It's no surprise, then, that more people are seeking out cooking lessons to make their own dining more enjoyable, to acquire an essential life skill or even to flex a little of their creative muscle.
Anne Everitt, a pastry baker at Weaver Street Market, teaches a series of five two-hour cooking classes in the kitchen of Panzanella, a new-wave Italian restaurant in Carr Mill Mall. Everitt said that because of the rising demand for her classes among college students, she is considering teaching an additional series of classes to fit their schedules.
The classes focus on basic cooking techniques, beginning with knife skills and leading into creative root vegetable cooking and soup-making.
Geared toward beginners, the series aims to leave them with skills they can apply to new situations. "If you don't know anything about cooking, you can take the class," Everitt said. "I find a lot of people in need of some basic cooking skills."
She cited as an example the class on knife skills, in which students learn fundamental concepts like cutting vegetables into same-sized pieces so that they will cook evenly.
Everitt emphasized the importance of her students leaving the class not only understanding how to work through specific recipes but also knowing how to use basic skills like slicing and dicing to tackle new things.
"I try to teach people how to work without a recipe and to not be afraid to find a recipe and attack it," she said.
According to Rebecca Lawson, a local jazz dance teacher who just finished the series, Everitt was successful in this aim.
"The class was helpful in giving me more confidence about how to cook without a recipe and how to play with food," she said.