CulinAerie

CulinAerie (pronounced "cull-in-air-e") is a food and wine instruction kitchen on 14th street in DC founded by two chefs, Susan and Susan. Scott designed the space which consists of one very large instruction kitchen with flat screen TV's, dozens of Kitchen Aid mixers, beautiful commercial kitchen ranges, and other amenities to help participants create along with the instructor. There is another more intimate room that is geared to smaller parties of 10 or so, also with a flat screen TV so participants can see down in to the instructors pans while she's cooking. Then, there's the back of house and storage spaces needed. 

Scott and I took our families there the day before Thanksgiving so they could see the space and ooh and aah over Scott's fantastic design and also so we could prep some of our Thanksgiving meal without the fuss and muss of shopping for the ingredients and cleaning up the pots and pans. While we get a short demo and begin our cooking (all of which has been nicely prepped for us in advance), we nibble on gourmet appetizers and drink wine. 

We made a vegetarian curry butternut squash soup, buttermilk biscuits, cauliflower in a mustard sauce and braised fennel, and pumpkin bread pudding with raisins and pecans and a vanilla sauce. Yum! 

PS- Milk moms...could be a fun MNO? Guests typically eat a meal while they do a demo and then take home their goods or eat them there.