ABOARD THE SEVEN SEAS GRANDEUR -- "Who's having fun?" chef John Stephano asks his 18 students about 10 minutes into a shipboard cooking class. Hands shoot up. "Who's learning something?" More hands. "Alright, two for two," Stephano says.
If there was a recipe for the hands-on culinary class Stephano teaches in this ship's Culinary Arts Kitchen, it would be equal parts fun and learning. Stephano's rapid-fire, friendly and energetic approach to the class gives it zest and keeps students on their toes, while his food prep tips and tricks come almost too fast to keep up with.
The culinary teaching kitchen first came to Regent Seven Seas Cruises two ships ago on the Seven Seas Explorer. Other lines have similar facilities, but having taken classes on both Explorer and Grandeur, I think Regent's is among the best.
One key is the simplicity of the dishes being taught. In our hour-long class, I and my fellow students on a two-night preview cruise from Miami made pasta al limone (lemon pasta) and French crepes. There were a few burnt crepes, but mostly these dishes were made successfully. I have been through at least one cooking class in which the dishes were so hard that I felt inept and a bit of a failure. These were achievable, yet something that I'd be excited to serve at home to guests.
A few things were made easy for us. We started with spaghetti that had been par-boiled, so into the frying pan they went with a little extra virgin olive oil. As he showed us the steps to the dish, Stephano recalled growing up in an Italian household in Philadelphia where his grandmother would par-boil enough pasta to last a week. Home from school, he would pop some out of a freezer bag and make his own after-school snack.
How long to par-boil pasta? Stephano suggests a minute-and-a-half less than the done time on the side of the pasta box. Rinse it? No way. Just drain it in a strainer. Add oil? Sure, your pasta won't stick but neither will the sauce you make for it. Just set it on some parchment paper to cool before freezing.
How much salt to put in your pasta water? Plenty. "It should taste like the ocean," Stephano said.
That kind of practical knowledge was lapped up, even by some of my fellow students who were clearly more experienced than me.
After Stephano walked through the steps of the dish, students were sent back to their cooking stations to replicate the magic. It wasn't long before the scent of lemon and the sizzle of cooking pasta got my appetite going.
French crepes dusted with powdered sugar and topped with allspice ice cream and blueberries. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst
Time passed quickly as I tried to keep the recipe on course. Our sampler class was only an hour but classes are typically two hours and include more than two dishes. There are twice-daily classes on sea days and a single late-day class when ships are in port. Stephano also leads culinary safaris ashore, such as one scheduled on the next regular cruise when he will visit a spice market in Belize.
My pasta al limone, topped with basil and parmesan, turned out intensely lemony and creamy. My crepes, cooked in clarified butter, were amazingly thin as I followed Stephano's technique and were delicious topped with powdered sugar, blueberries and allspice ice cream.
I put a few dirty dishes in the wrong spots, and banged my hand opening the still-new utensil drawer at my station, but the sweet smell of success pervaded both my station and the entire kitchen as my classmates turned their ingredients into a finished product.
Were I on a long luxury itinerary aboard Regent, I would make it a point to sign up early for a culinary arts class. It is a lot more fun in a chef's apron behind a station, than it is stuck at the door on the outside looking in.