Few nations have made as many contributions to cuisine as the Italians. Granted, the French came up with the word, but when it comes to indispensable dishes in the modern kitchen, pasta and pizza rate far higher than snails.
Yet what many consider Italian food has been cheapened to mean dried pasta and bottled pasta sauce, when making the real thing can be dead easy, not to mention a lot more delicious. Sometimes all it takes is a pro like Chef Ercole Musso of La Dolce Vita restaurant to demonstrate how to do it. No wonder his cooking classes are so popular – he really inspires all those who attend to go home and try something new. Judging by the copious notes many attendees were taking, as well as the plentiful questions, quite a few families will be enjoying some authentic Italian cooking in the weeks to come.
This was the first cooking class at La Dolce Vita, which is located on North Church Street, overlooking the ocean. However, Chef Ercole has been hosting cooking classes for a number of years at other venues and it seems that enthusiasm for the classes has only increased.
Far from offering a strict by-the-numbers cooking demonstration, Chef Ercole relates stories on the origin of the dish, how it would traditionally have been prepared and eaten, as well as various tips for making everything easier. Some of the biggest rounds of applause were reserved for moments when he shared some of his kitchen secrets, like how to make carpaccio at home even if you do not have a slicer, or how to create different types of pasta in a hurry.
The cooking class centred on the preparation of a traditional Italian family-style meal, starting with antipasti (starters) and moving on to primi (the first course, usually featuring pasta) and secondi (featuring meat dishes) before getting to everyone’s favourite guilty pleasure, the desserts.
As Chef Ercole demonstrated how to prepare the dishes, his audience was served large platters of the demonstrated dishes to share among one another, in traditional family style.
Of course, when it came to the desserts, the greatest advantage of a family-style meal was that someone got to clean out the preparation bowls. Fortunately there was no shortage of volunteers, especially among some of the younger members of the audience.
The evening also included some very special wines from Jacques Scott to accompany the exceptional food, with Aaron Jay presenting a fascinating talk on the origin of the wines.
The evening was sponsored by What’s Hot Magazine and Jacques Scott.
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