I love to cook, but am I a hip cook? Can I cook and entertain at the same time? Can I make cooking look like a breeze while the food’s presentation and taste is just absolutely mind blowing? Oh and of course, walk out of the kitchen with not a stain is on my apron? Apparently YES!

Last week, I attended my friend Monika’s cooking class in the brewery by down town LA. The place was difficult to find if you’ve never been there but the directions on the site was clear enough to not get lost.

As I walked in, the doors of the Hip Cooks studio was drawn up by chalk like a daily special in a restaurant. I thought that was cute. To the left, as you enter, is a large rectangular dining table that seats about 15. Straight ahead is a beautiful kitchen, like something I would build in my house if I had the budget.

I decided to go for the pasta class since making your own pasta just sounds difficult and daunting. The 3 hours class was long but it made pasta making seem not so intimidating after all.

Class started promptly at 7:01pm. Our teacher for the night was a chirpy, funny Italian pastry chef, Bonny. We started mixing flour and eggs together making the batch of pasta dough we needed for the night. Everyone had a task to do. Crack the eggs, mix the flour and kneed the dough. With 12 or 14 pairs of hands, the dough got made pretty quickly!

We refrigerated most of it to let the dough rest and were left with two base ball sized pieces of dough to make the first dish on the menu, Butternut squash & Roasted Garlic Ravioli with Sage Butter and Parmesan. After making the Raviolis, we cooked it, and all sat down and ate it in about 2 minutes. As we ate the raviolis, everyone was hemming and haaing about how good the butternut squash was, and I was in total agreement!

Next we made Dill fettuccini in with salmon and a voda cream reduction.  That was VERY good too.  After the second dish, I noticed the mental and mobility slow down as the carbs started to settle in.  The wine paired with every dish didn’t really help either. We all tried really hard to make the 3rd and 4th dish which were the Ming Ricotta Caramelle, and a Mushroom and Spinach Rotolo.  That last dish, the rotolo, looked so good but everyone took only a sliver of a bite and surrendered to their almost exploding stomachs.
I had a lot of fun making pasta that night! I walked out of there clean, full and felt like I cooked for a party of 14. I got to mingle with people and learn something new.  If you ever feel like learning new reciepes or just want to do something different on a date, you should definitely try to be a hip cook for a night.