Dinner Party Cooking Classes

Join me in my kitchen at home for a hands-on cooking experience. All my classes embrace the farm to table philosophy, often using ingredients from my chickens, honeybees, woods, and gardens. You’ll always go home with the fruits of your labor. Contact me directly or through my contact page to set up your private class for up to eight students. You are welcome to bring your own beer or wine or arrange for wine pairings.

Some popular menus have been

Rustic Italian

Eggplant Caponata

Balsamic Grilled Steak with Bruschetta and Porcini Parmesan Polenta

Green Salad

Espresso Granita with Whipped Mascarpone

Mexican From Scratch

Mexican Shrimp Cocktail

Tamales with Tomatillo and Guajillo Salsas with Calabacitas on the Side

Caramel Flan

Homestyle Greek

Stuffed Grape Leaves

Falafel with Tzatziki, homemade pita, and a Greek Salad with Tahini Dressing

Baklava

German Favorites

Creamy Tomato Soup with Vodka

Jaeger Schnitzel with Homemade Spaetzle Noodles and Braised Red Cabbage

Apple Strudel

Iowa Farm to Table

Bahn mi Bites

Caramelized Carrot Soup with Tarragon

Braised Pork shanks in a White Wine Pan Sauce with Sweet Corn Polenta or Spaetzle Noodles

Puff Pastry Apple Rose Tarts

French Country Fare

Potato Leek Soup

White Wine Coq au Vin with Spaetzle Noodles and Pan Roasted Carrots with Tarragon

Fruit Gallette

$85.00 per person

Bouillabaisse

Learn how to make a French classic stew loaded with fresh seafood.

Crudite with Bagna Cauda

Bouillabaisse with Rouille Sauce and Toast

Chocolate Lava Cake with Strawberry Coulis and Whipped Cream

Laura Ingalls Wilder Dinner

 Enjoy a meal lifted from the pages of Laura Ingall’s Wilder’s Little House books.

Grilled Pig Tails

Ma opened the front of the cookstove and raked hot coals out into the iron hearth. Then Laura and Mary took turns holding the pig's tail over the coals.
It sizzled and fried, and drops of fat dripped off it and blazed on the coals. Ma sprinkled it with salt. Their hands and their faces got very hot, and Laura burned her finger, but she was so excited she did not care. Roasting the pig's tail was such fun that it was hard to play fair, taking turns. 
At last it was done. It was nicely browned all over, and how good it smelled! They carried it into the yard to cool it and even before it was cool enough they began tasting it and burned their tongues. 
They ate every little bit of meat off the bones and then they gave the bones to Jack.

 Cottage Cheese Balls with Onions on Lettuce

“It is so hot," Ma said. "I believe I will have cottage cheese balls with onions in them, and the cold creamed peas. Suppose you bring some lettuce and tomatoes from the garden, Laura.”

 Stewed Rabbit and Dumplings

Ma had cooked an especially good supper because they had company. There was stewed jack rabbit with white-flour dumplings and plenty of gravy.

 Baked Beans

Almanzo ate the sweet, mellow baked beans. He ate the bit of salt pork that melted like cream in his mouth..." 

Mashed Turnips

He demolished a tall heap of pale mashed turnips, and a hill of stewed yellow pumpkin. Then he sighed, and tucked his napkin deeper into the neckband of his red waist.

 Sourdough Biscuits

 Tomatoes with Sugar and Cream

 And by every plate was a saucer full of sliced tomatoes, to be eaten with sugar and cream.

Pa ate the last spoonful of pink, sugary cream from his saucer of tomatoes, and drank his tea. Dinner was over.

 Vanity Cakes

Ma frying “vanity cake” doughnuts, so named because they’re “all puffed up, like vanity, with nothing solid inside.”

 Switchel

"She had sweetened the cool well-water with sugar, flavored it with vinegar, and put in plenty of ginger to warm their stomachs so they could drink till they were not thirsty."

$110 per person