Taste of Home cooking school set for Sept. 23

As fall settles in and the holidays approach, the Daily Inter Lake is proud to again bring the Taste of Home Cooking School to the Flathead Valley on Tuesday, Sept. 23, at the Flathead County Fairgrounds on 265 N. Meridian Road, Kalispell.    

The Taste of Home Cooking School is America’s leading cooking school program inspiring up to 150,000 passionate home chefs each year at approximately 250 events across the country. “From experienced home chefs to beginners learning their way around the kitchen, the Taste of Home Cooking School offers something for everyone” said Karen Davis, Taste of Home culinary specialist.

Davis demonstrates recipes, cooking methods, practical kitchen tips and plating techniques in an entertaining and educational environment — which she says, puts “a fresh spin on old favorites [while] adding new recipes to your seasonal repertoire” with ingredients easily found at the local grocery store.

For this upcoming show, Davis will make Gingerbread Cheesecake as one of the recipes during the two hour demonstration. “With its rich and creamy texture and mouth-watering flavors, this twist on gingerbread is the perfect fall choice to make for your family and friends,” she said.

The Taste of Home Cooking School started in 1948 as the Homemakers Schools in the mid-west before being acquired by the Taste of Home magazine in the 1990s.

Each year, thousands of great home cooks from across the United States and Canada submit more than 40,000 recipes, of which 3,000 are published in Taste of Home magazines and online — making Taste of Home one of the largest and most successful practitioners of user-generated content. Before being published, every recipe is tested in the Taste of Home Test Kitchen to ensure that it can be prepared with affordable, everyday ingredients from regular grocery stores.

Attendees of this show will receive a gift bag including the Taste of Home Cooking School magazine in digital format. This magazine includes recipes featured during the program, along with many more, as well as coupons and other goodies from participating national food companies. Attendees can also enter for a chance to win one of many door prizes including the recipes created onstage that night.

Be a Cook that Cares and bring a non-perishable food item to be donated to the Flathead Food Bank for a chance to win a prize during the show. Cooks Who Care — a pro-social effort to celebrate acts of caring by home cooks and communities across the country begun by Taste of Home, unites compassionate, real people across the country who give back through food.  “This is a great way to use a passion for food to help others. We’re really excited to add this element to the show,” says Patti Carlson of the Daily Inter Lake. “It’s so fun to see people at shows across the country bringing food items to donate,” adds culinary specialist Karen Davis, “It really touches my heart to see people caring enough to help out their community.”

Doors open at 4 p.m. for participants to shop or browse the local vendor booths. The live cooking show begins at 7 p.m.

To learn more about the Taste of Home Cooking School, see show highlights or read stories of the how the Cooks Who Care are making an international difference, go to www.tasteofhome.com.