Cooking Class: Oysters

Last weekend Mariko and I took a cooking class at Central Market. She has been to a few before, but this was my first one, and it was great! I love oysters, so Mariko signed us up for “The World’s Your Oyster” with Chef Scot Loranc. The class was a hands-on type, as opposed to the others where you just sit and watch (and then eat), and therefore the class size was limited to 16 students. We were separated into four groups and each group had a chance to learn how to shuck oysters. When our group’s turn came, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that our oysters were the Kumamoto variety. They were smaller and actually easier to open than the larger types such as the gulf oysters. One of the other students and I actually sneaked a couple while the chef wasn’t looking. It was just too tempting!

Chef Scot Loranc is a great teacher and everyone enjoyed his style and depth of knowledge. He was funny and nice, and generous with the food too! We had so much to eat, everyone was stuffed! During his shucking instructions, he was handing out oysters on the half-shell with a variety of different sauces. They were all really good, but I actually preferred to have the raw oysters without any sauce. Besides the oysters on a half shell, Chef Loranc showed us how to cook four oyster dishes, including Oysters Rockefeller, which were amazing!! Definitely my favorite of the four. The others were oyster po’boys, deep fried oysters with corn and tomato relish, and smoked oysters with jalapeno cream sauce. It’s funny, but when the oysters went on the smoker, the smell reminded me of a memory that was buried for years. When I was maybe nine years old, my family went camping up the coast of California for a couple weeks. At Drake’s Bay, my dad bought a bunch of oysters and grilled them on the campfire. That smell of oysters cooking at the campsite was the same as the oysters on the smoking rack at class. Back then, I didn’t like oysters, but now I love them. Funny how the sense of smell can evoke memories from long ago.

Anyways, all the different oysters tasted great, and we also got to enjoy some Turbo Dog beer and wine. My favorite oysters were the Kumamoto and also the Blue Point varieties. I definitely recommend the cooking classes at Central Market, and especially Chef Scot Loranc’s classes.