says, until the top shell disconnects.
Once the two halves separate, slide the knife along the shell to sever the adductor muscle, the only part of the oyster connected to the shell.
Scramble Eggs
Upgrade breakfast with these pointers from Haidar Karoum, chef and owner of the Navy Yard restaurant Chloe.
Use a thick-bottomed pan, or any kind that distributes heat evenly. The key, Karoum says, is that “you want to go gentle–you never want to have high heat.”
Add butter to the pan, approximately one tablespoon per three eggs. While the butter melts, beat your eggs in a separate dish, adding salt and pepper.
Pour eggs into the pan and stir in a folding motion using a rubber spatula. Karoum likes his eggs “slightly creamy,” which can be achieved by adding a tablespoon of crème fraîche as the eggs finish cooking.
Illustrations by Claire McCracken.
This article appears in the December 2024 issue of Washingtonian.
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Dining and Cooking