Astor Center Instructor, Mark Bello

If you live in the NYC area, I would highly recommend taking a class at The Astor Center. You can know a lot or a little, it doesn’t matter. It’s not fussy, and the people at the center, including the instructors are great and friendly. I was really pleasantly surprised. The class was full, but put a bunch of people in a kitchen who love food and wine and it made for a great afternoon of homemade pasta, wine, and conversation. We exchanged restaurant favorites, tips, and of course Mark (our fearless instructor) taught us basic pasta making, with some simple, truly Italian dishes. So as my first foray into the world of “formal” cooking, I give it two thumbs up, and this is what’s going to inspire me, and the menu this week.

The first part of the class was touring the Farmer’s Market in Union Square, on a Saturday…. cue scary music. But the amount of choices and volume of produce was awesome. I had not been to the Saturday market in a long time, and was jarred by the amount of people, but realized how much I was missing going on Mondays. I’m missing a lot of the dairy - fresh, local cheeses, butters (which we used in the class - phenomenal), and family raised meats. Next week, I’m going to change the shopping day, and go either on Friday or Saturday, and attempt to do a budget week of food just from the Farmer’s Market - time to take a hike Whole Foods.

Ok, on to the menu. I’m doing a couple African dishes this week, for something different, and for Jamati.com. I”m also going to use my new pasta skills, and only buy produce from the Farmer’s Market and make my own sauces and dishes based on the veggies. Here’s a rough outline:

Monday: French Pumpkin Soup

Tuesday: Some sort of Baby Artichoke dish, probably with pasta

Wednesday: South African Spiced Chicken Skewers

Thursday: Swiss Chard something - I’ve never used it, so we’ll see….

Friday: Peanut Butter Stew - Senegal

Tags: African food, cooking classes, pasta, The Astor Center