Cooking class at GiGi's Playhouse – Des Moines

I’ve gotten to know some of the great folks at GiGi’s Playhouse – Des Moines and taught my first cooking class there a few weeks ago for their GiGi U program. There I met classmates, Joel, Michael, and Trinity, and we made lunch together: tortilla soup, quesadillas, and pineapple-cucumber salad, one of the nine menus that will be featured in our premier issue of Look, Cook, and Eat!

Jess, our videographer for LCE, snapped these great photos for us. I’ll let them speak for themselves, but I think it’s clear that the class was a hit, not only for the students but for me too. This was the first time we’d really tested the waters with some of our LCE recipes and the audience for which they’re intended, and aside from the soup being “a little spicy,” GiGi U program director, Daniell Bargstadt, told me that everyone had a great time. *phew* I’m even doing it again next week. *phew phew*

That’s the hardest part about creating something totally new and out of the blue. You can convince yourself that your idea is a revolutionary, one-of-a-kind, everyone-will-love-it sort of thing. But the doubt demons take hold (usually at 3am) and then you just want to back quietly away, pretend you never thought such crazy things.

But these kinds of experiences help fight off the demons. Other LCE issues are sure to crop up that will wake me at 3am but in the last couple of weeks it’s just been my cats who’ve had that dubious distinction. Every day that we work on LCE stuff–photography, recipe development, videotaping–we get more energized and excited.  So that keeps us going too.

Mostly, though, it’s stuff like this cooking class that makes me think we’re on the right track.