Adventures in Cooking

Yesterday, my husband and I attended a cooking class at Adventures in Cooking, Wayne, NJ. I was surprised to see that this somewhat small, specialty cooking store had it's own fairly large demo kitchen for classes. The kitchen was equipped with two ovens, two stoves, a large demo counter for the chef and one of those overhead mirrors so you can see everything that was going on. The chef was Daniel Rosati, a gentile and warm-hearted chef who has his own cooking school in Italy.

The class began with Rosati walking us through the five soup recipes we would be making. He explained how he discovered each of these recipes and told us about each region of Italy that they are from. He explained all the ingredients we would be using and where we were making substitutions for ingredients that were indigenous to regions in Italy, but not available here.

The class last three hours and all the participants split into small groups each crafting their own soup from the list under the guidance of Rosati. The atmosphere was casual but each group carefully watched their pots and worked together to complete their soup.

At the end of the class Rosati personally served class members a bowl of each soup, starting with the most mildly flavored and working up to the most intense. There was no need to eat after this class.

At the start of the class store owner, Arlene Ward shared some sad news. After many years of owning the shop and running these classes she was facing retirement. This 75 year old store owner, who doesn't look a day over 60, spoke from her heart telling class members the doors would be closing sometime in February 2009 and that the building would be sold.

If you can, try to make it to this unique location for a class or just to shop. There may be a time when these businesses no longer exist and this is just another disappearing.

For more information visit: http://www.adventuresincooking.com/ or call 973-305-1114.