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Making a good, fresh curry from scratch sometimes seems too daunting a task, with most fearing the project would foil rather than flourish. With this class, we hope to turn that all around! Contrary to popular belief, making fresh curries is actually a very simple and relaxing process, adding a dimension of depth to so many unexpected dishes!

Curry is basically a generic term attributed to dishes using a slew of regional distinctive fresh herbs and spices such as turmeric, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, and chilies to name a few. There are red and green curries, exotic Arabic style curries, curries with coconut and curries so hot your tongue will burn up. They are made by pounding or grinding together herbs, chilies and spices to create a base for a list of wonderful and fragrant sauces and additives to meats and soups and salads. In tonight’s class we’ll be focusing on using your gardens or farmer’s markets fresh ingredients to make Thai style fresh curries. This is the perfect time of year to add fresh chilies to heat up your cooking! We’ll teach you basic know how that you can use to simplify the process of making curries so it’s not so intimidating and overwhelming. Once you take this class, the days of calling for Thai take-out will be left in the dust while you hit the ground running toward a pantry full of spices and herbs to curry up your life!

Recipes:

Curry Pastes: Thai Green Curry Paste/Gaeng Keow Wan; Thai Red Curry Paste/Kaeng Phet; Massaman Thai Curry/Gaeng Massaman

Curry Dishes: Thai Green Coconut Curry & Vegetables; Thai Red Curry; Mussels with Thai Red Curry & Lime; Massaman Beef Curry; White Rice

Class Type: Individual, hands-on cooking class

Class Notes:Learn how to use a mortar and pestle to grind herbs, spices and chilies to create fragrant curry pastes all your own!

Our Seasonal Herbal Desserts series focus on using seasonal ingredients available at your local farmer’s market to make fresh, light, and herbal sweets that satisfy your body’s need for nutrients and cravings for the finer things in life! It’s time to lighten up as we move into warmer weather when our food desires transform from heavy fare to light, and by using fresh herbs we’re more than apt to make our desires into reality, participating in some healthy indulgence! Fresh herbs do a splendid job adding flavor and nutrients to desserts without relying on excess sugars or other typical dessert components. You learn how to confidently select and store herbs, what flavors each herb lends to a dish, and be able to use them successfully and inventively when preparing dessert! You can use this skill for the flurry of events for spring, and show your friends and family the delicious, light way to enjoy dessert this season!

Recipes: Blackberry-Basil Buckwheat Flax Crepes with Basil Sweet Cream, Strawberry Rhubarb Lemon Thyme Crisp with Sweet Toasted Quinoa Sugar, Herbal Pavlova Cups with Carrot Ginger Frozen Yogurt and Lavender Beet Drizzle

Class Type: Nissa’s Herbal Series, hands-on cooking class

Class Notes: Make and enjoy desserts without the guilt factor!

Nissa Pierson

Managing Director the Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Nissa Pierson, is the utmost of a food enthusiast in the kitchen. Nissa began her food journey as a child in Central America later to open Ger-Nis International LLC, a fair-trade, organic fruit & vegetable distribution company with an emphasis on fresh herbs and helping small subsistence growers throughout the world bring their goods to market for fair pricing. To further her desire to teach others about healthy living and eating, as well as agriculture and food sustainability, Nissa opened the Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb, specializing in a wide range of recreational cooking and educational classes for adults and children; promoting healthy eating and living habits through hands on and lecture style classroom environments. She is fully committed to the community, as well as the planet, focusing on the entire cooking and eating process, from grower to “cooker.” In addition to traveling the world seeking organic and fair-trade conversation for her business, she is a noted cooking instructor & recipe writer focusing on fresh herbs as well as an extremist in proving that the art of eating and cooking well is a relatively simple process and just takes enthusiasm and some tidbits of knowledge. She has specialized in children’s cooking classes for many years and believes children are seeking better food knowledge and is always up for the challenge. Besides being a passionate about food she enjoys spice in general life, good food & cultural & political conversation and debates, kickboxing, the ocean and surfing, and submersing herself in the food and culture of the world. She loves solving problems and turning lemons into lemonade. Contact Nissa

Signs of spring are all around us, and there’s no better place than the local market to relish in the season’s offerings. Ger-Nis is here to showcase the cream of the season’s crop. In this class, we’ll be highlighting the glory & richness of rhubarb. Most often perceived as a sweet item, Ger-Nis will tip the scales and show you rhubarb’s affinity for the deep & savory, unearthing rhubarb in its diverse potential as a culinary ingredient. Students will pick up tips from how to pick the best rhubarb at market, clever ways to store it long past spring- in the form of frozen, juiced & sauced- and ideas and recipes to help incorporate rhubarb seamlessly into any type of dish. From learning classic techniques and tools of the trade, preparing rhubarb compotes and sauces, to less charted territory, you’ll get intimate with this little ruby hued number while gaining confidence in the kitchen.  See how to use it in your beverages, sauces, salads, relishes and more, learning all the processing techniques that highlight and accentuate its finest flavor notes. You thought you knew rhubarb? You had no idea. You’ll leave class knowing more than what you bargained for!

Recipes: Rhubarb & Rosemary Spritzer, Rhubarb Tequila Cooler with Pink Peppercorn Cilantro Sugar, Smoked Ducked Crostini with Ginger Rhubarb Sauce, Rhubarb & Beet Root Salad with Gorgonzola Dressing, Rhubarb and Red Onion Braised Chicken, Rhubarb & Strawberry Vanilla Cupcakes with Dried Sugared Rhubarb Sticks

Class Type: Seasonal, hands-on cooking class

Class Notes: Indulge in spring’s magic rhubarb and get tricks, techniques and ideas for making this a staple ingredient on your shopping lists.

Laura Merrick

There’s a reason this class asserts mastering the artichoke as an art form. Without the right technique, the entire procedure can seem like a nightmare in the same manner as picking away at an ice sculpture without first deciding upon the proper approach! The artichoke is one of the oldest foods known to mankind. There are so many parts to this delicious spring vegetable and so many kinds available, from baby artichokes to globe and purple, to suit many different culinary uses, adding flavor, texture, and mystique to your spring dishes! Turns out you can even serve them whole with stems attached, with the proper trimming techniques used to get the tough parts out. You’ll learn to prepare artichoke leaves and how to reach the coveted heart inside! Come learn how to make the best use of this tasty spring treat and master the techniques used to make them shine including how to break them down neatly and different approaches to preparing them be it Italian, Mediterranean, Jewish style, or like a Californian. Leave this class an artichoke artiste!

Recipes: Cynar Manhattans with Sugared Artichoke Leaves, Stuffed Artichokes; Shaved Artichoke  Salad, Grilled Baby Artichokes with Lemon & Herb Pesto Drizzle; Artichoke Farroto with Peas & Pancetta; Jewish Style Deep Fried Artichoke Flowers; Artichoke Hearts &  Leaves with Lemon Aoili

Class Type: Seasonal, hands-on cooking class

Class Notes: Learn how to turn and clean the intimidating artichoke!

Spring is here and with it, it’s bringing an abundance of seasonal, fresh herbs to us all. For those of us who don’t know much when it comes to fresh herbs and which is which—this is the class for you.

Come learn the basics of fresh spring herbs, from growing to handling to storage, along with tips for using them in your daily meals. We’ll work together to prepare a vibrant spring menu that showcases the season’s most prime herbs: Chives, Parsley and Mint to name a few. Bring out the flavors of any dish or beverage, creating zestier recipes to brighten your spring menu and spirits. The ideas are endless and the uses are bountiful, so stop and think about what you can use that bunch of herbs for before you let it wilt away in your refrigerator and worse yet, decide to throw out. Take a load off and learn to listen to what these herbs are saying while we talk about them too!

Recipes:Beet & Herbed Deviled Eggs; Herbed Calamari with Chive Blossom Garlic Aoili; Fennel Salad with Snow, Snap, and Shell Peas; Parsley, Mint, and Lemon Herbal Osso Bucco with Herbed Gremolata; Strawberry Rhubarb Tartlets with Blood Orange-Thyme Glaze

Class Type:Series, hands-on cooking class

Class Notes:Learn what flavors pair perfectly with Spring’s brightest herbs!

Nissa Pierson

Managing Director of Ger-Nis International, Nissa Pierson, was smitten with herbs upon her first sight of a sprawling basil field in California. She solicited for employment and got the job, laying the foundation for future herb takeover which has developed into Ger-Nis International. She has been awarded Master Organic Gardening Certificate in Oregon and started Herb Blurbs online quarterly magazine. In addition to running Ger-Nis Nissa is a long time culinary instructor. Besides being a passionate teacher of fresh herbs, organics and fair-trade, she enjoys spice (in her food and in her life), good conversation and debates, kickboxing, the ocean and surfing, and submerging herself in the food and culture of the world. Contact Nissa

The Kentucky Derby, the greatest two minutes to happen in sports each year, can be summed up by its two most prominent features- elaborate, floppy hats and the classic mint julep. Every year, people flock to Churchill Downs in Kentucky, donning their most spotlight worthy hats and party dresses to guzzle down factory loads of juleps at the race track. This year Ger-Nis brings the party to our new favorite watering hole, Evelyn Drinkery, to create a signature celebratory Ger-Nis experience- a shot of education, a few ounces of hands-on learning and pours of fun. Get hands-on mixology training and bourbon education, treat yourself to a Derby luncheon & join a friendly hat competition for free drinks! The dashing gentlemen of Evelyn Drinkery will be our guides for the per-race extravaganza, teaching us the fine art of mixology featuring the classic southern beauty, Mint Julep, as their muse.  They’ll cover all the essentials starting from choosing your delivery vessel, how to utilize ice and work with flavors to balance, enhance, tone down your ingredients.  But wait, the best part is the bourbon education and tasting! We’ll get the low down on and tastes of the different types of bourbons out there, including local ones, and learn what to use them for! Learn how to perfect that icy cold julep and finish it off with the art of the garnish! Don’t forget your best party hat- the winner for best Derby hat wins a $25 bar tab for the night!  Ger-Nis will provide a buffet style Derby luncheon while you mix and shake up those perfect drinks!

Recipes: Sweet Herbal Iced Tea, Bourbon Tasting, Classic Mint Julep, Modern Mint Julep, Creative Mint Julep, Bourbon Glazed Sweet Country Ham and Herbal Biscuits and Parsley Mint Mustard, Kentucky Bourbon Mac & Cheese, Mint Chocolate Pecan Pie, Lemon-Mint Julep Gelees

Class Type: Special Event, Hands on Cocktail Class

Class Notes: The wearer of the best derby hat wins a bar tab for the race!  Each ticket includes one free post-race cocktail!

The Evelyn Drinkery “Boys”

A “Drinkery” is a place to enjoy potables.

“Evelyn” is a nod to their ancestry, their  industry and their  neighborhood.

Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center Gift Certificate!

Ger-Nis gift certificates are a perfect gift for your foodie friends and family! More and more people understand that cooking your own food is healthier, greener and more fun, and what better way to embrace the shift than to become a better magician in the kitchen? A Cooking Class Gift Certificate can be redeemed for any future cooking class that still has space available. It’s the perfect gift for the food lovers in your life!

Note: Gift Certificates valid for one year- value must be redeemed in one year from issue date. Gift certificates can only be used for classes unless specified in the gift certificate. Gift certificates cannot be redeemed for cash and cannot be used for special events or classes that we advertise for other venues.