De Gustibus Was Amazing. Anne Burrell Was Even Better!

Hi foodies! Yesterday I had an incredible day. I went to Anne Burrell's cooking class at De Gustibus and it was so fun. This was my first time at De Gustibus and I enjoyed the whole experience. The way it works is on the day of the class they allow you to come five and a half hours earlier to put your name on a list (You can only sign up if you already have your tickets in advance). Yesterday, the class with chef Anne started at 5: 30 P.M so at 12:00 P.M ( I went a little before 12:00 because if you get there at noon you will wait on a line) they opened the doors and everyone on line signed there name. When they begin to let people in at 5:15, the order in which you signed is the order you enter the class to pick your seat. I was fortunate to be number 3 on the list out of about 85 people. I sat front row, center. Other people preferred sitting second row center or even third row center because each angles offers a different experience. There are great advantages if you have the luxury of signing in early.

Anyway let's talk about Anne Burrell. First of all she's hilarious. She should have a show with her cooking and interacting with a live audience. She has a lot of knowledge, obviously you would know if you watch her show. She goes to the basics on how to cut an onion and how to hold your knife. She knows how to teach. So, as she cooked the smalll courses came out but the thing you were eating was not what she was making. She told us flat out she is going to go out out of order. The first thing we ate were two little starters. One was a Truffled Deviled Egg which were incredible! I am a huge truffle fan and they are just too good for words. The other starter was the Crostini of Chicken Liver Pate with Balsamic Onions which I thought was incredible and the pate is so easy to make. The next course that came out was the Butter Lettuce Salad with Crispy Prosciutto, Oyster Mushroom Chips, Cabrales and Pears which was very good. My favorite part were the mushroom chips. They added another great texture and taste to the dish. The course that followed was the Braised Cabbage Stuffed with Pork. I loved it especially since there was a drop of chicken liver in there which added this unbelievable texture to the dish. And for dessert Anne made an Apple Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Icing. First of all the cake was incredible and the cream cheese icing just added to it. Everything was so good.

The whole class was so fun. Anne is so entertaining and the great stories were endless. Some things that came up was that Anne in coming out with her first cookbook! It is called Cook Like A Rockstar. That book is coming out October 4, 2011. Also, I loved she had all these different rants on ingredients. One rant was on salt. If you have ever seen Anne on T.V you know she loves salt. Salt simply enhances the flavor of food and that is what she went on about. I will tell you the truth her food is amazing and that is because of the salt. Also if you have ever seen Anne's show Secrets of a Restaurant Chef she cooks with oil and with her big fat finishing oil. Her oil is just what she cooks with which doesn't have to be a really expensive high quality oil. Her big fat finishing oil is her more high quality oil for finishing off pastas and other things like that. She also said the biggest rip off with oil is light oil because oil is fat so you can't reduce fat from fat. What makes it light is that the oil has less flavor which is not what you want. Another thing Anne talked about was how she doesn't have a restaurant. She spoke about how she wants to open a restaurant really bad but right now her television career is really taking off. If she opened a restaurant now she couldn't tape and do all the things she does now on T.V. She said she would have to take off a year from the T.V business to open a restaurant and get it going. Then when she comes back this same opportunity might not be there so she said don't expect a restaurant opening soon but she plans to open one day. For now she is just riding the wave. I learned so much from this class with Anne Burrell and I hope she comes back soon to De Gustibus. I loved this whole experience so much.
I also just want to tell everyone De Gustibus is so much fun and I really recommend for anyone to try out one of these classes especially if you are a foodie. It is such a fun environment and a great way to meet food icons.

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-Mike