Culinary Communion

Easy to find setting on Beacon hill and yes this is a really cool house. The kitchen is to die for — huge work stations, lots of knives to try out and millions of jars of spices and herbs.
Important note — you get what you put into a cooking classes and it does depend on the crowd.
Recommendation — pick something you love when choosing a cooking course. I love BACON so a course on dishes you can make with different types of bacon is going to be hit with me regardless of the people who attend.
To this point, the first 10 minutes was a bit like an AA meeting — Hi my name is Karen. I am addicted to bacon. I like to cook bacon wrapped around sausages (afterall who can resist pig on pig action).
Instantly the group bonded … we are bacon addicts and we don’t care! This is just going to be a fun few hours for everyone.
We all got to select bacon dishes to cook and everyone stopped when someone had a cool bit to do in their receipe example the making of bacon ice cream, the cutting of artichokes.
To confirm my gut instincts of this is going to be good as everyone started chopping, grating and mixing one person said hang on shouldn’t we be eating bacon? Immediately 4 pans went on a shove and we started munching in minutes.
To summarise the experience I would say I ate, I drank, I made new friends, I learnt, I cooked, I ate more, I socialised and I just kept eating!!!
Great day out and I would strongly recommend it. I learnt a few new cooking techniques, reciepes and I stuffed myself with more bacon than I would comfortably mention in good company.

I haven’t taken any classes at the new location yet but when they were located in West Seattle I took the Culinary Techniques series, Cuisine of Portugal, Tasting & Seasoning, and Cake Decorating. I love how hands-​on and casual the classes are. I use the knife skills I learned every time I cook and contributing to the preparation of the end-​of-​class meal gave me a lot more confidence in the kitchen. It’s so much fun sitting down at the end of class and sharing a meal together. I’ve left every class with the materials to recreate the food at home and enough leftovers for lunch the next day.
Also: great customer service. Cake Decorating had a guest celebrity chef and the class ended running way over time and wasn’t well planned. Everyone was credited back the cost of the class to be used towards other classes.

I’ve taken both food and wine classes at Culinary Communion and have enjoyed them thoroughly. The calendar includes everthing from basic cooking skills and wine appreciation, to more complicated sauces and special ingredients. My two recent favorites include «Wines from the Vine Up» and «Truffles» (yes, we made 6 dishes all with truffles…).
Last night I went to the NW Food and Wine Pairing class and it was not only educational, but also a terrific 4-​course dining experience. We progressed through 4 plates with corresponding wines, and also sipped prior wines to find out what pairings *don’t* work. Chef Gabriel, also a sommelier, uses his talents to demystify the wine world. He has given me more confidence to look at a wine list and have fun with it, and then choose a good entrée to pair with the wine.
I can’t wait to see what else is on the calendar for the coming year!

I took the «How to Boil Water» cooking 101 class. It was taught by Heidi, the co-​owner, who is not a trained chef. This is done intentionally, since an experienced chef would have a harder time and less patience showing students the most practical way to hold a knife, cut an onion, explain that adding lots of salt to pasta when it’s boiling makes it much tastier, etc.
It was a very hands-​on class (or should I say hands-​inside-​a-​chicken). We made chicken soup from scratch, a roasted chicken, yummy glazed carrots, mashed turnips (easier to make than mashed potatoes and almost just as yummy), bread pudding, and vinaigrette. Then we ate it all.
Pros: learn lots of useful things, learn recipes you can definitely use again, hands-​on, eat your yummy creations and take some home, Heidi is wonderful.
Cons: you will get home much later than you anticipated. You’d also better eat something before class since your dinner will not be until 9pm at the earliest.
03÷21÷08: Reporting back from the Basics 6-​class series…
This class is taught by Chef Katie and Chef Mei-​Lin. They are both very good teachers and lovely ladies. Each of the 6 classes in this series is based around one cooking technique, one knife skill, and one category of food. They provide you with a binder of class notes and a set of recipes learned. The beginning of each class is a mini-​lecture on the day’s topics and then everyone breaks off into small groups to tackle the main part of one recipe. At key milestones in each recipe the chefs will pause the class to have everyone learn/​participate. The best and most useful part of these classes is the many «a-​ha!» moments when we learn the little «secret tricks» of cooking that explain the why, when, and how.

Dear Lord.
Thank you for giving us boa constrictor, antelope, ostrich, kangaroo, sea urchin, and wild boar.
Thank you for giving me a husband who knows that I adore exotic meats and purchased me a gift of said meats at a Culinary Communion cooking class.
Sometimes it’s a rough day on the taste buds Lord. For those of us that love good food like Dick’s hamburgers and Salumi salami, each to its own place, all too often the afternoon finds us with a granola bar or a banana.
No more.
Now I have the wherewithal and the courage to cook and eat up whatever mammal, reptile, or amphibian crosses my path. (Trapping them is a different story.)
This is but one of the lessons on my path to epicurean heaven and I thank you in your abundant wisdom for blessing us with the courage to crack sea urchins, fry boar bacon, marinate boa constrictor, and other such delights.
Chef Gabriel and his regulars sure do know how to show a carnivore a good time.
Amen.

Just got back from a cooking class and I have to say I was very surprised by how much I enjoyed it; I went in knowing I would see some great food being cooked but didn’t expect to learn as much as I did.
The food was amazing and at the end of the class we all enjoyed a great meal. Only downside was that the class started a little late and therefore we were there until 10:30pm.
I’m going back since it’s the first time I’ve had an amazing meal (like a four star restaurant) and come out learning something new.
Try it out… :-D

I’ve been very pleased with what I have learned at Culinary Communion. Chef Gabriel is a good teacher, and there’s lots of hands-​on work… although not everyone gets to work on everything. That said, Gabe is good about calling people over to watch key steps of each item so you go home with a working knowledge of the whole curriculum.
My first class was a pickles-​and-​preserves class in the fall. I’ve been a home canner for a while, but I really appreciated the chance to get some solid info, try things I wouldn’t have made at home, and pick up some new ideas. I came home with lots of great recipes and a small selection of finished product. (That’s probably my only disappointment: It seems like the take-​home quantities can feel a bit skimpy compared to the cost of the class. I think we got 2 pints each for pickles/​jams, for example, which was not even enough to bring home examples of the items I worked on.)
My second class was a charcuterie class in late fall/​early winter. We made a bunch of fresh sausages: lamb loukania wrapped in caul fat, bulk mexican chorizo, chicken-​apple breakfast sausage, and the like. We also smoked a side of bacon that Gabriel had pre-​cured due to timing. (He explained the curing process, too, so we could do it ourselves.) There was lots of good safety and sanitation info at both classes, which impressed me. In this case, each student got to take home 2 pounds each of meat: I chose 1 pound of amazing bacon, ½ pound of chorizo, and ½ pound of chicken-​apple.
The next charcuterie class was my favorite so far. We made a few fresh sausages (chicken poblano, merguez) but also a fair number of cured and/​or smoked meats: kielbasa, spanish chorizo, andouille, tasso, bacon, pancetta, etc.
My one caveat about the classes is that a lot of the fun has to do with the group dynamic, which can be thrown off by even one bad egg in groups of this size. At the preserving class, for example, one person was really obnoxious, peppering the chef with off-​topic questions while he was trying to explain things, monopolizing the conversation at the post-​class dinner, and generally trying to be the center of attention for the whole time. It was really annoying, but obviously beyond the control of CC. The other students in the group were mostly older women who had a lot of patience, but I can imagine a situation where it would have been even more uncomfortable. The charcuterie classes tended to attract a more serious crew (mostly men, both times) and there was a lot less mucking about. We got a LOT done — especially at the second class — due to plenty of cooperation, good communication, and a high level of student engagement.