New Orleans School of Cooking Kitchen

With so much to see in New Orlean’s French Quarter, it can be easy to walk right past the New Orleans School of Cooking on 524 St. Louis St. just a block up from Decatur St. and the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park.  Ensconsed in a renovated molasses warehouse made of brick in the early 1800s, the New Orleans School of Cooking teaches much more than the basics of Louisiana Cooking.

For sure, classes here go a long way in satisfying your curiosity on how pralines are made, what exactly is in Gumbo, and how to acquire all the key ingredients for a Jambalaya.  But what makes the classes so memorable is not only how top local chefs teach their art drawing on their knowledge and first hand experience of Cajun and Creole cuisine, but how they season their instruction with history, trivia, and tall tales. 

So whether you’re a walk-in or have made this a must on your New Orleans to-do list, the school has a class tailored to you:

Open Demonstration Lunch Classes

These popular lunch classes are “open” to individual reservations. The original two and a half hour class, featuring 4 food items, is held daily from 10am-12:30pm. 2 hour classes feature 3 food items on Fridays and Saturdays from 2pm-4pm. All classes include generous samplings of demonstrated dishes as well as recipes, coffee, iced tea, and local Abita beer. 

“Hands-on” Cooking Classes

Special participation classes are available for groups of 4 or more. You’ll do more than just watch and eat…after all, you’re the chef! You will be cutting, chopping, and sautéing a full meal. You may select a four course meal from their full menu lineup, or you have the option of creating your own.  After the hard work is done, you will feast on your new creation!

Team Building Events

These popular events are perfect for corporate clients, incentive groups, schools or family reunions. The best of their Hands-on Cooking Classes are combined with fun, humor and friendly competition.  Chefs guide competitors through challenges where you must prove your culinary skills, intellectual prowess and ability to pull together as a cohesive unit. The competition can get tough, but the atmosphere always remains fun and humorous.

And after all that kitchen action, don’t forget to visit their onsite Louisiana General Store for ingredients you’re sure not to find back home like their famous Joe’s Stuff and Big Kevin’s Bayou Blend seasonings.

The Sazerac (Courtesy of gilrain on flickr)

I fell in love with New Orleans 2 years ago when I visited for the first time.  I just returned from the 7^th Annual Tales of the Cocktail held mostly at the Hotel Monteleone and over the next few weeks want to share some of the liquors I had the fortune of tasting along with the many cultural influences, culinary innovation, and resulting cocktails that make this city so special. 

The 250 plus year architecture so well preserved in the French Quarter, a huge melting pot of recipes developed over centuries, and the ever present art of storytelling all coalesce within the intense, still humidity enveloping the streets.  Meal time here isn’t merely grabbing a bite to eat but a pure hedonistic act.  You don’t put something in your mouth because you have to.  You do it with passion because settling for anything less than a taste bud orgasm is a sin.  Good food is a terrible thing to waste and the people of New Orleans instinctively know this through their ancestors and experience.  The basic ingredients are simple enough…mudbugs (crawfish), beans, cornmeal, sausage, and seafood like oysters.  The list could go on but it’s really the sum of all the ingredients and cultural influences that make the dishes here a jubilee of sensory elation.

Food eliciting this kind of passion just has to be paired with an equally worthy drink.  Perhaps in other cities, wine immediately springs to mind.  In New Orleans, mixing cocktails like the Sazerac, Hurricane, or Mint Julep is truly an art form.  Only these ingredient-exacting yet ever evolving concoctions capture the spirit of this city’s deep heritage with stories of their own.  In the same sip, they are time capsules providing a glimpse into what once was but also offer the promise of limitless possibilities for future taste experiences.  Slight variations, new ingredients, and more elaborate stories behind them ensue.  Now the cuisine has met its match!