I received a fun invitation the other day, a chance to check out the new San Francisco Cooking School and take a preview of their knife skills classes.
I have been wielding a knife since I was a little girl, my dad taught me how to use a pen knife to whittle and do little projects, I received the first knife of my own when I was about 10 and have a small collection of pocketknives and the very handy Swiss Army knife. Then there is my collection of kitchen knives, my first being a gift from my mom and my sister when I was 17 when I moved out on my own.
My 10″ Wusthof chef’s knife has been my constant friend throughout all this time, and for many years it was the only knife that I owned. I learned to do a lot of things with it, including paring vegetables, fluting mushrooms, and butchering meat.
Who knew, after five minutes in this class, that I have been holding my knife wrong! The wonderful instructor, David Groff, who was a former chef at Zuni Cafe among other places, told me I held my knife like I was going to shank someone with it. Well, he might not be far off from wrong! However, holding it with the correct grip as he showed me felt a whole lot better and I felt like I had more control.
My sister and I used to practice our knife skills as teens, racing each other through bags of onions and potatoes to see who could finish first. I have practiced my knife skills diligently throughout my adult life, trying every technique that I saw on a cooking show or by restaurant chefs and butchers. I live life with a motto that you can always learn something, and it is very true. Life is all about learning and you will never ever stop learning, especially in the kitchen.
The class is really fantastic, and in a full length class the students work with instructors for three hours cutting up every kind of vegetable imaginable and learning all of the basic knife skills and knife safety techniques. I even learned a new kind of cut, which excited me tremendously.
In class we cut up onions, celery, carrots, zucchini, leeks, and potatoes. The students cut up this variety of vegetables and then take them home, along with the recipe for fantastic minestrone soup, then the students are served soup for lunch. In our abbreviated preview class, we cut up all these vegetables, had a shorter lesson, and then we got to have delicious soup as well. I was so touched that the instructor made me a special batch of soup that did not have potatoes in it to accommodate my oral allergy syndrome.
It was really fun to read about their class schedule. I am rather interested in taking the fish course which is three hours per week for three weeks and where one learns to cut and prepare every kind of fish and cook said fish using every technique. They even have special cooking nights where the students cook from local celebrity chefs cookbooks, and the chef is there to guide them along, along with a dinner afterwards. Wouldn’t you like to play in the kitchen with the chefs from Kokkari or Bar Tartine? I think it would be a fun thing to do with the team at work or for a party.
We got to peek into the other side of the school as well, where a full roster of culinary students were completing a pastry course. It was always a dream to complete a pastry program at a culinary school, maybe someday if I can get a different kind of job situation I will give it a try. It is intense training, but the students in there were having a blast and what they were making looked fantastic.
When I got home with my mound of baggies of prepped vegetables, I promptly made a wonderful minestrone for myself, although I used Nonnie’s recipe. How I miss her, but eating her recipes always make me feel like she’s right there with me. I bet she held her knife correctly!
Take a class!
San Francisco Cooking School
415.346.2665
hello@sfcooking.com
Heather in SF 
Oh, that first picture with the carrots all beautifully cut up is gorgeous! I doubt I could do that and still keep my fingers intact. Maybe I need to attend a lesson! 😉
I wish I took that photo, I was too busy chopping to take photos but I was the fastest person in the class. It was really nice to hear from the instructor that my skills were really on par, just that I needed to chop with more noise. He didn’t understand apartment living I guess, “be very very quiet”.
I think I’ll check their schedule before my trip in March. I have never filleted a whole fish. While there is not much call for that in Oklahoma, I, like you, enjoy learning new skills.