Recipe For Happiness: Cooking At Dirty Apron

Put your money where your mouth is—take a hands-on cooking class at the Dirty Apron Cooking School.

MONEY WELL SPENT | According to psychological research reported on recently in The New York Times, “spending money for an experience—concert tickets, French lessons, sushi-rolling classes, a hotel room in Monaco—produces longer-lasting satisfaction than spending money on plain old stuff.” Findings further suggest that the happiness accrued by spending money on leisure activities is amplified when the experience is shared with someone else.

Which brings us to our new favourite experiential “happiness place,” the Dirty Apron Cooking School. Everyone we know who has taken one of their four-hour hands-on cooking classes raves about it.

“I had such a great time; it was amazing. I’ll definitely do it again,” says Sonia Lebofsky, a twentysomething aerospace engineer, who received a gift certificate for the school as a birthday present from her boyfriend, a voucher she used to take a French class where she learned to prepare an extravagant wild-mushroom-and-truffle crepe with herb-crusted beef tenderloin medallion; oven-roasted Mediterranean bass with lemon caper butter sauce; and a screaming chocolate soufflé.

Schooled: Dirty Apron Style

Lebofsky was nervous about taking the class by herself but says in hindsight she needn’t have been. “Everyone works at their own station and their own pace anyway,” she explains, adding that students get their own top-end equipment and Chambar-quality ingredients (the school’s sister restaurant) to work with, plus the hands-on advice of two instructors there to help those who need it to master the tools and techniques.

At $145 each, classes at the Dirty Apron Cooking School aren’t inexpensive, though the quality on all levels makes them worth every penny spent. Still, if you want to share the experience with a friend or family member, it’s going to cost you $290, which is why we were excited to learn about their new two-course brunch classes starting April 9th, which are $95 each. For $190, you can share the full-on Dirty Apron experience with someone you know—and potentially amplify the happiness you experience. —Ruth Rainey

Dirty Apron Cooking School is located at 540 Beatty Street, 604-879-8588. To learn more about their classes, visit www.dirtyapron.com.

Photo: Brunch, Dirty Apron Cooking School