Cooking with Kids: Fine Dining Boot Camp
When I heard the Georgian Room, Seattle's fanciest hotel restaurant, would be holding an etiquette class for 8- to 13-year-olds, I had one question for instructor (and Georgian Room maitre d') Tony D'Agostino: are any kids going to come to the class on their own accord?
Not likely, he admitted. "How many kids go, 'Mom, I want to go learn etiquette?'" D'Agostino said. "It's right up with the adult classes, though. You go around the table and ask, 'Why are you here?' The husbands go, 'My wife is bringing me.'"
So how do you keep a captive and potentially unruly audience entertained? In a word, snacks. And not those cucumber sandwiches, either. The tiered tea trays will hold scones and clotted cream, peanut butter sandwiches, ham and cheese sandwiches (crustless, of course), and chocolate chip cookies. To drink, kids will get a choice of hot chocolate with whipped cream and mini-marshmallows, or herb tea. This doesn't sound like much of a choice to me.
