Virtual Cooking Classes in the Time of Corona

Julia_Child_portrait_by_©Lynn_Gilbert,_1978.jpg

If you’re a Table Magazine fan, you probably love food. Making it, eating it, sharing it. We think about it all the time, too.

Every once in a while, it’s really great to check back in with “the cooking gods” to learn a new thing, get sharper on a familiar dish, or learn something new entirely. Today, here are three suggestions for online viewing. We’re going to try the third for dinner tonight, and we’ll let you know how it goes.

Julia Child

This fun and forthright lady ushered the United States into a new era in the kitchen. Bye bye boiled dinner and hello Coq au Vin. We have a lot to thank her for, and the best way to do that is to queue up the ten seasons of her seminal show, The French Chef. It ran from 1963 to 1973, and if you watch it start to finish…well, you will leap forward in your knowledge of the most important basic skills like knife sharpening as well as some pretty advanced things like deboning a chicken from within. (Why would you want to? No idea. But if you do, it’s there for you.) YouTube has all 163 episodes available.

The French Chef

Jacques Pepin

Chef Pepin’s patient explanations and easy to follow demonstrations are useful for perfecting quite a few everyday dishes. We like this video where he explains how to make two types of classic French omelet: a country version that is browned slightly on one side, and the more familiar Omelet aux fines herbes. Both are buttery and delicious, and require a little technique that’s best learned while watching.

Pepin demonstrates two omelet techniques

Yotam Ottolenghi

French isn’t the only way to go in the kitchen! Yotam Ottolenghi, born in Israel, living and working in London, partially of Italian descent, fuses Mediterranean species and ingredients with modern ideas. His recipes can be complicated but they always produce good flavors. In this appearance on the Rachel Ray show, he makes Chicken Marbella and Aromatic Mashed Potatoes from his book, Simple. If you pause the video when the recipe pages from the book appear, you can make out the ingredient list. These dishes are definitely worth a try.

Ottolenghi makes Chicken Marbella and Aromatic Mashed Potatoes

Don’t miss a single delicious thing:

Subscribe to TABLE Magazine here!