cooking with a viking? sure!

for Christmas I gave my friend a lesson at the Viking cooking school in baton rouge.  so we went this weekend and it was so much fun!  the baton rouge location is outdoors (the only Viking school that is) on the pool deck of the Hilton and overlooks the river.  it was a FABULOUS January “spring” night!  seriously, like 65 degrees; no jacket required!  well, b/c I’m a girl and it never even occurred to me that a NFL playoff game could happen on  a Saturday night so we were both a little bummed that we would have to miss the saints game.  HAVE NO FEAR!  there were 4 flat screen tvs set up so we could watch while we cooked and ate!  win/win!  we were put into groups of 4 and given our menu and all ingredients and basically told to go to town.  the chef and sous chef walked around and assisted if we needed them but otherwise we were on our own!  I used a knife larger and sharper than I’d ever seen before!  and the Viking grill is amazing!  wish I had one that nice!  we made crab stuffed mushrooms, homemade blue cheese salad dressing, tall stuffed potato's, bacon wrapped filets, grilled asparagus and then the chef made the béarnaise sauce for the steak and the bananas foster.  we enjoyed the other couple we were with; they were young and fun to cook with!  and it all tasted SOOO good!  I was proud of our accomplishment!  we sat at one large table as a group to eat and enjoyed the conversations with everyone.  one man was a movie producer and his wife was a costume designer there in baton rouge.  (did you know that Hollywood has lost 70% of all movie productions to states like Louisiana???)  another couple had recently moved to BR from Atlanta and were still getting their feet wet to the Louisiana way of life.  the couple we cooked with had both just graduated from law school.  I do love listening to other people’s stories!  by the end of the night we were STUFFED and happy over the saints win.  it was definitely something I’ll do again!

having been born and raised in Louisiana I can’t ever remember going to the capital.  so we took a drive by there Sunday morning on our way to lunch.  I saw on the news last night that the governor's ball was last night (Sunday) and the inauguration is today so we potentially missed seeing several “famous" Louisianans by just hours! 

if you’re looking for a fun, unique gift to give someone this is it!