Numero Uno - Buon Appetito!

Translation: #1. on the Girl Turns 40 List - Take a cooking class!

And my oh my – what a fun day!

My day started early – I left for the Johnson & Wales University campus around 7am this morning.  Believe me, the campus is modern and beautiful , and immediately turned me into a Rachel Ray wannabe.

I had registered about 5 months ago for this class – just when I started Girl Turns 40 – and whew! I barely made it…I was the last spot. The Chef’s Choice classes through JWU, are specialty classes offered by the head chefs/professors to the general public. They are super popular – especially the Baking classes.

My Class

American Pie: Making the Perfect Pizza (and focaccia bread, I might add…)

Peter Reinhart was my chef instructor for today’s class. Chef Reinhart is the author of numerous bread-baking books, and thrice received a James Beard Award. His classes are all but IMPOSSIBLE to get into.  And on top of everything else – he’s so cool! Down-to-earth, a keen sense of humor, and all the while, masterfully demonstrating. Julia Child MUST have felt the same way on her first day at Le Cordon Bleu…seriously.

The fabulous Chef Peter Reinhart….

So class started at 9am, and the “students” were divided into workstations with 4 individuals at each station. First order of business was introductions, and a class agenda – then the demonstrations began.  Chef Reinhart prepped us for the day by making a pesto, tomato sauce, olive oil roasted with garlic, and an olive dipping oil with herbs.  He prepped all the pizza and foccacia toppings.

Then, it was our turn. Me and my station mates started on a pizza dough. 

(Note: we actually brought dough home with us. In order to use the dough for class today, the official JWU students – look for the white uniforms – had prepped some for us to use yesterday. The dough we made today, is for tomorrow’s pizza!)

OK – so I was not expecting this.

I have never seen such a contraption….but it’s a scale. It works by placing the white bowl on the left, “zero-ing out” the weight, then adding the black round hockey-puck-looking weights on the right-hand side to measure the ingredients. Mmmm-Hmmmmm.  You see?

Dry ingredients into the bowl.

Wet ingredients into the bowl.

See The Girl Mix.

Mix Girl Mix.

Then, Chef Reinhart taught us how to “stretch-n-fold” the dough.

Finally, after some additional ‘resting’ and maybe some ‘rising’….(I’ll have to check my notes)….Viola!

4 Kinds of Focaccia:

Herbed Olive Oil

Onion Marmalade, Blue Cheese, and Walnuts

Potato, Bacon, and Cheddar

Pesto and Roma Tomatoes

OMG – absolutely delicioso.

And it’s not over…

We moved on to our pizza dough, and made no less than 20 different kinds of pizza, again paired up with our station mates. Of course, we cooked 8 at a time – in their superfragilicious oven.

Finally, I gathered up my loot to take home: Two kinds of dough, my recipe booklet from class, purse, jacket – and my newly signed copy of “Artisan Breads Every Day” exclusively at Williams-Sonoma.

Check out the inscription:

Ahhhh…..Hmmmm. So, so, so much fun for The Girl today!

I’m off to Dallas for a much-needed weekend with the girls.

See you next week with highlights from the trip –

Girl Turns 40