by Julie Reitsma

The great chefs of Toronto aren’t only those manning the helms of four stars, but are also at home, cooking up storms for their friends and family. Doing it up yourself can be daunting, and a copy of Better Homes & Garden 11th Edition may not be enough to get you through it. Enter Calphalon Culinary Center, Chef Instructor Glenn, and his trusty sidekick Estelle. They’re ready to get you all poised to impress your peeps, gastro-style. 

Who: Depending on the class you sign up for, you can work solo, or with a partner. We did it up with our moms, mostly for street cred, but if you want to bring your guy along you can hang out in the back row with the loved-up pair we saw during our visit (who knew you could make out and dice a shallot?). 

Where: Bustling Spadina provides the backdrop, via a wall of windows, to your Calphalon experience, with Spanish guitars (à la CD, not an actual flamenco band) adding to the atmosphere. Rows of stainless steel countertops, complete with gas ranges, cutting boards, pans, and knives are ready for you to embark on your epicurean adventure. Olé! 

When: The Center is open pretty much every day except Mondays and a long list of classes are available—be aware their acronymed itinerary, “HO” means hands-on ($130), and “D” indicates a demonstration class ($70). We chose, after much menu-based debate, to go for the Surf n’ Turf on a Friday. A bit of a mad dash to get there for 6:00, but, with the class ending at 9:30, you still have lots of night left to celebrate your culinary successes. 

Wear: The fine people of Calphalon will provide you with an apron, but don’t let that stop you from sporting your very own hot pink “gourmet goddess”—cooking should be about style, after all. On a safety note, open toe shoes aren’t the recommended option, with concerns about dropping knives and splattering oil. A fair point, but we usually cook pied nus, so we took our chances and are happy to report that our gladiatored feetsies were fully intact upon completion. 

What: Glenn and Estelle must have known about our tendency to eat ingredients before they get to the pan, tiding us over with a lovely proscuitto and asparagus amuse-bouche, as Wendy, our server, glided around with wine and beer (cost extra). After a brief intro we were off, with the sounds of chopping, whisking, and laughing, providing a suitable backdrop as Glenn guided us along, step-by-step, with the assemblage of our menu.  

The appetizer, goat cheese “truffles,” was a standout—globes of creamy chèvre rolled in fresh herbs, pepper and chopped almonds, tucked into crunchy phyllo baskets, and then topped with micro greens and simple balsamic vinaigrette. We then moved on to the surf portion of our menu—grilled shrimp and lobster. Who says you can’t grill without a barbeque? Using the trusty Calphalon grill pans, we seared and scorched our rock lobster tails and marinated shrimpies, all the while brushing them with as much flavoured butter—shallots, garlic, and smoky paprika—as they could handle. Finished off with our leftover marinade—Thai-inspired, with birds eye, basil, and lemon—this dish managed to bring a lot of what could be contradictory flavours together, though we’d be hard pressed to replicate it, sans grill pan, in our shoebox kitchen.  

The turf, featuring a filet mignon with roasty herb potatoes, proved to be the trickiest portion of the menu—spot-on medium rare isn’t the easiest to attain with all the flames and yelping going on. Granted, the cacophony of sizzles and general mishappery was amusing, and in some ways this dish was more about the cooking and less the result—the classic mignon and red wine sauce was a touch on the “meh” side, especially after the delight of our grilled sea-faring friends. We finished off with a chocolate lava cake, astonishingly easy to make, though pretty short on the molten stuff. Still, chocolate is chocolate, and with a single raspberry punctuating the top, it was a pretty fair way to end the evening. 

Calphalon Culinary Center
www.calphalonculinarycenter.com  

425 King Street West 

416-847-2212