If any of you follow me on Facebook or Twitter then you know by now that my husband is the chef in the family.  Which is good for both of us because if I was the one cooking all the time, we’d be having grilled chicken and mac&cheese out of a box most nights.  Yes, sometimes I still think I’m in college.  After we’d been dating for a couple of months, Ben was using some vacation time to do some projects at home and just be in town without having to be at work.  So, one of those nights, he invited me over for dinner because he wanted to cook for me.  The gesture was SO sweet but my head all but exploded when I walked in the door to see what he had prepared.  It was aMAZing!  Sadly (but not unusually), I don’t remember all that he prepared, but I do remember some beef (maybe tenderloin??) on a platter surrounded by all kinds of vegetables. I also remember not being able to eat as much as I actually wanted because it was all so good!

Don’t get me wrong, I can cook.  But the difference is that Ben really enjoys cooking.  Although I really enjoy baking… more for the outcome, but still… it just means we’ll be able to have dessert with our meals ;-)  So, when he texted a couple of months ago asking if I wanted to go to a cooking class, I wasn’t surprised at all.  And I was really excited about it!  Maybe I could pick up a few more tips and have my turn at surprising Ben with a lavish gourmet meal one night!  Ok, maybe not lavishly gourmet, but at least it will be yummy!

Last Tuesday night we headed over to Chef360 Catering, with camera in tow.  I realized that I’m getting a little lax about documenting OUR life with something other than iPhones so here’s one of my attempts to capture life.  Please ignore the fact that I forgot to ask someone to take our picture (and I only had my 50mm lens so holding it out to take a picture of us would have resulted in maybe a corner of our faces).

If you look closely at the door, you’ll see Chef Peter… which will give you an idea of the fun we were about to have!

I’ve worked in a few restaurants and my brother is a chef, so I’ve been in my fair share of industrial kitchens.  But they’re still fascinating!

That’s the sous chef, Kim, on the left.  She’s a doll.  Loved her!  She’s also finishing up cooking school and is amazing at what she does!

The theme of the night was Spanish Tapas.  Tapa means lid or cover and has come to be a style of cooking smaller portions, many times having the presentation be a big part of it.  The menu for the night included Spanish Tortilla (kind of an omelette of sorts, which I failed to get a picture of), Empanadas, Spiced Tuna & Avocado Tartar, Melon Gazepacho, Melon con Jamon Serrano. You might think that with smaller portions on the menu, you wouldn’t be full.  And you would be really wrong!  I spent the drive home holding my stomach so that it wouldn’t pop!

These are the empanadas.  One was filled with shredded chicken and some goat cheese and the other was filled with grilled veggies.  I can’t remember what the lighter sause was, but the darker one was a peach vinaigrette.  YUM.

I’ve never had gazepacho before, but this was delicious!  You would think that a cold soup wouldn’t be good, but I think knowing that watermelon was in it helped my mind set with the temperature thing :-)

And this goodness?  Wow.  It’s simply spiced tuna in half an avocado.  Chef Peter showed us how he cut an angled slice off the bottom to get it to stand at an angle so as to “present” the tuna to us.
So brilliant.  Yet so simple!

While we were enjoying the tuna, he was showing us how to cut rounded food (you basically make it flat first) and how to cut a pepper while seeding it at the same time.  Again… brilliant!

The lady on the right?  That’s Gloria, another one of the chefs.  And she’s a gem.  After 5 minutes of class I already loved her!

As most of you know, I love me some chocolate and sweets.  Dessert is a part of my daily diet.  So, when I saw that melon with prosciutto was for “dessert” I was a little disappointed.
Until I tasted it!  So simple yet so delicious.

We had so much fun… the staff is amazing and their food is fabulous!  And they cater for all kinds of events, regardless of how many people you have!  So, check out their other cooking classes… they even have a sushi rolling class coming up!