Courses

Eastern European cultures are a treasure chest of delicious foods that have found their way, pre-made and packaged, onto grocery store shelves. This class returns these foods to their handmade origins. We’ll make noodles from various grains; bring your biceps because we’re using rolling pins! We’ll explore some regional dumplings…

While a craving for fresh handmade pasta might make you more likely to think "I'll make reservations!" than "I'll make dough!," this does not need to be the case. Learn to demystify making fresh pasta. Once you learn, you’ll never want to go back to boil-from-a-box pastas again.  In this…

Traditionally, home vinegar-making was a natural companion to the common wine-making process. As vinegar became available in the grocery, homes abandoned their vinegar jar for the 5% acid levels provided by commercial varieties.Homemade vinegar ranges in acidity from 1% to 3% and is not suitable for canning products such as…

Preserve the glorious harvest of apples, pears, berries, root vegetables, onions, pickles, peppers, all from the garden, all good. We’ll review basic preserving techniques and provide guidelines for different, sure-fire methods. Using less sugar and no added pectin, we’ll create healthy condiments that shine with natural flavors. Depending on what’s…

You eat meat, you love meat, but it is hard to find (and expensive to buy) meats prepared without unnecessary preservatives or from responsibly sourced animals. In this class you will revisit time honored skills that have fallen out of daily use and learn important lessons about how meats have…

Sweet things have natural appeal to our taste buds! Embrace nature’s sweet side as you learn to work with local honey and maple syrup—pure, delicious, versatile, and relatively healthful alternatives to refined sugar. Their flavors are concentrated and complex and offer cooks a range of options. This class will take…

Experience North Woods cuisine like never before while we expand the realm of possibilities for “local” food. This course is both a culinary experience and field-based exploration of the boreal forest. To begin, we’ll head into the field for a plant walk in several habitats, learning how to identify and…

Trace the history of your morning toast back to ancient Egypt and learn to bake bread as it was before commercial yeast and steam-injection convection ovens. Learn the basics of baking artisan breads with a strong emphasis on traditional methods, including ingredient selection, techniques for leavening and methods of baking.…

Hearth loaves, live-fire cooking, flatbreads, and overnight baked bean pots – just a few of the many potential uses of the wood-fired masonry oven made popular by Alan Scott.  This workshop will explore the history and construction of masonry ovens and the mixing and baking of wood-fired bread. Over the…

Wood fired brick ovens have been used since the dawn of civilization. They have been found in excavations of virtually every ancient civilization with the brick oven reaching its modern form in ancient Rome. Designs vary widely based on materials and intended use. The round wood-fired oven is found widely…

No one is on the fence about rhubarb. But rhubarb lovers don't mind the haters because that means more rhubarb for us! Still, even devotees can fall into a familiar pattern of pies, sauce and crisps. This class takes rhubarb in new directions -- as pickles, as a luscious curd,…

Spring Greens! Welcome this fresh new season with the early harvest—tender greens, delicate spruce tips, fiddleheads garlic scapes, ramps, morels, radishes, tender lettuces, and herbs. Here’s how to forage and harvest the season’s gifts: Spring Greens with Herbed Chèvre and Spruce Tip Vinaigrette; Spinach, Ramp, and Gruyere Tart; Wild Mushroom,…

It's the summer season and time for a course to enable the grill master in all of us to make our own sausages for the BBQ.  This course is designed to teach you how to make several kinds of sausage for those easy summer meals—from andouille to Polish.  You will…

Don't expect to sit idly by in this class; instructor Kim Hendrickson has every minute filled with different kinds of pastry, cake and cookies for you to make. We will delve into "quick" cakes and layer cakes, yeasted dough creations, and learn how to make a Scandinavian braided bread filled…

Learn to make lefse the way your grandmother used to do it–-an easy, time-tested recipe made from whole potatoes. You’ll learn the entire process of lefse making, from potato preparation to mixing, rolling, folding, and storing, as well as the equipment used to be successful. Other recipes and uses for…