It Cuts Like A Knife . . .

A chef's knife, that is!

A few weeks back, I talked about 2016 being the year of living creatively, and how I planned on taking a cooking class. Well, the first one was the other day, and it was a blast!

My husband and I have taken Demonstration Classes - the chefs cook and talk while we sit and watch, drink wine and eat. This class - the Basics of Culinary - is Hands On and the wine doesn't appear until the food is cooked and the knives are put away.

A few things I learned:

- you really don't need most of the knives in the knife block. You can use a chef's knife for pretty much everything. 

- the point of the knife is the "toe" and the part closer to the handle is the "heel."

- when cutting up veggies, curl the fingers of your other hand under, making a claw. (I managed to leave class with all my fingers - yeh, me!)

- when seasoning, sprinkle the salt, pepper, parsley, etc from high above the food because that way it spreads more evenly. Too close and it can clump.

We made guacamole and salsa, pollo tacos al pastor (chicken tacos), red snapper escabeche (fish and veggies) and sopaipillas (fried dough with cinnamon sugar and honey - and, oh, honey, let me tell you, they were delicious!)

You know, cooking is a lot like writing - once you know the rules, you can go a little wild, expand and experiment.

And it's a pretty good bet that the next time one of my characters needs to do something dastardly with a knife, we'll all know what kind of knife they'll use....