Sunday, Sep. 20, 2009

Catering to foodies

Chef John Militello has a solution for folks who feel isolated, too busy, or just curious about cuisine: Let’s Cook

John Militello is all about building community. And he believes there is no better way to do that than over food.

That’s what his Let's Dish culinary studio on Assembly Street has been trying to do for the past two years.

“That’s the whole concept here. To bring folks together in a common place to talk about food and to share food,” he said. “... People can come here and talk, visit, talk about wine, talk about restaurants they’ve been to.

“It’s a foodie hangout.”

It’s also place where old friends run into each other. Where people who may attend the same church get a chance to talk for the first time. Where groups of neighbors gather and learn to cook — and laugh — together. Where visiting chefs show off their talents and where aspiring artists show off their work.

“If you think about it, I lived in the same house 15 years and didn’t really know my neighbors, because of my schedule or whatever. We live busy lifestyles. There’s no better way to get together than having food together.”

One couple, re-introduced at a cooking class, ended up getting married. “We feel like we played a little part in getting them together,” Militello said with a smile.

Oh, and the food’s pretty good, too. On a recent Monday, the menu included a shrimp ceviche appetizer, broiled mahi mahi with muscadine beurre blanc and sauteed green beans. Dessert brought a peach tartlet with creme anglaise and fresh blackberries. All of the dishes featured locally grown ingredients.

For Militello, who also has a thriving private chef business, the Let’s Cook experience is the culmination of a life in food service.

A native of upstate New York, where he attended culinary school, he moved South in the mid-1980s after his brother took a job in Columbia.

“I saw how (Columbia) was starting to grow, all the new businesses. It grabbed hold of me,” he said.

Also at this time, while working at a hotel restaurant on Bush River Road, he began noticing the start of the public’s love affair with chefs.

“I saw it. People were starving for attention from chefs,” he said. “They were interested in their insight about the food industry, about their favorite restaurants, about food, about wine.”

His career took him to work at independent restaurants, the USC Faculty House and in the catering and private club industry. He started seeing cooking schools popping up around the country, but many of them were tied to retail stores — something he wanted to steer away from. He was looking for a business he could run himself, incorporating the fun aspects of the restaurant and club business, while not having to deal with staffing a store or restaurant.

He wanted to continue his private chef business (which finds him flying off to prepare meals for parties in houses from coast to coast), so he needed this job to be flexible.

And he wanted it to be more than a cooking school.

He saw an example of it in Scottsdale, Ariz., where a school hosted events and classes in a studio. “It was like finding an oasis,” he said.

Militello looks at Let’s Cook as a place for gatherings. (The studio’s front room seats 30, while the cooking studio seats 24.) He holds book signings and charity functions (plans are in the works for a 24-hour cook-a-thon for charity). And he lets his walls be used as a showplace for local artists (along with foodie quotes from famous people).

He teaches most of the classes, but he has guest chefs who instruct at others — including Market Mondays, Regional French Cooking and Italian Supper nights. He has functioned as something of an incubator for area chefs, giving them a place to show off their talents and connect with customers.

“I want the chefs to develop their own classes; their own followings,” he said.

He also invites noted out-of-town chefs four times a year to prepare meals for an audience. (He’s planning to frame their white jackets to hang on a wall of fame).

Some restaurant chefs — already overworked — have been slow to be see the value of getting in front of 10 people in cooking demonstrations, but Militello said he also sees that changing, too.

In his 20-plus years in the businesses, he’s seen an increase in the interest and understanding of food. That’s been fueled in large part by the Food Network, he said.

And it’s true in all parts of the country.

Catherine Campbell, an art teacher in Richland 2. has been attending classes once a week at Let’s Cook since it opened in 2007. She’s also a regular at Francois Fisera’s Fleur de Lys Home Culinary Institute in Columbia.

“I come usually by myself but I’ve made great friends here,” she said. “These really are user friendly recipes ... The salad we did Thursday I’ll do for my parents tomorrow night.”

Others at this Market Mondays class are first-timers, looking to learn some tricks of the cooking trade. While visitors learn recipes, they also learn to appreciate the art of cooking — what Militello calls a combination of “feel, taste and smell.”

At a recent class taught by Chef Matt Gillespie, students watched as he pulled together a meal using locally grown ingredients, while passing on a few cooking insights.

He explains where most of the heat in chili peppers comes from (the white, fleshy part in the middle); how cilantro is the most widely used herb in the world (used in dishes from Asia to the Middle East to the Mediterranean); and how to set the strong green color in green beans (cook them in hot water and then shock them in ice water).

“You having fun?” Gillespie asks the class, as they nod with their mouths full.

“Me, too.”

LET’S COOK CULINARY STUDIO

Where: 1305 Assembly St.

What: Cooking classes for individuals and groups, special events.

Cost: Classes average $30.

Schedule, and more info: letscookculinary.com

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