One of my favorite past times is taking cooking classes. I’ve taken dozens here in Ann Arbor, signed up for classes in New Orleans, Boston, Chicago, Greenwood, Mississippi, Ottawa and of course Paris, where I spent a fabulous week with Patricia Wells.
(You’ll read more about my Paris experience in my upcoming book on Zingerman’s, which comes out March 1.)
Cooking classes have evolved into a favorite way for chefs, restaurants, authors and food purveyors to engage with their audiences. Before the pandemic, they turned into a valuable source of revenue.
Not only did the venues benefit by hosting students, cookbook authors depended on them to spread the word about their newest volumes, and sell books, too.
During the pandemic, however, many classes had to be canceled or moved into virtual space.
Online classes became a convenient way to host a bigger number of guests than a teaching classroom can hold. While cook-along classes have grown in popularity, some students actually prefer to watch the first time before they attempt a dish on their own.
But the advent of the Covid vaccine means that in-person classes are back, with a few changes.
An Adventure in Pretzels
Last week, my friend Nike Schulte Bunkley wrote a delightful Facebook post about the pretzel-making class that she took at Bake! the teaching arm of Zingerman’s Bakehouse.
“I am very, very new to baking,” Nika told me. It was also a new experience for their instructor, who was teaching only their third in-person class since the pandemic took hold last year.
Before the class, Bake! sent out several sheets of instructions, including an update that focused on Covid protocols.
“If you’ve been vaccinated, you are welcome to not wear a mask in class,” it read. “We will not ask for proof of vaccination, we’ll be going by the honor system and appreciate your support and compliance for the benefit of our community.”
It went on, “If you are not vaccinated, we ask that you wear a mask. If you are vaccinated and just prefer to wear a mask, for other reasons, it is of course fine to do so. Likewise, instructors can choose not to wear a mask if vaccinated, but may also continue to wear a mask depending on their personal circumstances.”
Nika says the class, which was limited to eight people, went swimmingly. The participants learned to make pretzel dough, wore plastic sleeves and gloves to dip in a lye solution, then baked off the pretzels.
“I am already on the website looking for the ones to take next,” she told me. Needless to say, I offered to be her partner for a future class.
Slowly ramping back up
I was wondering how Bake! planned to return to more normal times, so I asked Bakehouse partner Amy Emberling to walk me through how things are going.
Summer is typically a slow time for baking classes, she says, so Bake! is teaching in person kids camps for six weeks, and adult classes on the weekends and many Tuesday nights.
“This allows us the chance to ease back into in person classes,” Amy says. “Private classes are happening weekly on request.”
(Now, doesn’t a private baking class sound like a great idea?)
The Fall schedule is written through November, and will available on the Bake! website in the next week or so. Amy says it has 10 in person classes per week and five to six virtual classes.
“We are happy to teach in both formats as long as people attend. They each have different advantages and appeal to particular students,” she says.
Comparing the two types of learning
One chapter of my book will look specifically at what life was like inside Zingerman’s during the pandemic. I asked Amy how Bake! was affected by the switch to virtual classes.
“What did we learn? Oh, so much!” she answered.
There are lots of ways to teach and learn. It's best to experiment rather than to assume that we know the best way.
There are students all over the world who are happy to take classes with us. We don't have to let geography limit our reach.
Virtual students learned different things than in person students because they bought their own ingredients (which was at times challenging and definitely educational) and used their own equipment. They learned to trouble shoot.
For many students, it is possible to make a personal connection even in a virtual environment.
The likelihood of making the item at home increases when the class has been taken virtually, in a student's kitchen. The leap to doing it again is much smaller than after taking a class in our kitchen.
Virtual classes are more inclusive -- lower cost, works for people with disabilities, good for families.
But, Amy says, in person learning has lots of advantages, too.
It's super nice to come to BAKE! and have everything measured out for you and to have all of the dishes done.
Coming to BAKE! is an event. It's nice to be able to shop at Zingerman's Southside (the location of several Zingerman’s businesses) — it's an outing. Virtual classes can't provide that.
For some students in person learning is better and they find the technology challenging.
Amy says she found that in person classes and virtual classes are “are different experiences that can serve different purposes. It's nice to have the choice.”
Looking forward to having friends return
In fact, I can go either way. I’ve enjoyed watching cooking classes on line, but I learn best when I can do it myself, and I like to get guidance from someone who is really good at what they do.
One of my favorite Bake! classes was a cake demonstration by Stella Parks, the author of BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts, who came to the Bakehouse in 2018.
She demonstrated her famous red velvet cake, with a delectable frosting and home made sprinkles. Here is an article from Food52 about that experience.
Bake! has also hosted beloved friends like Dorie Greenspan and Ina Pinkney, and I’m hoping we’ll see many more cookbook authors swoop through Ann Arbor in coming months and years.
Four Finnish Friends Run A Korean Restaurant
I’ve told you how much I enjoy the Korean travel series, Welcome! First Time in Korea? The reality show, aired by the MBC television network, focuses on people from outside South Korea who experience Korean culture, especially food.
In the past five years, four young men from Finland — Vilppu, Ville, Sami, and Petri — have become celebrities in South Korea and have won international fans of the show like me, who find it online. (Try this link if that one doesn’t work, and be patient with pop ups and ads.)
New episodes generally post on Fridays U.S. time. Usually, they’re up first in Korean. I find it pays to wait until English subtitles are added, although you will quickly pick up Korean vocabulary and phrases by watching the program.
A new set of episodes began airing this month, focusing on the Finnish friends’ decision to operate a pop up restaurant. Spoiler alert: it’s much harder than it looks.
So far, the friends have gone grocery shopping and began practicing the dishes that they plan to serve when the pop up opens.
In the most recent episode, they received tips from experts, and I definitely got some ideas to brush up my cooking skills.
They are bringing Finnish flavors to Korean cooking, and some of their combinations have been intriguing. (I’m also enjoying their Marimekko aprons.)
This is delightful summer streaming, and if you haven’t seen the other episodes with the Finnish friends, be sure to go back and look for them.
The friends post individually on Instagram, and you also can follow the network there @mbcevery1. It has been posting clips from each episode.
We have a winner!
Congratulations to Anna Bradshaw, winner of World Travel, the subject of our latest book giveaway. Anna is a food copywriter for premium culinary and beauty brands. Read about her here.
Anna will receive the book and some fun CulinaryWoman swag.
Stay tuned for the next giveaway. If you join the CulinaryWoman Community, our growing group of paid subscribers and founding members, you’ll automatically be eligible.
Awash in infrastructure challenges
My latest column for the Washington Post focused on the flood that devastated many parts of the metropolitan Detroit area last month.
Even as we got another heavy rainstorm on Friday, homeowners were still cleaning up from the June 25 rainstorm. The same freeways that flooded in June took on water in July.
As I wrote for the Post, the storm demonstrates the fragility of the city’s infrastructure. Even the lights at the iconic Fisher Building were out for 10 days, due to Detroit’s outmoded electrical grid.
There’s no excuse for Detroit not to be prepared: as with floods in 2014, we got yet another demonstration of what happens when pumps fail, and highways and neighborhood streets fill up.
Someone asked me whether the Post has a method of signing up for alerts when my columns run. It doesn’t, but you can set up a Google News alert for “Micheline Maynard” and they should pop up right in your in box.
Keeping up with CulinaryWoman
I am on Tik Tok @culinarywoman which is also my Twitter handle. You can find me on Instagram @michelinemaynard.
Email me at culinarywoman at gmail dot com.
I have a LinkedIn page under Micheline Maynard and I’m also participating in Alignable if any of you are present on that site.
However, I don’t check those pages as often as I do my Twitter and Instagram. If you’d like to reach me, email is better than a DM.
Stay well and see you next Sunday!