Wendy Van Wagner, owner of In the Kitchen, has been teaching and cooking up fresh food with mainly organic and local ingredients since she returned to her native Nevada City four years ago when she set up her own cooking school and local community kitchen. Her fresh approach to traditional and non-traditional cooking has taken off in Nevada City, where locals and visitors can take classes ranging from knife basics, canning, sushi rolling, ice cream making and beyond. Click here for a complete list of the upcoming classes. When brainstorming with Wendy about how guests at the Outside Inn could take part in her classes Wendy suggested I come try a private cooking class, which can be arranged for anywhere from 4 to 12 people. My cozy class included some old friends with whom I sliced, diced and tossed to create a fabulous “Perfect Summer Picnic” menu. Wendy is an excellent teacher who not only demonstrated the recipes, but also put us to work to help create the dishes. One of my favorites was the Shine on Root Salad, a beautiful raw root veggie salad that looked like a piece of art work after we put everything through the Japanese mandolin. Our picnic also included Wendy’s Shaved Fennel Salad; combining fresh zucchini, fennel, pine nuts, feta cheese and arugula. The rest of the summer meal included a baked savory zucchini cheesecake, garlic greens with kale and Parmesan cheese and finally, divine olive shortbread biscuits. Check out Wendy’s website and see if there’s a class that might work for you, if not, email her and she’ll create a custom one just for your tastes.
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