Koko will likely weigh in shortly about the pastry class we took last
night, complete with photos, but my take can be summed up in two
words: a *blast*! Our chef, Maurice Brazier (complete with
occasionally-hard-to-understand French accent), was a treat. Laguna
Culinary Arts is located in Laguna Canyon in Laguna Beach, somewhat
tucked away by the Pageant of the Masters. It has a cheese
shop/cafe/wine shop attached and I really need to go back and have
another look at their cheese selection.

Koko and I got there just as Chef was unpacking his car. We introduced
ourselves and he suggested we get a bottle of wine "for later at
dinner." We weren't quite sure what "dinner" would be, but far be it
from us to question Chef! We bought a nice cabernet/syrah and had a
wee glass before class to get us in the proper mood for French
cooking.

In the space of 3 1/2 hours we made: pate brisee sucree, pear-almond
tart, choux coffee cream, creme patissiere and a puff pastry apple
tart. Chef surprised us by using room temperature butter to
incorporate into the flour, and he also showed us a technique for
doing the incorporation that did not include a pastry blender and was
faster and incorporated the butter far better. He kneaded the butter
in until it was fairly well distributed, then using something of a
"dusting hands" motion, brisky rubbed the butter-flour mixture through
his hands repeatedly until you could barely tell there was any butter
in the flour. The second surprise was not chilling the dough. He just
let it rest at room temperature for 20 mins. If I took nothing else
away from this class, the "dusting hands" technique of incorporating
butter into flour, using room temperature butter and not chilling the
dough was worth the price of admission. No more working myself to
death to cut in the butter or roll out stiff dough. And I can also
testify that, especially as to the pear-almond tart, we were yanking
the dough around pretty actively without a tear anywhere.

Chef had a sous chef who was a delight and gave us a couple of tips of
her own. One that I'm going to use immediately had nothing to do with
technique: Trader Joe's has frozen croissant dough that you can let
rise and rest overnight in your refrigerator and makes spectacular
(according to her) croissants. Yes, ma'am!! Also has chocolate
croissants, but that does not appeal.

At the conclusion of the evening, Chef plated everything we'd made and
we moved into a dining area that was beautifully laid with china and
crystal and a buffet of our desserts. I was also pleased to see that
Chef included at the table his sous chef and the two kitchen cleaners
who had been doing a yeoman's effort all evening. Koko and I had a
glass of wine apiece, and Chef didn't need his arm twisted to accept a
glass himself.

One amusing aside: the 2-person "team" across the table from us were
two twenty-something women, one of whom seemed to think a cooking
class in Laguna Beach was something of a formal occasion, as she wore
a skirt and high heels.

Terrific evening after a fun day of running up and down Pacific Coast
Highway with Koko, hitting all the various cookery stores. We both
collapsed when we got home!

Terry "Squeaks" Pulliam Burd

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