Cool Cooking with Wylie Dufresne: The Magic of Liquid Nitrogen

Turkey has been high on our travel list for the last 5 years and we have yet to step off a plane in Atatürk Airport. Since we live in NYC there’s more than one way to achieve our goal of tasting mouth watering kebaps and off the chain börek. If you’re in NYC or close, you can play the same game we are. The Turkish Culture Center is offering a cooking class that promises to give you a solid dose of culture and food all wrapped up in a warm pide ekmeği (flat bread). We’re not promising flat bread but we are promising you’ll leave full of food and new friends. June 1 from 6:30 to 9:00 PM in NYC.

You made that awesome veggie dish last weekend. Then there was the grilled onions and veal. Don’t forget about those apple sauce cupcakes you baked for your vegan friends 30th birthday party. The Brooklyn Brainery is bringing illustrator Malou Zuidema in to show us all how to make a more permanent version of our favorite recipes. In their 2-hour Food Illustration Workshop you’ll learn technics to make your yummies on a page with a myriad of mediums. Malou believes that playfulness is what creating art is all about. The event is more “for fun” than for “technique” but you will learn a ton in the process. The hope is simply that you leave with something that you didn’t know you could create before. Wednesday, August 10th from 5:30-7:30pm in Brooklyn.

We’ve loved Ample Hills since day one. Which for us was when they judged Matt Timms Ice Cream Takedown and conceded to serving the peoples choice “Caprese Freeze” in their Vanderbilt shop. Since then, the’ve come a long way but have stayed true to their quirky, passionate roots. Their Ice Cream Social is a perfect case in point. Their ice cream making bike is fun, funny, exercise and reward all mixed up in one cream creating basket. Literally. That’s followed by what they call a waffle sundae bar. Yes please to whatever that is. Tuesday, July 12th from 7-9pm.

Lately people have been telling us we need to check out Montclair. As a born and bread Long Islander it’s a bit like joining the darkside. The Galactic Empire did have speeder bikes and those cool voice manipulator. Montclair Bread Company might be the sith that sways us over. Dropping the Star Wars references, Montclair Bread Company has a head baker from Amy’s bread who also spent time at the helm of Bread Alone. All that means they know what they are talking about. So, when sourdough lessons popped up on the calendar we thought you might want to know about it. Join them for an exploration of sourdough. You’ll learn how to create your own starter and how to keep it alive. They will then explain the different types of sourdoughs before sending you home to “feed” it for a week. A week later the session concludes with the baking of your new sourdough baby. If that’s not enough, they also love donuts, so snacks will be easy to obtain. Multiple days and time in Montclair, New Jersey.