Sandy B.
Yelp
How can more people not being doing this? Look at all the 5 star ratings! I was in Seattle for less than 48 hours and wanted to find something unique to the area to do and I saw a cooking class, so I signed up. I signed up a few hours before it started and was expecting back that said I was too late. But nope. Not only did they accept me, but I was the only one there!
It is located in the heart of Pike Place Market, so it's appealing to locals and visitors. They have a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen. It is designed to be a community resource, the kitchen is available for rent by community groups, individuals, chefs and Market vendors. They serve breakfast there and you can buy a pay it forward ticket. For $5 someone who is homeless or less fortunate can get a free meal. They have had over 90 vouchers cashed in already. I will admit, my intentions were to buy a couple and to buy a small container of hot sauce, and I left without any of it! UGHH. Just slipped my mind.
I went for the class of seafood from the PNW. It was $75. I know that may sound steep to some but this was a 2 hour class where you get cooking lessons and eat what you cook. All fresh, local, hard to get seafood that you would spend over $75 at a restaurant for. I went knowing it would be worth my money and my husband was excited about me doing it so I could cook it at home for him one day. On to mistake number two that I made. She makes everything super simple, basic and few ingredients and she gives you the recipe. I left the recipe!!!
She initially had an appetizer area set up for me. It had 7 different local honeys and a small plate of fresh goat cheese from the area that can only be obtained a couple of months out of the year and some fresh blueberries. My favorite was the wildflower honey.
After good hygiene practice and apron application we headed to the stove and cooking area. She already had water boiling and eggs boiled. I am not a chef by any stretch of the imagination. As I told her, I do enough to keep my family alive. But I'm always willing and eager to learn. I'll admit I'm intimidated by those that excel with a knife but she continued to offer guidance and not seem frustrated.
If I had kept my recipe like I was suppose to, I could list all the ingredients out for you, but hopefully you'll recognize most of them in the pictures. We made a salad with a type of romaine lettuce. Added some hard boiled egg, smoked muscle and smoked scallops. Listen, I am knew to experimenting with seafood and this was absolutely amazing. Melt in your mouth. Some heirloom tomatoes. Fresh crab meat, shredded. Some olives and some peppers that I can't remember the name of (so sorry). They added just a little heat.
We made the dressing for it and I will not do it justice because I can't remember already, she'll have to post the recipe but it was light and refreshing and I could have ate it like soup.
We made a plate of muscles in the garden. Fresh muscles that had been caught that morning and she bought just before my arrival. It was my first experience, cleaning, cooking and eating muscles. They were not slimy at all, like I had thought. More dense. The flavor from the water we boiled them in made them wonderful. We had the rest of the lemon that we used and fennel we cut off seeping flavor into the boiling water and it was amazing. We laid the muscles over a bed of thinly sliced red potatoes and red onions.
We made our own version of a low country broil. It had fresh caught spotted shrimp with babies. Which I am told is a big deal. We put andouille sausage from a local market there. She cut the casing off before cooking, that alone, made it so much better for me. Then we had the baby potatoes and corn on the cob. You should have smelled the steam coming up when we were draining it......
Shout out to Herban Farm where she gets some of the stuff she uses. She let me try some of their hot sauce. The first one I tried was the Scotch Bonnet. This had a sweet flavor and a mild hot sauce. This was really good on the goat cheese. Then I tried the white bullet. This is made with a habanero and had moderate heat. Really liked this. He also experimented with some hot sauce in some of the honey. This was very interesting. All you taste at first is the honey, sweet. As soon as it is all gone from your pallet the heat kicks in and it really sneaks up on you.
While I was eating the owner and lead chef gave me a history of how Atrium Kitchen came about. I will leave you with a link. http://pikeplacemarket.org/blog/mural-honoring-japanese-american-farmers-pike-place-market
I also found it very interesting to know that the Pike's Market area is self sustained. All the owners give back 6% of their earnings every month.
Don't miss out! Come support those that support others. It's entertaining. It's good food. It will help you become a better cook (I'll never be a chef).