Essential Wines of Tuscany

Join an ICE Pastry Chef to learn the secrets behind perfect pâte à choux-based desserts. This versatile dough can take all sorts of shapes and sizes, for end-results that look complicated and impressive but are in reality easy to make. Your recipe list includes eclairs with chocolate glaze and chocolate pastry cream and cream puffs with vanilla pastry cream.

Italy produces wine from hundreds of different grape varieties, making its wine varied and engaging, yet perhaps a bit hard to grasp. This tasting concentrates on the wines from Toscana, Italy's third-largest quality wine-producing region. Although many of the wines are Sangiovese-based, the distinctive terroirs and other cultivated varieties offer a diverse tasting opportunity, ranging from some tasty whites to Old World and even international-style reds, topping off with traditional sweet. ICE's resident sommelier, Richard Vayda, will also discuss Tuscan wine history and Italian wine labeling. Regional cheeses will accompany the eight or more wines featured in the tasting.

If you're looking to spend more than a few hours at a recreational class but don’t have the time or the investment for the full-blown professional track, we’ve designed this course especially for you. In this 13-lesson program, you will cover the foundations of the culinary arts, training you to be an accomplished cook. These classes are derived from the same core curriculum as ICE’s culinary career program and will be taught by the school’s top chef-instructors. Throughout the 13 lessons, you will gain a strong understanding of cuisine and its underpinnings.

ICE’s Fine Cooking series are the classes on which our recreational program’s reputation was built. This intensive course expands on our Fine Cooking 1 series and takes a deeper dive into essential culinary techniques. These full-participation classes teach fundamental skills, not recipes. This course covers everything from fileting a fish, to properly sautéing, to cover poaching techniques and fundamental sauce making. As you advance through the series, you’ll gradually come to understand each cooking concept. You’ll have a firm grasp of ingredients and equipment; you’ll know why things happen; you'll learn how to avoid and correct mistakes. Most importantly, you’ll gain the experience you need to cook with confidence and pleasure - without relying strictly on recipes. Each class culminates with a student-prepared meal. Prerequisite: Fine Cooking 1.