Let’s pause before we savor all the new restaurants that have opened in our area recentlywe’ll talk about them next week, I promiseand instead talk about meals at home.
The folks at Entrée Vous, a meal preparation franchise, are offering a Heart Smart Cooking Class at 6 p.m. Feb. 22 at all four Triangle locations (8200 Renaissance Parkway, Suite 1003, Durham, 321-8666; 3524 Davis Drive, Morrisville, 380-3767; 6021 Poyner Village Parkway, Suite A101, Raleigh, 878-5200; and 8369 Creedmoor Road, Raleigh, 518-8687; www.entreevous.com). For the cost of one entrée (about $25, contains four to six servings) a guest can learn cooking techniques that “maximize flavor without fat,” hear heart health tips from the American Heart Association and sample dark chocolate. To sign up, contact the store near you.
If you’d rather not cook, Foster’s Market (750 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Chapel Hill, 967-4383, and 2694 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd., Durham, 489-4114, www.fostersmarket.com) will do most of the work for you. Last month, Foster’s began Family Dinner, a program that allows customers to pick up a week’s worth of prepared meals (including entrée, salad, bread and dessert) every Monday. You pop the entrée into the oven at home, et voilà.
Menus are available at both locations and on Foster’s Web site. Call or e-mail by Thursday, and pick it up the following Monday. If you order by Feb. 21, you will be dining on clam chowder, pasta carbonara, and Southwestern chicken chilaquiles, among other goodies. Cost is $100 a week for two people.
For many of the students at N.C. State, a dorm is home. Someone’s gotta feed that pack of wolves, and that’s where University Catering comes in. So who does the best job for their respective undergrads? Clark Dining Hall does. Chef de cuisine Joe Nalley and cook supervisor Troy Privette led Team Clark to victory recently in the fourth annual Chef’s Challenge and Culinary Showcase. They narrowly beat the competition with their spicy bean and lentil sausage dish, which will be served at all campus dining halls soon.
“The competition results were very close this year,” said Bill Brizzolara, executive chef at NCSU and the Chef’s Challenge director. “They came down to 1 point.”
If you’re a great home-cook, food shopper or meal planner, the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle (IFFS) (www.foodshuttle.org) needs your help. In partnership with Share our Strength (www.strength.org), the IFFS will soon offer nutrition and cooking classes for low-income people, in various Triangle communities. The program aims to create a long-term solution to hunger by giving individuals the confidence and ability to be more self-sufficient, improve their eating habits and food budgeting skills.
Classes are two hours and meet once a week for two weeks. Roles for volunteers include chef instructors, nutrition instructors, class assistants and class grocery shoppers. Volunteers must commit to the entire series as well as attend a brief training session. For more information, contact Katherine Andrew (nutrition@foodshuttle.org, 250-0043).
Know about a special food happening in the Triangle? Send it to Now Serving at food@indyweek.com.
