CANDY SAGON
WASHINGTON POST STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, August 30, 2000 ; Page F01

Should you take a cooking class? Well, let's see. Do your kids know it's Tuesday by what they're eating for dinner? Is the Domino's speed-dial button on your phone worn to a nub? Would you like to throw a dinner party, but are petrified to think about actually cooking it? Do you wish you could meet new people, learn a new skill, try new food--all without messing up your own kitchen? Yes? Then, absolutely, you should take a cooking class. And if it's inconvenient to leave the house, there are even cooking teachers who will arrange a lesson in your own kitchen. Invite your friends. It can be your first step toward that dinner party.

Our annual cooking class directory will help you choose the right class for you. Before you look at it, though, you might want to take this brief quiz to get a sampling of the clever tips and advice you can learn from area teachers.

Okay, class, today you're going to learn about seitan, miso, kuzu and gomasio.

Q: Are we talking about:

a) herbs
b) nicknames of the newest Redskins
c) vegetarian foods.

A: The answer, says Gail Naftalin, a Silver Spring vegetarian caterer and cooking teacher, is c. "All these things sound very weird, and people aren't sure they'll like it, and it always turns out that they love it." Surprisingly, very few of Naftalin's students are vegetarians.

Most, she says, are people who would like to eat vegetarian meals a few times a week.

One of the dishes she teaches is tofu seitan stew (seitan is wheat gluten that has a meaty consistency), and it's always a class favorite.

The stew is also made with kuzu (a thickener, similar to arrowroot) and miso (soy protein). Students also learn to make vegetarian sushi, which includes a sprinkling of gomasio (sesame salt).

"People think vegetarian cooking has to be loaded with cheese," says Naftalin, whose menus include no animal or dairy products.

"It's an eye-opener for them to learn there's such a variety of grains and protein substitutes."

Q: You're 8 years old, decorating a gingerbread house for the holidays, and you have your choice of a mountain of different candies from which to choose. If you're really clever, what do you do?

A: Duh! You stuff as many candies as you can through the windows and doors of the house so when the house gets picked clean of its decorations on the outside and your mom is sick of looking at it, you can cut the house in half and the inside will be chock-full of untouched goodies to stash away in your room.

This is one of the lessons veteran cake baker and cooking teacher Nancie Cameron of Creative Cakes in Silver Spring has learned over the six years she's been conducting kids' gingerbread house classes.

Among her other lessons: Never use those tiny red cinnamon candies or you'll be sweeping them up for days. No gum, either. It's too much of a temptation for kids to chew and you'll never know in whose hair--or on whose furniture--those discarded wads will end up.

(By the way, if you're not 8 years old and want to decorate a gingerbread house anyway, Cameron has classes for adults, too. Stuffing the house with candy is up to you.)

Q: This is one of the handiest things you can have in your kitchen. Is it

a) a chef
b) surgical gloves
c) a lemon zester?

A: Well, of course we'd all like our own personal chef, but the real answer is sterile disposable medical gloves, says cooking teacher Joan Nester of Cooking With Class in Arlington.

"Lots of people are squeamish about touching raw meat," says Nester, who's been teaching for 12 years, "and these gloves are the perfect solution."

Similar to the plastic gloves worn in cafeterias and many fast-food places, they can be worn to hand-mix and form seasoned ground meat for meatballs or burgers, or for mixing cole slaw with your hands, something Nester highly recommends.

"Using your hands works much better than spoons for cole slaw," she says.

Boxed sterile, disposable gloves can be found in most supermarkets in the pharmacy section, as well as in drugstores. Get the ones without powder that you throw away after one use.

Q: In most wine appreciation classes, students discuss which foods go best with which wines or Champagne. But in one recent class, a woman suggested a new way to appreciate Champagne. Her idea?

A: Take a bath in it. In Rob Stewart's Introduction to Wine and Food class in Arlington, a woman shared her novel solution for using up the Champagne she had left over after a party.

"She told us she poured it into her bathtub and soaked in it. She said it was very soothing," recalls Stewart. (Gives a whole new meaning to the term bubble bath.)

For those who prefer their wine in slightly smaller containers, Stewart offers his students some simple rules for pairing it with food: If you're serving something simple, like grilled meat or fish, the wine can be bolder and more complex. If you're serving an entree with many ingredients and strong flavors, keep the wine simple. And keep your bathing habits to yourself.

Q: Peking Duck--so delicious, so messy to make. And those delicate pancakes that come with it--how do you make them like the Chinese restaurants do?

A: You don't. You buy the pancakes from your friendly neighborhood Chinese restaurant.

As for the duck, you use your barbecue to slow-cook it, getting rid of the fat and crisping the skin.

When the duck's nearly done, you slather on a simple glaze and run out to pick up your pancakes.

"It's an easy version of Peking Duck. It has a lot of flash in terms of how it looks compared with the amount of work," says Jinny Fleischman of Company's Coming in Washington, who will also teach you some easy tricks to impressively set your table for that duck masterpiece.

Q: Clean them, massage them with salt, then rinse well. What are we talking about? Your feet after a day of back-to-school shopping?

A: It might help those tired tootsies, but we're actually talking about shrimp. In Eva Poulos's Greek cooking classes in Potomac, she teaches students her mother's method for freshening and improving the flavor of raw shrimp before cooking.

"We make baked shrimp with feta--very popular and easy," she says. She tells her students to take the shells off the large shrimp, devein and rinse them, then gently rub them for a few seconds with salt. Place the salted shrimp in a colander and rinse well.

"It really makes them taste better," Poulos says.

She also helps her students get over their fear of phyllo dough, the paper-thin pastry used in Greek cooking.

"I tell them to buy the refrigerated phyllo you get in import stores instead of the frozen kind you find in supermarkets.

The frozen dough is hard to defrost and get to the right temperature for handling. The refrigerated kind is much easier."

Q: Urban myth, stupid idea or real cooking tip: You can safely steam fish by wrapping it in foil and putting it through a cycle in your dishwasher.

A: Aargh! After 30 years of teaching cooking, Phyllis Frucht of What's Cooking in Washington has just about heard or seen it all, including this fishy tale.

"This goes way back. My students told me they did this and I couldn't believe it," she says.

It falls in the same wacky category as other potentially risky, harebrained ideas that people do, such as keeping food warm on their car engine.

As far as Frucht is concerned, she shows students how to safely steam fish by putting it in a covered oblong pan and microwaving it on high for 7 minutes per pound.

"Or you can do it the traditional Chinese way on a plate in a bamboo or aluminum steamer on the stove," she says.

According to Frucht, the dishwasher, with its residue of harsh detergent, should be left to the dishes. Period.

Q: Your cooking teacher is going to introduce you to an amazing food item called TVP. What is it?

A: Tennessee Valley Prunes. No, just kidding. It's Textured Vegetable Protein. Wait, wait. Don't say "ugh" yet. Consider this story from Mimi Clark, who teaches Veggie Gourmet classes in Fairfax Station.

"In just about every class, I have one triple bypass guy who grumpily tells me, 'I'm not here because I want to be.' He misses his meat and potatoes and he's sure he's going to hate these meatless meals. That's when I give him my chili with TVP," says Clark. And then her Sloppy Joes with TVP. "And then he changes his mind," she adds.

TVP is defatted soy protein. Like meat, it is high in protein (52 percent) and it also provides the meaty taste and consistency that carnivores love.

In dishes like Sloppy Joes, chili, stroganoff, tacos or any dish that normally uses ground beef "it really tastes like meat," Clark says. "It's a great way for people to make the transition to a part-vegetarian diet."

Q: (Part 1:) If you're having friends over for dinner, what is the one thing you should never, ever do, according to one professionally trained chef turned cooking instructor?

A: "Never tell guests what you'll be serving until you serve it," insists Joel Olson of Hemmachef in Bethesda.

"That way, if something flops, you can just rename it and no one will know the difference."

Olson is a fast-talking, witty instructor who teaches both kids and adults how to cook.

When his middle-school-age students make an apple cake that doesn't rise enough, he just has them rename it apple glop or apple cobbler-cake or something else that still sounds appetizing.

After four years of teaching, Olson is convinced that there's no difference between kids and adults "except that adults are taller. There's the same number of careful, methodical ones and the same number of slapdash, do-it-fast ones."

Which is why he often gives both age groups similar menus. A recent example: Swedish meatballs, roasted potatoes, cheese tarts, chocolate chocolate cookies.

Q: (Part 2:) If you're having friends over for dinner, what is the one thing you should always remember to do, according to one caterer/cooking instructor?

A: "Write out your menu and post it in the kitchen where you'll see it. Otherwise, you'll forget to serve something. I know, I've done it myself," says Carol Levin of City Cuisine in Washington.

Levin, who teaches in people's homes, specializes in chic, multi-course menus with sauces and garnishes that easily could be forgotten by a harried host.

For example: Petite Maryland back-fin crab cakes with roasted, corn, avocado and black relish with cilantro oil, followed by horseradish-crumbed tenderloin medallions with Cabernet sauce served with wild mushroom risotto diamonds and sesame spinach.

Another tip: Plan menus that use the same oven temperature for all items (so they can cook together), or use recipes that can be done either in the oven or on the burner, when space is limited.