hello and welcome to what's going on i'm jay and night and we're shooting today's show during the holiday season so our guest just may have an idea for a great gift for a loved one a but it is a joy to meet you and i'm looking forward to hearing all about that neat things that you do i went to your website and i was totally amazed at all that thank you so let's get started with you grew up in italy yes i did and came to this country and to have a full time job it's not a minor job either and you still have put together these incredible adventures and cooking classes so sure i'd be happy to discuss that so i do work full time i have a traditional nine to five job and hospital management recently a little bit at the end of last year early this year i started my business called lazy talent cohen air adventures which offers cooking classes as well as school and our trips to italy so i teach locally at the adult education centers around our neighborhood here in cambridge arlington and brookline as well as private classes either in my home or in host homes so somebody will have me over to classes you don't have to sign up for a whole series of classes you do not know you can take individual classes or there have been a few instances where we've set up with arlington to do a series of two but for the most part anybody can sign up for one my in my kitchen at home we'll have a small group of about six people who will come and prepare or three course a towel and me on them sit down and eat at my family table which is i was very well received and i also this during this time of year i'm getting a lot of inquiries for gift certificates for private classes the family are purchasing for their family or their friends private lessons on why on earth small group actually i when i first read about that but what came to mind was i have two teenage granddaughters and what a fun gift of that would be to have a family gathering for me to do a cooking adventure right right it's very exciting  and you know it's a private gift that you wouldn't find at the store so i think it's very authentic but also it's a lot of great quality time with a person you're doing this with so absolutely interesting yeah and you learn something out of it too you walk out with some wonderful recipes that you can replicate at home afterwards well and not only can you replicate them at home but it's as you've already mentioned our full time employees you know what it's like to have a very busy schedule and want to put out a really nice dinner and how to do it in an efficient way right right right which is you don't find that in your average  think most people really like to the idea of cooking more so in the actual cooking because it's very time consuming it's very labor intensive lot of pots and pans to be washed at the end to sew the recipes i select are usually recipes that can be completed within thirty minutes which is really what the home cook only really has about thirty minutes time to prepare a meal and there are a lot of one pot dinners where you're not washing a lot of pots and pans in there with ingredients everything grievance that you can find at the grocery store you don't have to go to a specialty shop for and there are also ingredients that you can use more than once to not purchasing you know a spice are nervous something that you will use once and that it will sit on your shelf you can very common italian ingredients that you'll be able to email to sort of set out to expectations of what the participant is expecting out of the class expecting seafood type of many or pasta menu a meat based menu are you looking for more elaborate recipes or are you looking for weeknight recipes to do take thirty minutes so there's that was a lot of back and forth to to make sure that i can meet their expectations with what i can offer and that it's mutually beneficial to both of us yeah i love session  i'm just curious what kind of dinner with someone who would be a shaddock sure it's a lot of swordfish i'm from southern italy so there's a lot of a swordfish and the regions of sicily or a lot of  salted cod or haddock recipes like that would probably be something that i would propose to somebody even trying to dinners you know oh wonderful whatever and you know i usually lay out the menu ahead of time  when we have our consultation and say is this what you're expecting somebody says oh i really don't like swordfish then of course we'll make sure we select recipes that appeal to their palates yes and different kinds of sauces to correct jumping from city to city because i find that to be very tiresome plus you don't get to know the city if you're jumping around always on a bus being shuttled so while we're there will take cooking classes will visit wineries and see how the take classes cooking classes with natives of that region excellent that the four cities tell me a little bit about what's neat been different in each of those shore so i can see we will be offering one week long venture in a private villa so it's the villa is privately reserved just for my group will be very intimate it's limited to ten to twelve participants because i feel like anything larger than that bony sauce so we'll be taking classes on how to prepare those me else florence will be staying in a four star hotel room florence and taking cooking classes and visit wineries while where they're learning how to make some region has its own specialty so we'll be there for a week learning how to make dishes space without a chokes and things that are typical of the roman cuisine well in this country we're used to having cuisine that is different according to the area that we live in yes and that's where my doorstep will that would be true in italy as well very much so something that's very common in southern italy me very well be unheard of are  not nearly as possible just one or two regions up so that's why i think it's important to focus on region for a week and have participants get to know that cuisine to the fullest extent and they will be doing some walking around there will be doing definitely there will be some walking around which is good considering the food we will be eating there so there will be some walk in county will do a gentle hike of the county hill so they'll be plenty of opportunity for pictures to be taken and we'll visit where they make some pause so it's not all going to be all food all on all the time they'll be some other activities more culture based along the way excellent and if there's anyone who's going to can't do that they can i can opt to sit out yes yes more than two to do another activity correct correct so no one is required to do really hands on a great learning experience for really people of all ages and really you'll be for that one week you'll really be immersed in the culture of that region speaking have children it is there are restrictions and your young children usually try to encourage people to follow the parents to bring twelve and up only because i think younger than that if you're in the kitchen it starts to get a little bit tricky but you know it  all it's always communication back and forth with the interested participant if you find that you have a very mature ten or eleven year old who would enjoy something like this and is accompanied by a parent i would consider you know parents know their children best and what they might get out of the experience but there will be hands on cooking so that's something to keep in mind and visit to the winery yes and  was born to a loving parents and i had an older sister and very much grew up with italian culture for the first eleven years of my life while we were there i was very really what's rooted me and what made me want to start this  is my love with going back to my home country whenever possible a lot of the recipes that i prepare now are either tailored to what i grew up on or modified version of that growing up it was definitely very exciting to have a stay at home mom and coming home from school to home cooked meal certainly and that's a privilege that fortunately not many people have so it's great had to adapt a little bit recipes to accommodate my mom going to work so my that's how a lot of these recipes now come about to modified so they don't take as much time as they did before and it all depends on and as i said before i mean this these are not recipes or these rays of preparing food are not to be found in the average cookbook correct i think sometimes what you find in a cookbook  complicate things more than to have to i don't know if to do that to make it sound like a recipe is more complex than it actually is but is there's a lot of steps and there's a lot of things that don't really add value to a finished meal so i try to eliminate steps that aren't necessarily required to still have a great final dish at the end and not a lot of strange herbs that we've never heard of news one right correct and so is a pet peeve of mine is when a recipe calls for something that i know i'm never going to use again so i try to select ingredients that are widely used in many of my recipe so that nothing goes to waste the talents are coming from a culture of not wanting to waste usually i get people saying you know a lazy i can do that i can you know that's about what i have time for so you know that i used the term lazy sort of because i like the term but it's really about being efficient in the kitchen more than being lazy make things easy for people to do that is absolutely wonderful they can relax and know that they're going to have a good dinner table and not go crazy doing it exactly make  timely so that the time can be spent with your family afterwards that you know this is a parent please look prepare with the children and sit down and enjoy together and then have the evening for other activities such as homework or you know whatever else it is that you'd prefer to do and afterwards in your heavens just spent an hour and a half or two in the kitchen you know from start to finish a meal certainly has the potential of being very long when you can factor in the preparation to is that you can do is visit the website and look at the options of things that you can probably can become involved with there's a lot of offerings there appear online for anyone to visit my website information for the upcoming tours of there and also my spring coronary classes are also listed and you can register there or my email address is there so if somebody would like to contact me about a private class i could certainly do that excellent and  the public classes the cool unary classes at the education centers those it tells their what they are like you may have one that's soups and stews correct and another baking desserts or whatever so you can pick what you want to do and go to that particular class yes and as a registration link to register directly with the adult education center on my website i try to ok what i teach my classes or try to pick  maybe three to four of us a piece that every student will be able to do some cooking classes taught differently they will have students select the recipes that they want to cook while there but i find that students may feel left out when they do that so i pick again recipes that are simple so that each student can make that recipe in class and learn how to do it rather than just focus their time on one or two and then be given the recipes for the other stuff you know the only the best way to learn cooking is hands on you can do it with friends yes i recently taught a class at the cambridge center for adult education and i was expecting but six or eight a women and men based on my registration list everybody had a different last name so i knew they weren't related but when they came in they all knew each other so it was a group of friends that had signed up to do this activity together it was fun and it was a great learning experience for them but it was also a social experience for them certain to cook with friends yet and what a nice wonderful thing to do with friends yes definitely and one and even the folks when i teach at my out of my home and with the folks that don't know each other and up exchange and email addresses and  and friendships and connections that way and you know it is usually hugs at the end was funny because it's a very family friendly atmosphere you know you're at someone's home someone's private dining room table so it certainly invites for  what a wonderful thing that you decided to do this and how did you open this door sure so growing up i always had family cook meals at my home i took for granted  everybody kind of came home from work at the end of the day and sat down with their family to a family meal i did just that's what i grew up on you know so i took it a little bit for granted so as i got older and realized that that's not necessarily the case for everyone  i decided that perhaps i could create a business that would teach people how to be able to do that and lazy recipes was a way to get people more into kitchen together and really wonder when we finish a class it's really great satisfaction to hear that people say that they're going to make the classes again the recipes again and sit at home that's usually the question i ask all most students will you be making this recipe  i want to dip back to the adventures in italy for just a minute to do you have do you find that people have questions about how things are set up for as a we talked a little bit about the amount of walking in and sure the shortest so the cool air adventures are one week week long adventures so people sign up and they will be staying in one hotel or one villa for the entire week so people don't have to worry about packing our or unpacking while they're there i find is that works best for voiding travel fatigue which is very common when you're trying to fit in a lot in a small amount of time and it takes away from the enjoyment of it we stay in either four star hotels or in the private villa for the whole time for the canteen week is all inclusive so it covers every meal every activity while you're there the other three have is pretty much ninety five percent inclusive i've left out of few meals during the week in case people get full or to perhaps they want to do something on their own there i have the ability to do that and i've built in a little bit of free time here and here as well because that was one of the sessions and that's one thing about you know there's some free time during the week as well of participants would like to do something on their own or if they would prefer just sitting back and relaxing and you know in italy we have a thing called which means the sweetness of doing nothing perhaps you may want to take the morning off to people so there's a little bit of a free time built in there and like you mentioned if at any point somebody chooses to sit out an activity they can certainly do that online and find all of this information and it is the holiday season might think about it but it also i mean i think it would make it was a joy to me and just you know reading about what you do and it all and i thank you and i hope the pleasure many of you out there will take advantage of the opportunity to look into one of the yes you know these are fun things that she's doing and it's a little out of the box ideas for the absolutely wild thank you very much thank you