Sharpen Up
Upscale Austin restaurant hosts accessible adult summer camp for better home chefs
Camp Lenoir will teach knife-sharpening, pasta-making, wine-pairing, and more, in seven classes.
There's so much to learn about food and cooking, sometimes it feels like an amateur chef needs a boot camp just to stay on top of things. Lenoir, a well-respected and very upscale farm-to-table South Austin restaurant, is giving foodies and wine-lovers the adult summer camp opportunity of their dreams starting July 20, making sure they walk out with well-rounded kitchen skills.
Camp will be held weekly through August 31, offering a total of seven classes led by Lenoir staff and other industry partners. Camp Lenoir knows that every Thursday is a big commitment, so sign-up for each class happens individually.
This may also help someone whose class selection is a bit more strategic: Perhaps their pasta-making is up to snuff, but they need a lot of work in knife sharpening. No matter each camper's personal experience, Lenoir will provide all the necessary tools and materials.
Executive Chef Todd Duplechan, Chef Ricky Christiansen, and Chef de Cuisine Joey Attwater are the three instructors from Lenoir on the schedule, teaching knife-sharpening, pasta-making, and sweet and savory tarts, respectively.
Duplechan's class will focus on whetstone techniques and give campers a supervised environment for sharpening their own knives from home. (We've all made questionable decisions after a sharpening tutorial on YouTube, right?)
Pasta-making is, perhaps, less intimidating, but Christiansen's class offers the "not-so-basics" of the art. The demo will include "a variety" of pastas, and a discussion of techniques to use at home. You know, without the trappings of a professional kitchen.
Attwater's tarts class will focus on how to make a good pastry dough, augmented with some things to bring home: recipes and treats to-go.
Other visitors represent Lenoir's food and beverage partners, so there is some history behind each guest teacher's invite. Campers can learn from Antonelli’s Cheese, Heritage Seafood, Mayfield Selections, Pangea Selections, and Maverick Beverage Company.
Tickets ($45) and more information on each class are available at lenoirrestaurant.com. Even though it is a summer camp-inspired series, no commitment is necessary to join a class.
Camp Lenoir will be held on Thursdays from 6-7:30 pm, teaching the following topics:
- July 20 — Pairing Wine and Cheese with Vince Nuzzo and Antonelli's Cheese
- July 27 — Oysters and Wine with Ben McBride of Heritage Seafood and Ray Small of Mayfield Selections
- August 3 — Pasta-Making with Ricky Christiansen of Lenoir
- August 10 — Making Sweet & Savory Tarts with Joey Attwater of Lenoir
- August 17 — Natural Wine 101 with Julia Proctor of Pangea Selections
- August 24 — Whetstone Knife Sharpening with Todd Duplechan of Lenoir
- August 31 — Wines from Unique Terroir with Anne Claire Brewer of Maverick Beverage Company
