Here's your opportunity to be a chef

2/24/2013

Have you ever imagined yourself a chef, an actual chef? Have you thought you could run a professional kitchen if only someone would give you a kitchen to run?

Well, your Food Network Dreams can come true, at least for one day.

The Inn & Spa at Cedar Falls in Logan, Ohio (east of Chillicothe), is offering private, one-on-one cooking classes in the Inn's kitchen. The Chef for a Day program offers would-be chefs the chance to help the kitchen staff prepare the day's dinner, as well as learn about specific topics (prepping, making dressings and marinades, proper grilling, menu design, etc.). 

Executive chef Anthony Schulz will provide the expertise and instruction, which is offered most days from 1-5 p.m. If you want to learn about a specific cuisine, he will try to accommodate your request (which must be made in advance). At the end of the day, you can eat the food you helped prepare.

Though the Inn & Spa is a country inn surrounded on three sides by the beautiful Hocking Hills State Park, the food is ambitious. On the dinner menu are such entrees as butternut squash ravioli, roasted filet mignon with chianti, and pan-seared diver scallops with black currant-pork belly chutney.

The cost for the cooking class is $195 for the first person, $95 for an additional person.

For advance registration, which is required, call 800-653-2557 or visit innatcedarfalls.com.

Mystery food

You've heard of a pub crawl. Dishcrawl is the same idea, only more organized and with food.

The nationally popular concept is finally coming to Toledo, beginning March 12. The participants go to four different restaurants, but they do not know in advance what they are going to be (only the first destination is known, and that is not revealed until two days before the event). It's part social event, part dining extravaganza, part business-support group, and part neighborhood exploration adventure.

In a public-relations statement, local Dishcrawl amassador Brenda Woods said, "Dishcrawl introduces food lovers both to restaurants’ signature dishes, and to the chefs and owners behind those dishes. Beginning with our first Dishcrawl, we’ll form stronger bonds within the food communities of Toledo."

Reservations are $45 and are available at dishcrawl.com/toledo.

Owens eats

Those young culinarians are at it again.

The culinary arts students at Owens Community College are back for the semester with their student-run restaurant, the Terrace View Café. It will be open to the public for lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., through April 25.

As always, regional American cooking will be featured on Tuesdays, with international favorites on Thursdays.

The café opens Tuesday (smoke-roasted pork loin), with a one-month hiatus until it begins serving again on March 19 (baked tilapia). The remaining schedule is: March 21 (gombas szelet — mushroom lamb chops), March 26 (chicken creole), March 28 (Mongolian barbeque), April 9 (Kentucky barbequed pork loin), Apr. 11 (something Greek, but as-yet undetermined), April 16 (omelets made to order), April 18 (beef bulgogi), April 23 (chicken Monterey), and April 25 (tapas).

Seating is limited and only available until 12:15 p.m., which is when take-out meals will also stop being served. The restaurant is in Room 148 of College Hall.

Reservations are required and, it goes without saying, must be made at least one week in advance: by 3 p.m. on the Tuesday before a Tuesday meal and by 3 p.m. on the Thursday before a Thursday meal.

For reservations or more information, call 567-661-7359 or visit owens.edu/terrace.

Odds and/or ends

• If the Greater Toledo area had just one defining dish, it would have to be: pierogi (actually, chili dogs is a pretty good candidate for the distinction as well). Fortunately, Echoes of Poland Folk Song and Dance Ensemble will soon be able to satisfy everyone's need for a pierogi fix when it holds its annual Pierogi Dozen Sale.

That's one dozen pierogi for just $9, with cheese, sauerkraut, potato, or a mixture.

The sale will be held March 22, but all orders must be placed by March 15.

The pierogi can be picked up from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on March 22 at the P.R.C.U.A. Hall, 5255 N. Detroit Ave. To make an order, call 419-531-8658 or 419-475-6262.

• After last week's plaintive whine that we have heard from very few churches holding fish fries, we received word from the St. Rose Boy Scouts and Knights of Columbus in Perrysburg, which hold fish fries every Friday during Lent, except Good Friday. The cost is $8, seniors are $7, and children are $5. Along with the typical fried fish and sides, they also offer cheese pizza ($2 per slice) and macaroni and cheese.

The dinners are served from 5-7 p.m. at the church, 215 E. Front St., in Perrysburg.

Numerous other fish fries are listed in the Ourtown calendars on Mondays and Tuesdays in this newspaper.

• After being closed 11 months due to a fire, the longtime local restaurant Al Smith's Place has reopened. Best known for its multitude of pies, the restaurant is at 3550 Executive Pkwy., facing Secor Rd.

Items for Morsels may be submitted up to two weeks before an event to food@theblade.com.