Problem: How do you flatten boneless chicken breasts so they bake evenly without incessantly pounding the chicken with the nearest heavy kitchen tool?
Solution: Use a tortilla press.
Barbara Gollman, a nutritionist for Eureka restaurant and a registered dietitian, recently sprang this bit of wisdom on participants in one of Whole Foods Market’s cooking classes.
The weekly two-hour classes almost always offer useful tips, says Susan Albert, in-store promotion coordinator for Whole Foods at 7205 Skillman.
The classes usually attract their maximum capacity of 25 people, say several cooking class “regulars,” despite the fact that the class is held in a room upstairs behind “employee only” swinging doors.
Neighborhood resident Martha Morgan is one of those “regulars,” attending at least two of the four classes offered each month.
“Their classes compare well with classes that cost a lot more,” says Morgan, who already is signed up for three classes next month.
Gollman’s class at Whole Foods featured lowfat French foods. The class cost participants $8, which is Whole Foods’ regular class price for an individual. Gollman’s classes offered through Eureka cost $30 per class.
“We probably showcase food items that nobody else is working with,” Albert says. “There are a lot of classes where we are working with grains and beans.”
Whole Foods Markets specializes in organically grown foods, whole grains, natural meat and fish, and rare herbs and spices in their natural form.
Reservations are required for cooking classes because they fill up quickly. As part of each class, participants receive recipes featured in the class, view a demonstration of each recipe by the instructing chef, and taste generous samples of the finished items.
Each class is directed by different City chefs and cooks. Upcoming chefs include Mark Sevars of Popollos, Carol Ritchie, and Kent Rathbun and George Brown of Seventeen Seventeen.
Gollman’s “trash soup” idea of throwing vegetable peelings and inedible vegetable parts into a pot of heated water to stew up a vegetable broth was a hit among class participants – along with the tortilla press solution.
