Taking a Trip with the World Kitchen

If you haven't tried a class at Chicago's World Kitchen, you are missing out on more than food. I recently signed up for "Antojitos for Independencia" with the City's Executive Chef, Judith Hines. This day became extra special for me because I got to take an armchair 'trip' to Mexico.

I have taken several classes before, each one entirely different in theme from any other. Part of what makes courses there so very deluxe is that Judith and her team do all the kinds of work that make a restaurant hum, yet the students have the sense of truly learning about and producing the dishes that we then devour in spirited communion at the end, generally while talking with our mouths full. Each class begins with a detailed yet personal history covering aspects of the food on offer. The class size ranges from 20-25 people, and all the food stuffs, herbs and spices and any special presentation materials (for example the classic Mexican hats a proper indenpendence day presentation) are shared round the room. After a half hour of instruction and virtual travelog, we divide into teams and get down to work with our team of master chefs on hand to advise and give spot instruction on knife skills, the proper reduction consistency or how to present a finished dish with a flourish.

For this class, Judith spun a story smacking with details that were too outrageous for fiction. I found myself in a small town in central Mexico preparing for a wedding. First we heard about someone else's that ended in a kidnap. Perhaps the bride was not so eager to marry her intended and she arranged for another groom? Next our master chef walked us through the year I might spend in preparation for my own wedding.

To begin with I would carry around a book to family and friends to catalog what items of food would be brought the week prior to the big event. My expectations for largesse would be based on what I had provided for her event the previous year (a lesson to not to be stingy when giving gifts). Based on the year's crops and husbandry bounty, I might have quite a lot of food, or it might be more presentation and less caloric. No matter what there would be months of prep work and then a week of reviewing the final ingredients and determining the menu. In order to have those lovely, fluffy corn tortillas, first the corn will grow, then it will be picked and dried, hulled and ground, soaked and then finally cooked and prepared for our wedding feast. And that's only the beginning.

In Mexican cooking, nothing is ever cooked just once. After all the drama with the tortillas, there is what you put in them. I was lucky enough to be on the team that prepared the Taquitos with Chipotle Chicken and Potato (rolled like fat cigars and then deep fried!). Each item that goes into the taquitos is first rolled or pressed or dried, then roasted, then reduced in a sauce or sauteed. For the expectant bride, she is coached for a year, living with her future mother-in-law so her cooking will be identical and her husband will feel at home once they are wed.

For us as students, by the time we were ready to fry the fully prepped taquitos with delicious, beautifully spiced tomato with multiple chiles and gently mashed potatoes with yet different chiles we had 7 people working for an hour and a half (10 hours of labor). Mexican cooking is best as a group effort. We had a group with varying degrees of experience and with this complex recipe, we inevitably mixed up our chiles and worried about how thick the sauce should be. We went through pots and pans like crazy and our devoted staff kept a step ahead of us with rapid dish washing and kind supervision.

When the little 'cigars' were complete, Judith showed us how to arrange a large basket with an appealing display of multitudinous, crunchy taquitos sauced with orange, green and white to match the colors of the Mexican flag, for this was our independence day celebration, for Mexico 200 years in 2010. This was only one of eight dishes and two delicious fruit mojitos. As patrons of the celebrations, we tucked in with spirit, Mucho Gusto y Viva Mejico!