Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Time to meet, teach and eat
Lindsey Nair
Front Burner blog
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Recipes
For 16 years, Roanokers -- and their bottoms -- have been acquainted with Twist & Turns products.
The custom-designed furniture can be found everywhere from the corner bar to an interstate rest stop to your local high school campus.
But last Thursday, during a cooking class at the downtown Roanoke store, two whole rows of those signature chairs sat empty. Their occupants were too busy crowding around Chef Doreen Sidor, helping her saute steaks or fry onion rings.
"We put chairs out and we keep saying, 'Why do we put out those chairs?' " said Twist & Turns owner Cynthia Gardner. "No one sits in them."
And that's Gardner's idea of a successful cooking class -- when students are so involved in the process that they don't have time to sit in a chair and watch.
You could say that Gardner has a distinct interest in disproving the popular complaint that there's just nothing to do in Roanoke.
Since 2000, she has been working to bring more to the city than personalized benches. Now, she is ramping up her business' course schedule to include floral design classes and instruction on choosing and decorating with antiques.
"It really just enables people to get out and have some fun, and that's what we're here for," Gardner said.
Previously, guest chefs taught the cooking classes at Twist & Turns. And while the chefs at Metro or Frankie Rowland's sometimes help out, Sidor is usually at the helm.
"I've cooked all my life, and I just have a passion for that," she said.
Sidor came to Twist & Turns from Bel Pasto, the Roanoke County gourmet store that closed last summer.
She is a New York native who grew up in a household where Mom and Dad held Bobby Flay-style throw downs every Sunday. Both of her parents would cook the same dish, then the whole family would vote on whose version came out the best.
"The kids had to do all the prep work," she said.
After teaching elementary school and earning her master's degree in business, Sidor decided to follow the cooking bug back to school in 1996 to become a personal chef.
She took an eight-week course in California through the American Chef Academy.
Working with Gardner in her elaborate test kitchen has been a whole different experience from Bel Pasto, she said.
"It's a better environment, a nice, bigger environment," she said. "Bel Pasto was very tiny. We couldn't fit enough in there. I had to bring in portable burners, and this place has a full gourmet kitchen."
Gardner decided to incorporate the kitchen into her store when she remodeled the old Shenandoah Hotel at Campbell Avenue and Williamson Road in 2000.
"Everybody always hangs out in the kitchen," she explained. "It is just a place for meeting and talking and conversation and food and togetherness."
On Thursday, a dozen or so students milled about the kitchen, leaning on the black-and-gold granite countertops to watch Sidor cook.
An $1,800 Palisade ceiling fan whirred lazily overhead. Wine racks, statues and vases decorated the perimeters of the kitchen.
First, Sidor showed the class how to make an open crab ravioli (recipe below), which consists of a crab filling sandwiched between two sheets of homemade pasta.
Then she whipped up a white sauce with butter, flour, lemon juice and heavy cream to top the ravioli.
By the time the ravioli had been devoured, the lines between teacher and student were fully blurred.
Tim Blassingame was behind the counter, adding beer to a batter for onion rings. John Corcoran sauteed tenderloin in a skillet.
Craig Stevens lowered the onion rings into hot oil, then pulled them out, golden brown.
"Oooooh," another student murmured. "Those look so light and lovely."
Corcoran and Blassingame, who work together at the federal court clerk's office, have been coming to Sidor's classes since she was at Bel Pasto.
They said one of the best parts is all the food you get to eat.
"Usually, you leave here in pain," Corcoran joked.
"With a doggie bag," Blassingame added.
Sidor teaches a cooking class at Twist & Turns about once a month.
The May 15 class will be a picnic theme, with floral designer Carolyn McMillan showing students how to decorate their picnic baskets and Sidor showing them how to fill them with tasty foods.
Sidor is also planning a sushi class in late June and says she is always available for private cooking classes, which make for a fun celebration for birthdays, baby showers and bridal luncheons.
Gardner is also willing to host private dinner parties, corporate functions and the like in her store, which is already outfitted with tables, chandeliers and -- of course -- plenty of chairs.
"It's pretty at night and it's pretty during the day," she said. "It's more than just a store."
For four more recipes from Doreen's kitchen, including her Maui onion rings, check out my blog at roanoke.com.
