February has breezed by, with lots happening at the kitchen—highlighted by our first Knife Skills & Knife Sharpening class, which was a huge success, with both home cooks and kitchen professionals attending—we will repeat this class later in the spring. The kitchen also hosted team building groups, a rehearsal dinner, a birthday party, and lots of classes. March is proving a bit slower, but that gives me the opportunity to close for two weeks, and completely remove and replace the awful floor. So on the 24th we will move every single thing out of the kitchen, and the old, horrible floor will be taken up—that is done by two machines, a Cooper to cut the old epoxy away and a Bead Blaster to smooth it—and then a proper epoxy floor will be laid. We will reopen in time for a rehearsal dinner the 7th of April.
We just celebrated my father in law’s 90th birthday at the kitchen. He requested a lobster dinner. Maine lobster is one of our family favorite foods, and every year, somebody wants it for a birthday dinner. Along with it we had coleslaw, and some good bread—what more do you need? This month’s recipe is for my coleslaw, a hard-won victory of a recipe, since I spent about 20 years wishing I could make good, New York style deli coleslaw, and not ever achieving my goal. I tried every conceivable ingredient without success; finally I saw a recipe with an ingredient I’d never thought of—Dijon mustard—which proved to be the secret. Much experimenting later, I have “my” coleslaw. I hope you make it yours as well, it’s a very easy recipe.
March brings with it one other exciting event: Top Chef, which was shot in the kitchen last November, will air starting Wednesday the 8th at 10 PM, on Bravo. Produced by Magical Elves, of Project Runway fame, it’s sure to be interesting—and of course, the star of the show for me will be the kitchen, albeit changed almost completely, but I’m sure you’ll recognize it despite the makeover. And, to bring things full circle—without the show, no new floor would have been possible.
A new web page is in the works—the addition of a page of commentary from clients about their experience at Paulding & Company. I hope to debut it in April.
Classes
Basic Cooking resumes April 12th, with registration thorough Piedmont Adult School starting March 20th. This 6-week hands-on course, which I have been teaching for 18 years now, is an ever-changing series of menus designed to teach skills, and raise your Yum factor when cooking for others. Because it qualifies for state ADA money, the cost to you as a student is very low—only $260 for the six weeks, a true bargain. This class fills fairly quickly, so do register early, at www.piedmontadultschool.org.
I have not scheduled any one-night classes for the moment, due to the repairs to the kitchen, but will resume next month. I will announce them in the April newsletter.
Rosetta Costantino has put up her spring schedule, and still has space in some of her classes. You can find them on the calendar or in Classes, or visit her lovely website, www.cookingwithrosetta.com.
We have several new teacher planning some classes for later in the spring—among them is Ayako Iino, who has been cooking at Oliveto until recently. Ayako will teach Japanese cooking. Currently in Japan, she has another month of traveling before she returns, but I hope to have a class description and schedule from her soon.
Feedback and suggestions for classes are always welcome, just email terry@pauldingandco.com and I will promptly respond. Also please note that if you want to receive notice of new newsletters, you can do so by joining my single-purpose (that is, NO other email besides notice that the newsletter is published) list-serve. Do so by going to http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo. Scroll down to Pauldingnews and click on it, and follow instructions to sign up.
This month's recipe is for Terry's Coleslaw.