Kids' knife class lets mom pare away apprehension - sort of

I get nervous when my sons swim in Lake Michigan past the point where they can touch bottom. I anxiously wait for my 8-year-old's return as he rides his bike around the block by himself. I position myself outside public restrooms, not hesitating to open the men's room door to peek if things seem to be taking too long.

So when a potentially dangerous, but equally educational, opportunity arose for Jerome, my third-grader, I gave the matter a lot of thought. And then I signed him up for a knife skills class at Le Titi de Paris in Arlington Heights.

Many co-workers and neighbors thought I'd cracked. Heck, some adults get intimidated by big knives, and here I was preparing to send Jerome into a kitchen stocked with blades of every shape and size.

The image of Jerome grabbing a chef's knife and challenging other students to a lightsaber duel did enter my head, but the memory of him attempting to dice jicama for his special-recipe salad soon replaced it. If he's going to work beside me in the kitchen, he needs to learn proper techniques, and sometimes parents aren't the best teachers. (Of course, sometimes we are the best teachers, but our children never admit it.)

I trusted the chefs at the restaurant because owners Michael and Susan Maddox have elementary-school-aged children who spend a lot of time at the restaurant. The couple approaches the knife skills class like they do all their kid classes.

"I had some people ask about a parent-child class, but parents are too overprotective," Michael Maddox said. "They'd be saying, 'Don't touch that.'

"In the class the children step up; we teach responsibility and safety," he said. "This is not play time."

With that remark, I had to take off my reporter's cap and fight the instinct to observe the class firsthand. I did send a photographer (also a parent of young children) who told me, "Oh, my gosh, you would have been so nervous watching."

During the two-hour class, the group of six boys and five girls (the youngest ones 8; the oldest, 12) learned how to grip a knife and how to position the hand that holds the ingredients. The instructors called the latter the bear claw: fingers and thumb bent at the middle joint, resembling a grizzly's paw.

Nicholas Lew, 8, of Mount Prospect, will remember that next time.

"I was cutting a carrot and didn't do my bear claw," he said, sporting a latex sleeve over this thumb.

They learned how to peel potatoes as well as julienne (make stick shapes), paysanne (flat half-inch squares) and dice (from tiny brunoise to large cubes) using a variety of vegetables including onions, carrots, eggplant and bell peppers.

The fruits of their labor went into vegetable soup, ratatouille and chicken stuffed with mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes that they enjoyed in the third hour. (The meat mallet turned out to be a popular piece of equipment as well.)

When I picked up Jerome and his friend Campbell Boston, also 8, I counted their fingers and am pleased to report they, and the others, left with the same number of digits they walked in with.

On the ride home, they talked excitedly about the class and what they'd learned and were already planning a dinner together so they can re-create some of the recipes and put their new-found skills to use on new ones.

Practice makes perfect, after all. But I'm going to buy a box of Band-Aids, just in case.

• Contact Food Editor Deborah Pankey at (847) 427-4524, food@dailyherald.com or c/o Daily Herald, P.O. Box 280, Arlington Heights, IL 60006.

Vegetable Soup

1 pound carrots

1 pound turnips

1 pound celery

1 pound onions

2 pounds potatoes, divided

1 teaspoon garlic, minced

Salt and pepper

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

1 gallons vegetable stock, divided

5 ounces butter

Peel and trim the vegetables. Cut the carrots, turnips, celery, onions and half the potatoes paysanne-style (¼-inch thick flats, -inch square).

Put gallon vegetable stock in a pot with the remaining potatoes; bring to a boil then simmer until potatoes can be pierced with a fork. Drain and purée potatoes; season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.

In a stockpot, heat butter; sweat the carrots, celery and garlic. Add 1 gallon stock and cook for 10 minutes, or until tender. Add turnips and potatoes and cooked until tender (don't overcook or potatoes will lose their shape). Season with thyme and salt and pepper to taste.

Stir in half the potato purée or to thicken to desired consistency.

Makes about 1 gallon, serves 12-16.

Le Titi de Paris, Arlington Heights