Cooking Classes in DC Area?

Quoted message said:

I wanted to present a 1/2 day to one day cooking class +
meal as a birthday present to someone in the Washington
DC Area. Any tips on where to search would be most
appreciated.

J.

Take a look at http://cookforfun.shawguides.com
There are others but Shaw's is probably the biggest list around.

--
Pete Romfh, Telecom Geek & Amateur Gourmet.
promfh at hal dash pc dot org

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Quoted message said:

I wanted to present a 1/2 day to one day cooking class + meal as a
birthday present to someone in the Washington DC Area. Any tips on
where to search would be most appreciated.

J.

Nice idea! My mother-in-law has taken a few classes at L'Academie de
Cuisine and has enjoyed it tremendously. I've looked at their class
offerings before and have noticed that many of them are 2-3 hours long
(including eating the meal). There are participation classes as well as
demonstration classes.

http://www.lacademie.com/Recreational/Welcome/index.asp

Both of my in-laws have been to several demonstrations/meals at L'Auberge
Chez Francois, in Great Falls, VA (outside of DC). Although these demos are
not participatory, my in-laws say they are *lots* of fun. The food at Chez
Francois is excellent -- I've eaten there many times and also have Chef
Jacques Haeringer's cookbook _Two for Tonight_. I would expect whatever he
prepares in his demos to be nothing less than stellar.

http://chefjacques.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=CJ&Product_Code=CDW0501

The Washington Post Food section lists area cooking classes once or twice a
year. For some reason, I can only find the list from 2003 (link below).
I'm sure some of the links are outdated, but it's a starting point. And the
Judy Harris link is one I stumbled across -- I know nothing about her or her
classes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A46599-2003Aug26&notFound=true

http://www.judyharris.com/

Quoted message said:

I wanted to present a 1/2 day to one day cooking class + meal as a
birthday present to someone in the Washington DC Area. Any tips on
where to search would be most appreciated.

L'Academie de Cuisine does classes, both demonstration and hands-on; I
prefer the latter. The best class I've had there has been a
full-weekend "primary skills" class; I thought I was pretty confident
but had to unlearn a bunch of bad habits. You get to eat at all the
classes, hands-on or demo. They have beginner to advanced classes, as
well as professional training programs.

L'Academie also has weekend classes at the historic Mercersburg Inn,
in PA a couple times a year. Quite good, but not for the
inexperienced or thin-skinned -- it's pretty intense. Also probably a
bunch more expensive than you're planning.

Roberto Donna's classes at Laboratorio are excellent -- he's quite
personable, friendly, a good teacher. Cooking in this kitchen is
quite a treat. It helps to be a fairly confident cook because his
class recipes bear little resemblance to what you'll really be doing
-- but that's the fun of it: cook with what's fresh, improvise where
you need to, cook until done :-). Some classes are during the day,
for a bit more cost there are equivalent evening courses. You eat
what you make and they serve wine with.

Other restaurants, like Tosca, do classes but I haven't been to them yet.

Sur La Table in Pentagon Row also has classes. Their catalog makes
them sound similar to L'Academie's. I'm looking forward to taking a
couple classes there soon but haven't been yet.