Kenji’s Japanese Soufflé Pancake Class, an “experience” from Airbnb.
Like you, I have spent a lot of time in this past year eating and drinking with strangers through online classes and tastings. Maybe the best so far was Kenji’s Japanese soufflé pancake class which I attended with my daughter last weekend (it was a gift, accompanying the whisk that was used in the class). This was through Airbnb, which dubs these sessions “experiences” equivalent to travel and other non-virtual experiences. (Craft classes and storytelling are among non-food offerings available.)
The class was small, 8 Zoom windows total with couples in most of them. Kenji asked each of us about our favorite Japanese food (mine was uni, of course) and then gave us tips on where and how to experience that dish if we should visit Japan. Right away, we experienced a connection with the host and each other. And soufflé pancakes are an ideal dish to learn to make in this setting because the concept is simple but it’s all in the execution; Kenji checked our progress at each stage (we showed him our results through our webcams) and told us when to add more liquid, how much to beat the meringue and how to steam the dough. We had a good time and learned a new skill, and it was a fine bargain at $18. Note: the recipe and technique are included in this video on Kenji’s YouTube channel, but it’s much more engaging to experience live.
King Arthur’s Baking School, which has often shown up in the posts I’ve written on my classes with Jeffrey Hamelman, is doing something similar in short and several-day classes for serious home as well as professional bakers. Each student’s workbench is visible to the instructor through their webcam, and there is a second instructor on hand to troubleshoot. These classes are sold out for months to come, but they offered up a sample in this apple cream pie tutorial which is loaded with tips like how to reliably measure flour when the recipe is in grams but all you have is cups.
DZ Restaurants, an upscale dining group with several restaurants in my town, has been doing online cooking classes which feature a chef from their restaurant making one specific dish while students follow along at home using a meal kit that was picked up or delivered from the restaurant. This link has promo trailers for two of their recent classes. Like Kenji’s soufflé pancakes, the ideal subjects for these menus are dishes that are not particularly hard to make but students are not likely to have made at home. It’s a really smart way for restaurants to stay in touch with their customers, and maybe attract new customers, during a period where in-person dining is prohibited or limited.
Martha Stewart drinks with her friend from Wine Insiders at the virtual tasting event. Sadly, Snoop Dogg was not in attendance.
My favorite online drinking class was this pre-Thanksgiving wine tutorial from Wine Insiders, because why drink alone when you can drink with Martha Stewart? It was free with a half-case of wines intended for pairing with typical holiday dishes, and though it was a one-way experience you felt involved because you had the same wine and were drinking it together. (And there was plenty left over for the meal the next day). I’ve attended a couple of other wine classes that were done as fundraisers, where you drank a bottle of wine with other supporters of a cause while you learned more about the cause, and the wine. And the Beer Advocate Extreme Beer Fest, which moved online this year. I’ve never experienced the live version in Boston, but imagine it was more enjoyable to have a whole bottle or can at home than to stand in long lines waiting with your tasting glass.
Not all online classes are seamless and flub-free, of course, and not all good chefs are good presenters. Here’s the Happy Bellyfish class where I made Kimchi according to the recipe we published on Burnt My Fingers. Prepare the ingredients, watch the video and you can have the same experience we did. The presenter spends a great deal of her time responding to questions in her Facebook Live feed, which I don’t think is a good choice because the questions tend to reflect a wide range of skill levels and some were from people who just weren’t paying attention. But the breadth of fermentation workshops offered by these interesting folks (a household in Germany apparently including a Russian, an Indian and a Palestinian activist) is tempting and worth checking out.
I won’t mind the experience of more live dining and perhaps live workshops when the time comes, but these online classes have filled in very nicely during the pandemic. And now that we’ve all become expert Zoomers and WFH-ers I expect they will continue to proliferate after we open up, which is not a bad thing.
