Recipe for Fun

By Laura Koss-Feder

When Deborah Owen, 53, a partner in a North Hollywood, Calif., accounting firm, took a vacation last August, her days were long. She was exhausted each evening. There were constant deadlines to meet. The work was messy. Oh, and by the way, she can't wait to do it all again.

Owen, who has a passion for food--she toys with the idea of going into the restaurant business at some point--spent five days studying and cooking with professional chefs at the Greystone campus of the renowned Culinary Institute of America (CIA). The school is in St. Helena, in the heart of California's Napa Valley, about 1 1/2 hr. north of San Francisco. "When I put the chef's hat on and stepped into one of the best kitchens in the world, I felt a tingle," says Owen, who spent $850 on the course.

For those who dream of cooking like the pros, spending a week in a continuing-education program at the CIA provides a unique travel and learning experience without having to enroll full time in cooking school. "These are not people who want to sit on a beach. They want to know that they've created something by the end of the day," says Mark Erickson, master chef and vice president for continuing education at the CIA.

The Greystone campus--an offshoot of the CIA's main campus in Hyde Park, N.Y.--features four "Career Discovery" programs, aimed at those who are thinking of entering the culinary profession or who are already working in it. Students learn about such topics as food preparation, food presentation, business aspects of the industry and industry terminology. Classes are six-hour morning or afternoon sessions, given over a four-or five-day period. This schedule leaves students time to explore the nearly 500 wineries and numerous gourmet restaurants in Napa and neighboring Sonoma counties. Tuition ranges from $725 to $995. About 30% of the continuing-education students are 50 or older, notes Diana Delonis, education-program manager at Greystone.

At Hyde Park, which is 90 minutes north of New York City, five "Boot Camp" programs are available. These are geared more toward techniques, skills and presentation of personal cooking and baking in the home. Tuition for these intensive courses, each lasting five full days, is either $1,850 or $1,950. More than half the students in Hyde Park are past age 45.

Owen's class at Greystone, an introduction to the professional kitchen, ran from 2 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily. Along with 17 other students, she started the day with classroom instruction devoted to a particular form of meal preparation. During one session, they learned grilling, during another braising, then on to deep frying, and so forth. Next the students, outfitted in full chef's attire, moved into the kitchen and in teams of three created a specific menu for the evening. Dishes Owen prepared included grilled salmon, fried squid and risotto. "Despite all the complicated dishes I cooked, I enjoyed learning how to make the perfect tortilla probably more than anything else," Owen says.

As the students worked on preparation, instructors interspersed demonstrations and pointers on technique. The sound of a gong that resonated throughout the kitchen at 7 p.m. meant it was time to stop cooking and start eating. Timing the meals and preparing them quickly, as restaurants would, was a major component of each day's lesson. After dinner, students returned to the classroom to review what was learned that day.

Back home, Owen is using her new, improved culinary flair to treat her employees. In between her accounting and managerial duties, she regularly cooks meals for the eight people in her company in a fully equipped kitchen in the office. "When I get to work, everyone asks me what's for lunch," says Owen. "Even if they hate the job, they love the food." (A sample menu: fillet of salmon with soy sauce, rice-wine vinegar and lemongrass, baked in parchment paper and served with rice pilaf.)

Harrison Branch, 55, a professor of photography at Oregon State University in Corvallis, says the two classes he has taken at the CIA's Greystone campus have given him a solid grounding in food preparation. He cooks for friends and family, does some catering on the side and has contemplated switching to a career in culinary arts. He learned how to prepare such meals as grilled shrimp with tomato and basil coulis, veal scallopini with asparagus and herb risotto and pork medallions. "This was the kind of experience that you could just immerse yourself in totally," Branch says.

Jim Bethel, 55, an Arlington, Va., architect and avid cook, has taken four Boot Camp courses at Hyde Park. His days started at 7:30 a.m. with breakfast, followed by 45 minutes of classroom instruction on a particular type of food preparation. Then, as part of a team of three, he went to the kitchen to prepare set menus, which varied each day. A sample meal in one of his courses, enough to serve six people: sauteed breast of chicken with prosciutto and mozzarella cheese, maple-glazed carrots and garlic mashed potatoes. Meal preparation was done by about 12:30 p.m., followed by lunch and cleanup. Next was a beer-or wine-tasting class and dinner at a CIA restaurant. The day ended about 8 p.m. "This was a great learning experience at this point in my life; I don't think that I would have appreciated it as much when I was 30," says Bethel, whose home features a 1,200-bottle wine collection. "This was like a fantasy camp for cooking."

The highlight of Terry Benca's week in the Boot Camp class in August was when one of the chefs complimented Benca on an apple-ginger sauce he made for a pork medallion entree. "I felt like a schoolkid; I was so excited," says Benca, 56, an engineer who lives in Allegany, N.Y. "I couldn't wait to tell my wife and son."

Six-time Boot Camp veteran Bruce Bogert, 79, of Rockport, Mass., says his science background kept bringing him back to the CIA. "As an engineer, I always like to know precisely how things are done. This is why cooking has fascinated me for years," says Bogert, who took several of the courses with his wife and two daughters. "These courses are like an adventure trip without the danger." And unlike an adventure trip, you can experience the same fun and excitement in the comfort of your own kitchen, once you return home.