Why I Love to Teach People About Food
I’ve always had a passion for teaching - whenever I learned a new fact or skill, my instinctual “second step” is to share that with someone else. Loudly and imperatively.
I was a super annoying little kid.
Ask anyone.
Fortunately, with almost two decades of experience in professional cooking and food, that instinct to share ideas has galvanized into a knack for helping people develop the confidence and understanding to find a home in their kitchen.
This is a critical component for me when I consider developing a class series: how will it help people get better at doing something?
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Yes, I’m a fussy pedagogue, and yes, it makes me less economy-minded, but at the end of the day/class/lesson, I hate the idea that someone would have spent that time and effort giving me their attention, and they still don’t really know how to “do” anything.
Sure, plenty of people can give you a recipe, or walk you through the steps of repotting a plant, but frankly most of that you can really just read on your own and follow the steps. But the ability to “follow directions” isn’t the same as understanding how to do something.
You can use baking powder instead of baking soda because “I told you to”, but do you know why? Do you get it?
This is why I love to teach - because much of the material and opportunities easily available lack synthesis.
One can be walked through a recipe, but what happens when you don’t have a recipe? And what happens when that recipe goes wrong? Can you save it? I never feel a stronger “impostor” sense when I offer to teach someone something - especially for pay - and I don’t feel like they’ve actually learned anything.
Sure, it means my classes tend to take a little longer, but I’ve become accustomed to that, and my students have learned the value of the depth. It’s the lessons we get standing in the kitchen with our mothers and grandmothers that build a foundation of understanding. No, my mom didn’t teach me how to cook great Persian food. But she taught me how to cook. Then, when I fell madly in love with Persian cuisine, my studies became something I could activate and synthesize because I get how cooking works.
This is what I want my students to “get”, and this is why I think that the best method for this goal is just to hang out in the kitchen with me, just like I did with my mom.
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Embarking on two educational series is great fun for me, and they both fulfill a real “big picture” of how to build a practical understanding of cooking. Pasta is a fantastic masterclass in its simplicity; Pastry, in its complexity.
Or rather, with Pasta, you learn the core “law” of the dough, and slowly vary that into a nearly-endless family tree that is built from that first flour-and-water paste.
With Pastry, you gawk at the library of versatility, but as you peruse the library you begin to understand the language in which it’s all written.
Pasta is an intricate monochrome, building details from the subtlest variations; Pastry is the color wheel, its daunting complexity bound by a few simple rules of physics.
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I hope you enjoy the classes as they continue to develop, and through them, I hope you’re able to continue your own development in building a confidence in the kitchen.
Nothing incenses me more than either over- or under-simplifying the value of a proper set of kitchen skills. I’ll rebuke anyone who says “oh, I can’t bake” - of course you can, you just have to want to, and you have to get over your unfounded insecurity that baking requires some arcane knowledge that’s out of grasp for a “normal person”.
I hate recipes that treat the cook like an idiot (“I can only handle three ingredients and 10 minutes of actual time in the kitchen or I’ll have a panic attack!”), just as much as I hate the fussing-up of dishes, recipes, and styles of cooking to something completely impractical and overblown.
Sure, there are complicated and simple processes, but at the end of the day, the rules of cooking are simple, foundational, and easy to learn - you just have to relax and hang out in the kitchen with me.
You really can make anything, and nothing is really that difficult - and having comfortable “kitchen reflexes” will help you prove that to yourself.
Sign up for weekly updates, and stay tuned for “PASTA A MANO” Class on Mondays at 4:30pm, and “SATURDAY BAKE” Pastry Class on Saturdays at 10:30am - and catch past videos on the website or on my YouTube Channel!
“People who love to eat are always the best people.”
-Julia Child