McGarvey’s Words

I was wearing an apron and standing in a Hong Kong kitchen, whereas just 15 minutes earlier I'd been wearing a jacket and tie and listening to suits drone on, and you can bet in which setting my attention was highest. Maybe the meeting was the technical "why" for my presence in Hong Kong, but the reality is that what drew me to the city was the opportunity to take a personalized, custom cooking course with Mrs. Cecilia Au-Yang, head of Chopsticks Cooking Centre in Kowloon. I was determined to bring the taste of Hong Kong home and I long before figured out that, pretty much wherever I travel, there are cooking schools, hotel chefs, even cooking supply stores that will happily concoct a brief course that will deliver the insider scoop. That was why I was with Mrs. Au-Yang and, just a minute after I stepped into her kitchen, I knew she was the perfect choice.

"Put on your apron," she said. "You won't learn a thing if you only watch. For years I have taught cooking and if you don't do it yourself in my class, when you get home and try to cook it, you'll come to a place in the recipe where you don't know what the directions mean. When you do it yourself in class, you'll do it right at home."

I would only have a few hours with Mrs. Au-Yang so she immediately put me to shredding Napa cabbage, slicing spring onions, dicing pork, and mashing garlic, shallot and ginger. Noodles, meantime, were put in a pot of boiling water and a wok was put on very high heat. Then the ginger, scallion,. and garlic went into the wok. "Stir, stir," she commanded.

We added shredded pork, cabbage, the cooked noodles, then streams of soy sauce, Chinese white wine, sugar, pepper, and cornflour to thicken.

"If you cook it, you eat it," said Mrs. Au-Yang, so I hesitantly stuck in a chopstick and, wow, this was as good as anything I'd eaten in a restaurant. "You just made Shanghai Fried Noodles," she said -- and I beamed with more pride than I felt when I collected my Phi Beta Kappa key during my junior year of college.

But that was just one lesson I learned in my culinary life on the road. There always is material to master. Sometimes it's just a snippet, a small comment, that sets everything in a new perspective. At the Phoenician Hotel in Scottsdale, for instance, a quick session with the pastry chef taught me why I had never been able to make a creme brulee. "Use a blowtorch to make the top crispy," he said, and he added that this simple technique meant no more burnt knuckles as you try to maneuver the creme brulee under the broiler. "Buy a torch at Home Depot," he added. "You don't need anything fancy."

Other times the learning is Zen-like. At the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok there is a legendary four-day cooking class. This is a demonstration class, with little hands-on work, but I have taken it and memories stay with me. "Only beer pairs with Thai food," said the instructor, who also noted that the class teaches as much about Thai culture as it does the food. "The cooking is part of the culture," he added. And the one lesson I vividly recall is how to make coconut milk. Nope, the liquid inside the shell isn't coconut milk -- that is coconut water and it has little use. How do you make coconut milk? Grate the white flesh, mix it with very hot water, and squeeze. Keep squeezing. And squeezing. Stay patient and, eventually, you will have made very good coconut milk.

Want closer to home? Try the equally legendary "Chef & Sommelier for a Day" program at the Hilton in Short Hills, NJ. This is a super program where participants prepare a multi-course dinner for up to six guests. If you are a fan of Rocco DiSpirito's Restaurant Reality show cut to the marrow, turn off the tube, and do this class because it is an immediate plunge into the realities of an award winning restaurant. You work with the kitchen staff and you will chop, dice, and get pointers on every course from appetizers through desert. And you will eat this dinner with your friends. Does it get more real?

Want to learn more about regional food but you want to ditch the slicing and dicing? Visitors to San Francisco are lucky: Shirley Fong-Torres offers both group and personal walking tours of Chinatown where she gives participants a close-up look at Chinese markets, kitchens, and food. Along the way, participants learn how to drink tea and also the how-to of Chinese herbal remedies. Even better, this is fast-paced. Three hours is all the high-energy Fong-Torres needs to show outsiders her Chinatown. Or, if you're in New Orleans, sign up for the Southern Comfort Cocktail Tour, a brisk introduction to the Big Easy's watering holes, eateries, and of course the famous cocktails such as the Sazerac and Pimm’s Cup. In Boston, there's Michele Topor's North End tour, a three and one-half hour investigation of the markets in the old Italian section of Boston, perhaps the city's most charming neighborhood.

Getting the message that learning about food is everywhere? Here's a must bookmark: Shaw Guides, which lists upwards of 2700 programs for hobby cooks. Searching by destination is easy. Type a city name into the search form and, immediately, your mouth will water with possibilities. I just plugged in "New York" and Shaw Guides came back with 83 possibilities -- Italian, Chinese, even Indian (did you know celebrated cookbook writer Julie Sahni teaches hands-on courses?). And the former Wine Director at Windows on the World now teaches a very serious multi-session program on mastering wine.

I plugged in Las Vegas and it's a winner: Creative Cooking Schools offers a smorgasboard of classes. Across the country in Orlando, Galaxy Nutritional Foods' Veggie Culinary School offers classes in cooking with soy, outsmarting cholesterol, and celebrating the pleasures of dairy alternatives. Unexpected in Mouse Land, absolutely, but I gotta say I just might plunge for a tofu cooking program because that's something I've never done before. The bigger point: almost all towns that are legit business travel destinations also offer cooking classses.

My advice: before finalizing any itinerary give a quick look at Shaw Guides. Probably there is a half-day class worth squeezing into even a tight business trip. Then everytime you travel you will definitely bring home more than memories.

Have you taken cooking classes? Tell us what and why and the best emails will go here.

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About Robert McGarvey

Author of How to Dotcom (Entrepreneur Press), McGarvey is writing a book on Brain Wars, the rise of cognitive science and the search for truths about thinking. A onetime columnist for BizTravel.com, he is a frequent contributor to dozens of magazines, ranging from American Legion to Selling Power, American Way, and Rutgers. He has also contributed to Harvard Business Review. For the past five years, he has served as "The Ombudsman" for PORTHOLE Cruise Magazine. Still curious about McGarvey? Read up on him here.

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