What's Cooking School At Home and Who Am I?

Cooking School at Home is a website dedicated to teaching people the fundamental methods of cooking. Like those that are taught in the top culinary schools and used on a daily basis by all chefs. As one of the top graduates in my class at the very prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, I have had varied experiences from France to New York. You may see my full resume on this page:
http://hctresume.pbwiki.com/.

So, what lead up to the creation of the website? I've seen so many people, just like you reading this blog, trying to learn how to cook from a cookbook. There are so many bad cookbooks and out there - there are good ones too - but, I saw people relying on the recipe to show them how to cook a certain item. Example being you might have some Salmon in your fridge. And, instead of preparing the Salmon with local, fresh ingredients you're going to turn to a cookbook that tells you to go buy ingredients for another country, state, or season. I want you to be able to look at the Salmon, look in your cupboards or at your local farmers market. You should be able to prepare dinner based on basic cooking methods, with ingredients that you probably already have or are in season in your own region of the country. You can ask any average American home cook to make something, anything, and they will have to refer to a cookbook. These classes are aimed at those people and is going to make them less dependent on their cookbooks.

Cooking is really a matter of learning a few simple methods. I have always had those friends and family memebers wondering how I could possibly remember every recipe... Well, this is the secret, there aren't hundreds of recipes floating around in my head. I have learned to cook by method. Once you learn the basic methods it is easy to adapt to your ingredients on hand. Then, once you can do that you can move on to more complex techniques and menu creation. This is going to take time, years maybe.

As the lessons progress in Cooking School At Home you will beging to understand the various methods that there are in cooking. Soon you will find yourself answering the question from friends and family, "How do you do that without a recipe?"