"cooking schools" news and stories

One of the nation's top cooking schools (and one the "expert" resources to KitchenDaily, Slashfood's sister site) has dramatically increased its commitment to Latin cuisine, opening a 30,000-square-foot campus in San Antonio dedicated to promoting "the true quality, depth and breadth of Latino cuisines in the United States."

The Culinary Institute of America has more than quadrupled the size of its Texas facilities, according to Nation's Restaurant News. The new digs not only offer more teaching kitchens and classrooms, but spaces that were specifically designed to teach traditional Latin American cooking techniques, such as an outdoor kitchen that includes a wood-fired clay comal, a parilla grill and an in-ground barbeque pit.

The New York Times Travel section has a list of twenty slightly offbeat, more interesting things to do for Spring Break, when most people pack up a bikini and sunscreen and head off to the beach. One of their suggestions is to learn a new cuisine by enrolling in a weekend cooking course that can go anywhere from spending the weekend in a bed and breakfast to the CIA. Their recommendations (all on the East Coast) are:

• Culinary Institute of America (CIA) offers day-long cooking classes every Saturday this spring in Hyde Park, NY
• New England Culinary Institute takes you to their Inn at Essex, VT, where you spend two hours helping to prepare your own meals
• You can learn to make your own maple syrup at The Manor on Golden Pond in Holderness, NH
• Also in Vermont, Deborah Krasner's Vermont Culinary Vacations offers weekend-long group cooking courses.