Cooking class at The Brooklyn Kitchen

I’ve always loved cooking, I do not know if I mentioned it here on the blog. I love researching and testing new recipes and I love having my friends for a special dinner. Cooking is like a therapy! My friends know me so well on this subject that on my last birthday, in July, I was surprised by them with a special gift: a cooking class at The Brooklyn Kitchen! It took me a while to attend the class, but I was there a few weeks ago and my experience was pretty cool and I thought it deserved to be shared here on the blog. In fact, my friends know me so well that when they gave me the gift they said: you can write on the blog later! And, of course, they’re expecting an invitation to dinner too, which I well know. You guys, right? Hehehe.

The Brooklyn Kitchen started out in 2006 as a kitchen store that sometimes had classes. Taylor Erkkinen and Harry Rosenblum, interested and creative home cooks, recognized an opportunity to create a community space in their Williamsburg neighborhood. In 2009, following the insane success of the Pig Butchering classes, they founded the Meat Hook with partners, and moved to the 100 Frost Street location. In July 2017, we open the Industry City cooking studio, a small satellite location that is designed to operate on a Continuous Kitchen model. The Continuous Kitchen philosophy stands in opposition to meal-based and project-based cooking, and instead promotes the practice of cooking a little bit at a time, all the time.

The Brooklyn Kitchen believes that cooking shouldn’t be hard, or laborious, or an Instagram-perfect luxury. Real people should eat home-cooked food every day. Food should be something that we enjoy every day, an opportunity to nourish your body, mind and soul with care and reasonable effort. Cooking isn’t about competition or showing off.  Besides the fact that we are always running in this city – and our apartments have small kitchens – the school believes that there’s time and room for cooking. They have designed a curriculum to inform cooking for home cooks who want to cook better, and have it incorporate into their lives without taking over.

The catalog has more than 30 different classes – individual classes, ranging from techniques to recipes – pasta, soups, sauces, tacos, Japanese street food, vegan food … I chose the homemade pizza class! I love pizza, I’ve made lots of pizza at home – but always buying the dough. That’s not funny, right people? My class was in the Industry City location (it’s an amazing Brooklyn complex, I’ll post about it soon). Our class had 8 students and we learned everything about Neapolitan pizza: from how to make the dough and all the techniques involved until tips on how to choose the toppings. Obviously, we had the hard work of trying everything after … hahaha. The school even offered two beers per person for dinner. I brought home fresh dough for baking later and also received the recipe by email the other day. The lesson was very enjoyable and fun: our teacher was very dear and excited and followed closely everything we were doing.

Highly recommend! I’m crazy to do pasta class! I think it’s a great opportunity for people who live here and want to do something different – and, increase their culinary skills. I also think it’s cool for those who are traveling and have more time in the city – after all, it’s a great opportunity to practice your English! It is worth remembering that The Brooklyn Kitchen classes are all individual. Each class lasts about two hours and costs $95 each. You can click here to check all the classes. To know about class availability, click on “view details” or check the calendar here.

Locations: 100 Frost St / 220 36th St #2-A.