ASTOR CENTER
For some reason, the universe has conspired against you and you are the Chosen One, the one who will host Thanksgiving dinner this year. Not only do you have to worry about how you will fit your entire family into your shoebox-sized studio apartment but you also have to plan and flawlessly execute a big dinner party.
Stop stressing and instead check out this list of Thanksgiving cooking classes that will help you get through the big dinner with minimal freak-outs.
If you want to cook a traditional feast… The Thanksgiving Workshop at The Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) will teach you how to prepare the classics. On the menu: roast turkey with bread stuffing, gravy, garlic mashed potatoes, candied yams and pumpkin pie. You’ll even learn how to make a rich eggnog. Monday November 22 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. ICE 50 W. 23rd St. 1-800-522-4610 http://www.iceculinary.com/
The only thing better than a Friday after work is ending up somewhere with a solid drink special. The Astor Center isn’t usually the place you’d go for such needs (it caters mostly toward wine and cooking classes) but with the introduction of its new five dollar Fridays, it might have found a new niche.
One Friday a month, The Astor Center will be offering a selection of wines and snacks including odd combinations like champagne and potato chips for five bucks each. It’s a considerable step above the warm cans of PBR or diabetes-inducing shots at the dive bar down the street. Better yet the bottles are for sale downstairs at their very own wine store. Just don’t take your $5 too far!
Something very big is coming to New York City, something that has never been done before in America. Hint: if it smells like Latin flavors, sounds like Latin music, and tastes like Latin wine, it must be a Gourmet Latino Festival taking place from June 4-12, 2010. (Tickets for the event are available at www.gourmetlatinofestival.com). Taking place at the Astor Center, the festival aims to showcase Latin gastronomy, through which a deeper awareness of the culture and soul of Latin America can be understood and appreciated.
After posting about Chinatown’s Lunar New Year Parade, how could we pass up the opportunity to promote the underappreciated fifth flavor?
Amid culinary controversy (in what forum is this hotly debated?), the Astor Center posits that umami certainly does exist, and that it truly enhances much of our gastronomical enjoyment.
On Sunday, from 12-3 at the Astor Center on Lafayette and 4th, train your brutish American palate to embrace the “most elusive of the tastes.” Yes, food fetishists, put those blindfolds on and discover the savory underground of shitake dust, sake, port wine jelly, and Caesar salad with parmesan. For $95.00, it seems a little steep — a bottle of soy sauce is like $1.50 — but you’ll earn the most important thing of all: the right to be a complete douchebag in any Asian restaurant for the rest of your life. Because you’ve taken a class about it, and you know everything.
 |
 |
 |
 |
