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Getting a Taste of TravelYummy for the TummyBy Sandra Scott
One of the best ways to learn about the culture of the area is to take part in a “cooking experience.” For three hours ten wannabe cooks sit around the marble-topped kitchen counter sipping wine and learning the fine art of Creole cooking with a bit of local lore stirred in for good measure.
Along with the cooking techniques for making okra so it is not slimy and learning how to tell female crabs from male crabs, we learned the stories behind the cooking. No area of the United States is more renown for a locally developed cooking style than New Orleans. The port city saw the coming together of the French, Spanish, and African cultures making spices and other ingredients from around the world available. The best part came with the final act – dinner. Dinner, and the preparation, took place in a setting in keeping with Creole cooking – The House on Bayou Road. Now a B&B, it was built as the main house of an indigo plantation just prior to the turn of the 19th century. There is no better way to get the feel of New Orleans than to learn about Creole food in an authentic Creole home. Cooking experiences are usually 3 to 4 hours, feature a regional menu, and end with a delicious meal. A meal you saw, and maybe helped, prepare from start to delectable finish.
At Wheatleigh, a stately 19th-century Italianate palazzo, Chef Jeff Thompson helps guest chefs “Discover Chocolate’s Savory Side.” We all agreed with Chef Jeff when he explains, “Adding chocolate raises a good soup to a great soup. It adds beautiful color, a smoother consistency, and rounds out the taste.”
The lesson ends with a chocolate tasting session during which Chef Jeff explains what chocolate is best in preparing a variety of dishes. What a wonderful concept - chocolate in soup, chocolate served with game dishes, chocolate as part of every course. What’s not to like? A cooking experience is the prefect ingredient to add some spice to a trip to any area. It is a great way to learn about the foods of an area, or as a welcome break from sightseeing, or a family bonding activity, or just a fun evening that includes a great eating experience.
Every time you serve a dish you learned to prepare at one of the cooking experiences you will recall your travels with fondness. The unexpected bonus will be when you dazzle family and friends with your newly acquired skill and you say, “Oysters Rockefeller? Yes, I learned how to make them from Chef Poppy when I was in New Orleans” or “Yes, there is chocolate in this dish. Chef Jeff of Wheatleigh says chocolate can round out and enhance the flavor of any recipe.” If you go: Photos by Sandra Scott and John Scott |
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“Mmmm, I call it the good mother
smell,” says Chef Poppy Tooker, as she stirs the minced onions into the roux.
The mouth-watering aroma permeates the kitchen. Poppy continues, cooking and
chatting about her days growing up in New Orleans, “Walking home from school, I
would smell great aromas coming from the houses along the street, and I would
think, “There’s a good mother.” 
“Taste this. It is Creole sausage.
It was part of the fall celebration of the Creoles. They used everything from
the pig but the oink. Dip it in this Creole mustard. Oh, so yummy!” say Chef
Poppy. The evening cooking lesson is underway.
Las Vegas, where eating is second
only to gambling, has one of the largest concentrations of chefs, many of whom
share their expertise. Take a break from the gambling and be a real winner.
Chef Chris and Chef Stephen, at the Creative Cooking School of Las Vegas, with
student participation, prepare an entire Mexican meal from Chile Roasted
Guacamole to Chile Verde to fool-proof flan. 
Mexican culture has influenced the
entire Southwestern part of the United States. The chefs impart cooking tips
that ranged from how to peal and use tomatillo to leaning how to dazzle your
guests with fresh dipping chips – the easy way.
Often famous chefs are featured. Sam Zien, the Cooking Guy, has his own TV show in the San Diego area, and entertains
while he teaches at Great News!, a discount cookware store and cooking school,
in California’s Mission Bay area. Sam is part showman, part philosopher, and
part cook, but not a chef, as he quickly tells the 50 participants. “I want you
to think, ‘I can do this with ingredients I can buy in my local store.’” And,
that is exactly what everyone was thinking when trying the tasty individual
Tiramisu made with mini powered donuts. It didn’t seem so unusual after the
blue cheese wontons made with Capt’n Crunch. 
If chocolate is “to die for” then
combining a chocolate cooking experience, the splendor of nature in the
Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, the magnificence of music at Tanglewood,
and a stay at Wheatleigh is “to die for” personified. It is the ultimate
indulgence.
Preparing local Wild Striped Bass Tartare with Chocolate Ivoire introduces us to a new fruit, yuzu, a sour
Japanese citrus fruit with a taste and aroma all of its own. The diced bass
tossed with white chocolate, shallots, chives, citrus fleur de sel, Yuzu gelee,
and a little oil, served with caviar will tantalize even the most sophisticated
palate. 
Cooking experiences are everywhere, in
cooking schools, restaurants, hotels, and even in stores. They range in price
from $20 to $200. So whether a fun evening out in San Diego with Sam the Cooking
Guy or a luxurious getaway at Wheatleigh in Lenox, Massachusetts, taking part in
a cooking experience will add zest to any trip.