SOLD OUT NEW DATE 10/23 Join the chef/educator team Steve and Julie Browning for this fun and collaborative cooking lesson. At the start of the class, we will open up a basket full of secret seasonal ingredients. Using the mystery ingredients, we will discuss the dishes they could potentially be and how they could all come together.  As a class, we will discuss and plan a dinner recipe out of the ingredients and then cook and eat the meal. Drawing on years of building menus from a chef’s perspective, we will reveal how to use farmers market ingredients in different ways.

A native of Flemington, N.J., Stephen Browning trained at the Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, N.Y. Settling in New York City after graduation, Stephen cooked at esteemed Manhattan institutions such as Lutece, the 21 Club and Bayard's, where he was sous chef. He then headed across the bridge to Brooklyn, becoming executive chef at Flatbush Farm, one of Brooklyn's first farm-to-table restaurants, as well as sous chef at Marlow & Sons and Diner. In 2012, Stephen left the those urban confines  and settled in the Berkshires, accepting an offer to launch Mark Firth’s Prairie Whale as its executive chef. Sourcing nearly all ingredients from local farms, Prairie Whale has lived up to its portly name as a giant success. Now, Stephen and his wife Julie Browning (a public school teacher) are combining Stephen's love of cooking with Julie's education background to share culinary techniques, stories and seasonal local ingredients with a wider audience. Their small cooking classes assure an intimate, hands-on atmosphere and a winning recipe for culinary education.