Veggie Prep 101

Veggie Prep 101 is the name is the class I'm currently teaching through PCC. It's an unfortunate name, and I say that even though I named it. It sounds formal and academic, although the focus of the class is really just to get folks to relax and trust their instincts. I'm not there to teach them professional knife skills or the right and wrong way to cut an onion. I've been cooking professionally for more than 20 years, and I can't say that I know professional knife skills or the "right" way to cut an onion.

People were prepping vegetables and cooking fabulous meals long before anyone wrote a cookbook or started a cooking school. With few exceptions (like apple seeds and rhubarb leaves) the fruits and vegetables that we find in stores and grow in our gardens are not going to make us sick, so prepping them is just a matter of getting to know them, and also getting to know our our own tastes and preferences.

Personally, I like to push the envelope and try to use as much of the stems and peels as possible. Kale stems are too tough for me, but collard stems have great texture if you cook them through. So much of what we choose to leave on or take off has more to do with convention than with palatability.

More than anything, I want to use the class as a way to show my wonder at the vegetable kingdom. We prep vegetables, pass them around, sniff them, discuss the evolutionary continuum (think Savoy cabbage and Lacinato kale, or beet greens and chard,) and finally eat them. It's a good time.