Conference turris::cooks

Try looking into evening classes at one of the local schools. Some years ago
I took a course at Assabet Valley Regional Vocational School in Marlboro. It
met once a week for 3 hours, for about 10 weeks, if I remember correctly.
The course covered a wide range of culinary subjects, and tended to
specialize in one area in an evening; e.g., there was a seafood night,
also Italian, French, one evening was devoted to wines, another to desserts.
Time was spent discussing technique, tools, etc. It was great fun and, 
best of all, at the end of each class you get to consume the labours 
of the evening!

One note: due to the size of the class, most of the cooking was done
by the instructor by means of demonstration as opposed to the class getting
involved. There were some occassions when he asked for volunteers to help him
out, but for the most part it was sit, watch, ask questions and enjoy.
The instructor, when I took the course, was the head of the Culinary Arts
department at Assabet Voke. Summers he was Executive Chef at a very nice
restaurant on the cape. Having run several restaurants in his career it was
very informative to hear him discuss what would be involved to open your
own restaurant - a thought which had occurred to me until I realized from
talking with him how much work it is and what the failure rate is.

I can't remember the tuition fee for the course - it wasn't much - plus there
was a weekly charge of $2-3 for the ingredients for that evening's menu - not
much considering the feast that we had to enjoy at the end of the class.

Bon Appetit!

Bob

BTW: The Assabet Voke School has a public dining room that is open
at noon time during the week (better call ahead to check when it is open). 
The dining room is run by the Culinary Arts students at the school.
It's been a long time since I was there but I hear that it is still open,
though I'm not sure what the quality of food and service is now.
When I went there it was surprisingly good at an extremely reasonable
price.

    
    The Worcester Night Life program offers a variety of classes at night.
    I didn't take cooking but there were so many courses offered, I'm
    sure they have one.  It's sponsored by the Worcester Public Schools
    and classes are held in any of around 5 different highschools in
    the Worcester area.  Basic fee is $40 if I remember correctly. 
    
    Sharon
    

    Re: .-1
    
    I took the gourmet cooking and the italian cooking classes at Worcester
    Night Life and both of them were very good.
    
    Debbie
    

    re: .-1
    
   < I took the gourmet cooking and the italian cooking classes at Worcester
   < Night Life and both of them were very good.

Do you get to do your own cooking or do you just obverve the instructor???
    
    Jonathan...
    FHC
    
    [future home cooker  ;v)  ]

    You definitely do the cooking, the instructor is just there to
    supervise and sometimes show you a tricky technique. Then at the
    end you get to eat everything everyone cooked!
    

    You could also try Rosa Lee's on Rte. 9 Westboro(?) It's near Northboro
    for private oriental cooking classes