Cooking with Class

Fun with food

If you love restaurants and have always wanted to improve your culinary skills, Cooking with Class is for you. You'll be at the same tables with top local chefs, learning their tips and techniques and enjoying the food you make together.

Started in 2002, Cooking with Class is a fundraiser, but not like any other fundraiser you've attended before. We bring 22 chefs to Salty's on Alki in West Seattle. They each choose a recipe they want to teach/share. Each chef teaches three classes. As a guest, you get to choose three chefs to work with--maybe a chef you've always admired or a particular dish you've always wanted to master. In the 30 minutes allotted for each class, your group of eight makes the dish, hands on, with the chef. You then eat what you've made and enjoy it with wine paired specifically with the dish by Northwest wineries. Click here for a full list of chefs, dishes and wines.

Photo: Chef Gabe Cabrera of Salty's at Redondo Beach

It's a boisterous and casual event where you meet people who love food and wine. Salty's on Alki has gone beyond generous and donated their entire banquet floor for all nine years of the event. They offer complimentary valet parking and pre-event appetizers. In addition, they feed our volunteers before they begin a busy night's work. Seattle's restaurants are a giving bunch, but Salty's has gone above and beyond for Cooking with Class.

Along with the Salty's Catering Department appetizers, we also have a beer and wine tasting table. Pike Brewing Co. donates beer for you to try out and the 13 wineries that donate wine for the classes send extra bottles so you can taste test before the event and in between classes. One of the great things about Cooking with Class is that you get to pair various wines with food. Most wines are made to be enjoyed with food and we give you the opportunity to try them both on their own and paired. We're sure you'll find a new favorite (or two) during the evening!

Since we are a fundraiser, we do offer you a chance to buy tickets to win fabulous door prizes. A $2 ticket could net you an overnight stay at Hotel Ändra, a Wüsthoff knife block, Calphalon pan, cooking class at Dish it up! and much more. We have a small live auction with John Curley as our auctioneer. If you've never seen him in auction mode, you have missed a highly entertaining event.

Photo above: John Curley in auction action

Photo below: Executive Chef Nick Musser giving a taste of things to come

Auction items are unique and include getaways like our Walla Walla package which includes two nights at Walla Faces Inns, Walla Faces wine tasting, terroir tour with the Chair of the Geology Department at Whitman College and dinners at Saffron and The Marc at the Marcus Whitman Hotel. We're known for our chef dinners--Chef Wayne Johnson will make dinner for six in your home with wine, Chef Jeremy McLachlan will host a traditional Italian holiday seven-course fish dinner at Salty's on Alki, Chef Peter Levine will create a dinner for six in someone's home including Sparkman Cellars wines. And Chef Nick Musser, an accomplished musician, will create a special menu in icon Grill's private room for eight with wine and have his quartet entertain you.

Cooking with Class benefits two programs of Providence Senior & Community Services: Providence Heritage House at the Market and Providence ElderPlace-Seattle. Both assist low income, frail elderly in King County. Providence ElderPlace is a program that works to keep people in their homes and communities by providing transportation to a day site where participants meet with doctors, take their meds, socialize, get a hot meal and more. When someone can't stay in their home, or chooses not to, Heritage House offers assisted living and care right at the Pike Place Market.

Come join the fun on September 14 this year at Salty's on Alki and help an elderly member of our community. You'll benefit as much as they will!

*Cooking with Class name and concept are trademarked

August-September 2010

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