The new L’Academie de Cuisine catalog showed up in my mailbox today. I’m now spending my evening browsing through a yummy set of classes that I won’t be able to sign up for – karma currently has other plans for our money (or lack thereof). Sigh. I’ve taken a few classes there over the past couple of years in my quest for superior kitchen skills, and they have great instructors. Like Brian Patterson, who carries his knives in a tackle box emblazoned with what is officially my favorite bumper sticker of all time: ‘I didn’t rise to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables.’ I’m still wishin’ and hopin’ to get into their Cooking Techniques program, but it’s out of my budget range right now. Certification would go a long way to giving me some more credibility. I just don’t think ’10 years gourmet home cooking experience’ is going to entice people to fly to France and then pay me to teach them.
And I don’t have cable anymore, so I can’t watch our local DC-area chef, Bryan Voltaggio, compete to win the finale on ‘Top Chef.’ I guess I’ll go back to my catalog. Must get started re-learning French this weekend with the Rosetta Stone software that’s been sitting in a drawer for the past year.