Dinner in Italy

One of the world's oldest cultures, China has a complex cuisine, with a range of regional dishes often not found anywhere outside of the country. Some techniques, ingredients and dishes are similar throughout all of China; this Essentials class focuses on those, giving you a well-rounded overview of Chinese food and culinary culture. From stir-frying and braising to steaming and red cooking, you will learn to use traditional Chinese techniques to make a menu that includes: scallion pancakes with dipping sauce; red-cooked chicken with rice; dan dan noodles; and Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce.

Israel, considered the center of the universe in ancient times, is at the juncture of Europe, Asia and Africa, with its coast on the Mediterranean. Its cuisine reflects the influences of all of the cultures around it, and the refugees who have settled there in modern times. You'll explore modern and traditional Israeli cooking when you make: cheese bourekas (flaky pastry-filled puffs); fried cauliflower with tahini sauce; chicken meatballs in tomato sauce with toasted Israeli couscous; and fattoush (pita salad).

These dishes capture the flavors and techniques of so many exciting, flavor-forward global cuisines. Spanning the gamut from Mexico to the Middle East, these small but satisfying plates are perfect for parties --- or collect them all to make a masterful (and entirely vegan) meal. We'll create and then feast on: Egyptian baba ghanoush and hummus; Argentinian hearts of palm, tomato and avocado salad; Italian roasted cauliflower with capers; and Balinese chili-grilled tempeh skewers.

If you want to learn how to make pasta, then this class is just what you knead! Over the course of five days, you will be getting your hands into dough to learn the ins and outs of pasta making. You'll grow from learning how to make regular doughs and noodles before furthering those techniques to include naturally colored doughs and stuffed pasta shapes. By the time this class comes to completion after five days, you'll feel comfortable exploring a whole new world of endless pasta-bilities. The items you prepare include: pastas like pasta all'uova, semolina pasta dough, squid ink dough, golden saffron dough, green spinach dough; sauces such as pesto, marinara, tomato sauce, ragu de chingale (wild boar sauce); stuffed pastas like ricotta ravioli, pumpkin tortellini and ravioli all'uova (ravioli with an egg); and pasta dishes including lasagne, pasta cacio e pepe, pasta agio e olio (garlic in oil), pasta with pesto trapenese (Sicilian tomato-basil pesto) and gnocchi.