People choose to have a cooking class in their homes for all kinds of reasons – to learn a new recipe or simply enjoy a fun experience with friends. 068 spoke with two local chefs to find out more about their cooking classes.
By day, Marcello Mongardi of Ridgefield is an elementary school Spanish teacher in Darien. He grew up in Italy – Italian food has been at his core. While living overseas, he gave cooking classes to his fellow teachers. He enjoyed that so much, he recently launched a side hustle, A Tavolo con Marcello (At the Table with Marcello), offering private cooking classes in people’s homes or businesses.
Among Mongardi’s most popular recipes he teaches (and yes, they are all Italian), are bruschetta, risottos, and desserts like tiramisu. His classes usually run two to three hours and typically start with making a tiramisu. Then he and his clients will make bruschetta and eat that before moving on to a pasta or risotto. The evening ends with enjoying a tiramisu reward for their efforts.
His approach to meals is creating recipes based on a few basic, but high-quality ingredients. “Simplicity is the key to delicious cooking. If you have good olive oil, good tomatoes, salt, and pepper, you are halfway there,” he said. Mongardi is looking to expand his classes to include making gnocchi.
Cathy Katin-Grazzini also employs a back-to-basics approach, eschewing refined sugars and processed foods in favor of plants and natural ingredients. She’s long been interested in healthy cooking, but after a family health scare in 2013, she pivoted to plant-based nutrition to feed her family.
Katin-Grazzini has been a personal chef for years, but her passion now lies in developing new recipes and helping people take charge of their health by eating well. “I like to focus on helping people transform their lives,” she said. “I’m trying to give them the tools to make beautiful dishes. It must be visually appealing as well as tasty to get people to wean off the processed foods and restaurant fare that define our culture today.”
She offers cooking classes and tips through her website to share how eating more plants can improve one’s health as well as the planet, as in her newest cookbook, Love the Foods that Love the Planet.
Her classes are tailored to meet clients’ particular needs or health goals, whether weight loss or addressing heart disease or diabetes, as well as being recipes the client likes. “I want them to understand how easy it is to cook this way,” she says.
For more information, please visit https://www.marcellocooks.com/ or https://www.cathyskitchenprescription.com/ •
