From the kitchen of Celia Foote to yours

School Instructor

Food lovers, aspiring chefs or folks just wanting a different night on the

town need look no further than the Viking Cooking School for a shared,

culinary experience proven to engender new friendships while tantalizing

palettes and teaching new skills.

The hands-on, skill-based cooking school is an integral component in

appliance manufacturer Viking Range's educational outreach. Instructing more

than 70,000 students a year in 17 cities throughout the U.S., including two

in Mississippi (Greenwood and Ridgeland), the workshops feature seasonal,

ethnic, traditional and trendy classes designed for all ages and experience

levels.

Founded by Greenwood native Fred Carl, Jr., Viking Range is a worldwide

leader in the premium culinary appliance market and a significant factor in

Greenwood's socioeconomic vibrancy. Viking's downtown presence includes the

upscale Alluvian Hotel, Alluvian Spa, Giardina's fine-dining restaurant and

the Viking Cooking School and retail store.

Located beneath the Alluvian Spa on historic Howard Street, Greenwood's

state-of-the-art cooking school and retail store-a potpourri of chrome,

glass, and mirror-sharp white tiles-entices visitors to leave the

beautifully, amber-lit Rockwellian downtown and enter a pristine,

cosmopolitan world promising a fun-filled, multi-sensory culinary

experience.

Recently, Viking in Greenwood hosted a culinary workshop inspired by "The

Help," the New York Times best-selling book written by Mississippi native

Kathryn Stockett, turned into a DreamWorks-produced hit movie, filmed in

Greenwood, Jackson and Clarksdale. The three-hour workshop, "Southern

Specialties from the Hit Movie 'The Help'," is also being offered in several

Viking locations.

A dozen culinary enthusiasts from four states and four Mississippi towns,

descended upon Greenwood on a hazy, late-January evening seeking expertise

in Southern cooking, while extending their understanding of basic cooking

skills such as marinating, seasoning, breading, sautéing, braising and

dicing.

Six-year veteran Viking instructor Beth Purifoy and her assistant, Deborah

Shaw, divided the students into three teams. Wearing a Viking apron while

sipping sweet tea or wine, attendees were apprised about the night's agenda:

five traditional Southern dishes were to be prepared - Southern fried

chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese, slow-cooked Southern greens, skillet

cornbread and feather-light biscuits.

Purifoy and Shaw's preparation, culinary knowledge, and affability

immediately put participants at ease, establishing a light-hearted, training

environment conducive to relationship-building.

"It is amazing how during a class people find some commonality or someone

they know from somewhere," Purifoy told the class as students introduced

themselves. "By the end of the night we have exchanged email addresses,

phone numbers, and shared pictures on Facebook."

The most asked question of the evening: "What's the key to Southern fried

chicken?"

"Frying chicken is an art and this is the artist," Purifoy said pointing to

her assistant Deborah Shaw. "She knows more about frying chicken than I'll

never know about frying chicken."

Both chefs agreed that keeping the oil at a nearly constant temperature and

not crowding the skillet with too many pieces are keys to frying great

chicken. Well, that and a lot of practice.

All participants were encouraged to collaborate and contribute to each dish

being prepared. "You need to make sure you know where your biscuits are,"

Purifoy said with a grin. "It is very important that you get to eat the food

you cook."

The trainees were told the reward for preparing the five Southern dishes

inspired by "The Help": "We all finish together and we sit down as a family

when we get through cooking to eat together."

Two groups of ladies were attending the class on a "girl's weekend," while

three married couples wanted to enjoy an evening together while learning how

to better cook Southern dishes. Not a person was disappointed.

Eddie Doss, the 1998 Illinois State rib champion, and his wife Nancy,

frequent visitors to the Magnolia state, said the evening's highlight was

the greens, biscuits and the reasonably priced $89 registration fee, plus a

discount on in-store purchases.

Each team worked at its own island from a recipe lesson plan with

pre-measured ingredients, spices and Viking utensils and cookware. The only

non-Viking product used was a cast-iron Lodge Dutch oven for frying chicken,

though it can be purchased in the Viking retail store attached to the

cooking school.

While slow-cooked mustard greens were simmering in their own "pot likker"

atop gas-burning Viking ranges, the teams began preparing an American

favorite-Mac n' Cheese-macaroni noodles tossed with a homemade cheese sauce

made from butter, flour, whole milk, and cheddar cheese.

Friday night's hands-down selection for the hardest-to-get-just-right dish

on the menu was the Southern fried chicken, also known as "yard bird" in the

Deep South.

Viking thought of everything. Previously segmented chicken pieces had been

marinated in seasoned, buttermilk brine for up to 24 hours. In order to

prepare, cook, and eat student-produced dishes, some preparation had been

done ahead of time by the instructional team.

While the greens were simmering and the Mac 'N Cheese was baking, the

much-lauded, quintessential Southern dish, fried chicken, was being

prepared. "You don't want to fry more than a couple pieces of chicken at a

time," Purifoy said. "Always start with the dark meat first, legs and

thighs, as it takes longer."

Thanks to the Viking instructors, well-tested recipes, seven-ply stainless

steel Viking cookware and a learning environment fostering instant team

chemistry, every piece of chicken was moist, crispy and cooked to

perfection. Even Minny from "The Help" might approve.

The last two dishes prepared were Southern cornbread and biscuits-both

accompanied by butter or jam, or used to sop up juices produced from

Southern dishes.

In order to complete all student-prepared dishes on time, two sample

desserts were prepared in advance by the Viking instructors.

The desserts were Minny's infamous chocolate pie, minus the "secret

ingredient," and her vanilla butter cake with Never Fail Creamy Caramel

icing. The butter cake recipe was borrowed by Stockett for "The Help" from

an entry submitted by Mrs. Phil "Honey" Thornton for the 1952 edition of The

Junior League of Memphis Cookbook.

Good friends and Ackerman residents Marina Loper and Leighanne Horne

attended the class on a girl's night out. Both ladies have read "The Help"

and seen the movie. Loper, the mother of three children, has attended

several Viking classes and said she plans on attending many more. "If I get

to do something for myself, I am going to be here."

Horne said her reason for attending the class based on dishes noted in the

bestselling novel and movie was simply to "learn how to fry chicken."

Hattiesburg resident Diantha Williamson previously attended a Viking cooking

class in Jackson where the focus was preparing healthy luncheons. She and

her husband Nathan were in Greenwood to celebrate Valentine's early, combing

an evening co-laboring over a range with an anticipated stay at the

luxurious Alluvian Hotel.

Jennifer Wilkinson said her favorite part of the school was the fellowship

and having fun. Meeting new friends, being with old friends, and learning

new things summed up the Hattiesburg lawyer's experience.

Her longtime friend and college roommate, Elizabeth Nearn, agreed. "The

fellowship is the best part, and it is fun. Everybody contributing, tasting

and deciding as a group what we thought was the best, and then getting to

eat it at the end. Really, there was nothing we didn't like about the

experience."

All 12 students shared during the post-dessert reflection that the

fellowship was the highlight of the evening. Pine Bluff resident David

Bridgforth seemed to sum up the group's collective feelings: "The best part

of the class was getting to meet a lot of nice people and learning to cook

something new."