I have to brag about what I did last night.

I’ve decided it’s okay because I rarely do anything interesting so this won’t become a habit. I booked a cooking class at CulinAerie in DC as a gift for the GS’s birthday. That might seem selfish to you- the person who likes to cook booking a cooking class as a gift- but he also enjoys it. AND he speaks French and is a self-proclaimed Francophile so choosing the “Bastille Day Celebration” class was an easy decision.

This is a very well known cooking school, and it’s the only thing I’ve seen ever that did not have a single negative review no matter where I looked. And I research things to an extreme- you should have seen me trying to pick out a dehumidifier.

We would also give it 5 stars. We had so much fun and I would highly recommend it to anyone with a remote interest in food. We did all of our own cooking but there wasn’t anything that was crazy difficult- the toughest thing we did was poaching an egg- and they had the instructor and 2 other volunteers there keeping an eye on everything. Our instructor was trained at le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Oh, and CARLA HALL is an instructor there. I definitely need to go back.

Our menu included:

Frisee salad with lardons and poached egg

Artichoke hearts with tomato-bacon vinaigrette

Hanger steak with red wine shallot fondue and pommes frites

Dark chocolate pots de creme with fresh whipped cream

We made all of that! And everything was very doable at home, so I plan to share some of the recipes soon. In the mean time, if you are in the DC area or are planning to be there, you should check it out! And if you’re flying solo, I will happily be your plus one.