THE ESSEX: VERMONT’S ONLY CULINARY RESORT & SPA

“Take a cup of flour, make a well with high sides, and crack an egg into the well. Add two more egg yolks and then, using your fork, work the flour from the edges into the liquid in the center and gently whisk them to combine. Once the flour and egg mixture is no longer runny, use your hands to incorporate the remaining flour. Knead the dough on your lightly floured counter, for about 5 minutes until it’s silky, smooth, sunshine-yellow like the egg yolks, and no longer sticks to your hands.”

I couldn’t believe it. I had actually made pasta dough!! Chef Marcus Stittum had patiently guided this group of four pasta-making neophytes through this classic procedure. We were comfortably settled into the Chef’s Kitchen in The Essex Resort, gathered there to enjoy an evening of handmade pasta, seared ribeye steak, and mushroom sauce. Chef Marcus told us to help ourselves to beer or wine from the refrigerator. It was beginning to feel a lot like home, minus a playlist.

“Making pasta is intimate,” Chef Marcus continued. “You become one with your dough.

You can make pasta in a food processor, but if you’ve never made it before, I would recommend doing it by hand first so you learn what texture to look for. It’s easy to overmix the dough in a food processor.”

The Essex, Vermont’s only culinary resort, has been offering cooking classes for more than 20 years. The hands-on courses are particularly popular, especially sushi and pasta making. Cook Academy classes run the gamut from gnocchi and mother sauces to crepes and cream puffs. Guests can try their hand at cake decorating, roasting, or honing their knife skills. More than 100 classes are offered through the year, taught by 10 instructors, most of who are private chefs.

“Making pasta is intimate—you become one with your dough. ” –Marcus Stittum 

“We have the autonomy to shape classes based on our interests, which allows for creativity. We can customize a culinary experience for our guests as well,” said Chef Marcus, a French-trained chef working toward his PhD while also pursuing a few culinary ventures.

“It’s nice for guests to come here, have a chance to try something new, and work in kitchens that are stocked with ingredients from local farms and producers. In summer, everything we grow in our own resort gardens goes right to the Cook Academy kitchens,” said Adam Noë, the resort’s executive chef. “We provide a true Vermont farm-to-table experience for our guests, and that allows our chefs and instructors to take advantage of the local bounty—the creameries, breweries, bakeries, and farms. That ethos infuses the classes we teach and the food we serve.”

The resort’s décor maintains this culinary theme, starting with the JK Adams wooden cutting boards that serve as hallway signs. A whimsical sculpture crafted of a Bundt cake pan radiating spokes of potato ricers and another with a dozen box graters welded to a stovetop grate adorn the walls of The Junction restaurant, while overhead, complete table settings of placemat, china, silverware, and glasses are (securely) affixed to the ceiling. A chandelier dangles forks and spoons.

Photo courtesy of Maria Buteux Reade

Cook Academy classes run the gamut from gnocchi and mother sauces to crepes and cream puffs. Guests can try their hand at cake decorating, roasting, or honing their knife skills. 

Back in the Chef’s Kitchen, while our plastic-wrapped, golden dough rested in the refrigerator (that’s when the glutens relax and the texture morphs even more silky and pliable), we sat at the dining table and enjoyed a small bowl of coconut curry soup. Then we moved on to the next phase: preparing a mushroom-shallot cream sauce that soon was burbling on the stovetop.

While the heady aromas wafted through the kitchen (did I mention the sauce included smoked bacon?), we unwrapped our dough and divided the ball into two, dusted each with a bit of flour, then gently fed them one at a time through the pasta attachment on a stand mixer. After a half-dozen passes through the steel rollers, we each had a long sheet of translucent pasta, ready to cut into fettucine ribbons or to transform into lobster-filled ravioli pillows. Va bene!

Chef Marcus seared our steaks in butter, garlic, and fresh herbs while we slid our pasta into the pot of boiling water. Five minutes later, we sat down at the dining room table and ate en famille, tucking into a delicious meal we had prepared together. We toasted Chef Marcus, our engaging leader, who had created a warm and inviting atmosphere. So relaxed that by the end of our shared repast, we were refilling each other’s glasses and making plans to reconvene at the resort’s tavern later that evening.

Amazing that none of us had ever met yet bonded so easily thanks to the shared experience of an Essex culinary adventure! 

• essexresort.com

“WHO KNEW??”
 

• A large egg weighs approximately 55 grams: the white clocks in at 35 grams and the golden yolk at 15 grams.
• If you don’t use a digital scale to weigh your dry ingredients, fluff each first to relieve density, sprinkle it into the measuring cup, then sweep the top flush to level it off. Sifting flour also gives more lift and yields a tender crumb in the finished product.
• Pastries and cookies bake from the edge to the middle, which accounts for those crispy, browned edges and soft centers on cookies.
• When making pasta by hand, you can scrub the clumps of dried dough from your hands by rubbing them together with some fresh flour. Better than continually washing and drying your hands when working with dough!