Oceanfront Hotels In Virginia | "Small Town – Big Taste"

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Category  :  Oceanfront Hotels In Virginia
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Posted By : Hotels in Virginia Beach North Courtyard


My destination was Mount Pleasant, Michigan.
The purpose of my trip was to speak to a class of journalism students about blogging as an alternative way of making a living from writing.

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The highlight (other than the kids of course) was a cooking class on root vegetables.
Our instructor was Emma Currie, chef at The Brass in Mount Pleasant.
Being Vegetarian, this class was for me.
I love vegetables.
Last year when I went to India a strange thing happened – I became a vegetarian.
It wasn’t for health reasons. It wasn’t a principled stand. It was just something that happened as a result of living with a Sikh family for five days and then staying at an Ashram for another week. After eating vegetarian for almost two weeks, I couldn’t imagine eating meat again.
I didn’t pressure myself into this. Eating veg in India was easy. When I went home I decided to just see how it went. If I wanted meat I would eat it. But it’s now been a year and while I force myself to eat fish a couple of times a month, I have no desire for it or any other form of meat.
But, as our entertaining chef often said, I  digress….

Of course, we started with the basic roasted root vegetables with fresh herbs.
Cooking classes are great for solo travelers.
At first my trip was simply about speaking to the students. But when Micki, a regular reader of Solo Traveler and the professor who invited me (she also has a blog called Culinary Woman) realized that the cooking class at The Market on Main was on the night before I would speak, she asked me to join her at the class. I was very lucky to get in as these classes sell out – so much so that they allow people to sign up for only two in a series so that everyone gets a chance.

Now this is how you peel garlic.
An education in food…
This was not a hands-on cooking class but a demonstration. I’ve done both and my preference is the demonstration while Micki prefers to roll up her sleeves and cook. Over the course of the evening every vegetable was introduced, chopping and other preparation tricks of a chef’s trade were shared and recipes were cooked and tasted.