Taking the Kids: Experiencing a culture by taking a cooking class

While the minimum age for the group classes at La Cuisine Paris is 13, Bertch says a growing number of families with younger kids are signing up for a private class, despite the $370 euro (more than $500 USD tab.) (Kids suffering from life-threatening illnesses have been given trips to Paris and classes here under the auspices of the Make a Wish Foundation.)

"We get all levels of cooks," Bertch said at the school, which is around the corner from Paris' famous Hotel de Ville, the city hall and a short walk from Notre Dame. "This is about the experience," she said. "It should be fun, not intimidating."

We were joined by a young Australian couple in their 20s, Annalisse Gauci and Lloyd Burbage and fellow Aussies Simon and Karen Brock, celebrating Simon's 50th birthday, who hoped to spice up their everyday cooking for their kids.

Cathy Hendrickson, a CPA from Gainesville, Fla., rounded out the group.

The challenge: choose a menu, shop, cook and eat in a little more than four hours. My only regret is that the class isn't longer!

We've got to choose a menu, shop, cook and eat in a little more than four hours.

How about duck breasts? Chef Eric thinks that will work with a shallot, wine vinegar and honey sauce, accompanied by roasted vegetables and a kind of potato pancake made with very thin slices of potato. Yum!

We decide on pumpkin soup to start. Did you know there are 400 kinds of cheese in France? Of course, there will be a cheese course. And there must be chocolate! Chef Eric suggests mini molten chocolate cakes in a vanilla sauce for dessert.

We trail behind Chef Eric as he buys carrots, leeks, butternut squash and girelle mushrooms for the soup; onions, cauliflower -- at one place, varieties of cheese elsewhere. We go to a boucherie -- butcher -- to buy our duck breasts and a boulangerie to get our baguettes. This wouldn't be a French meal without lots of fresh bread.

We start our cooking with dessert because, as Chef Eric explains, we start with what takes longest. We crack eggs, melt chocolate and butter and strip the vanilla bean. If it doesn't bend, it isn't good, he tells us. When the chocolate cakes go into the oven, we start on the soup, in the process, getting a lesson in how to properly hold a knife and dice an onion. Even an experienced cook like me learns something new here!

We get a lesson in how to properly hold a knife. Even an experienced cook like me learns something new here!

The kitchen is a whirlwind of activity -- chopping, stirring, whisking. We prepare the duck breasts and make the sauce -- delicious with a bit of duck fat, chopped onions and a dash of red wine vinegar, nutmeg, ginger and honey. Chef Eric demonstrates how to flip the sizzling, pan-sized potato pancakes.

The soup and main course are delicious. Afterward, we serve ourselves the cheese and salad drizzled with our vinaigrette. As we eat our creations -- as pretty to look at as they are tasty -- we talk about what we've learned. "All the basics you thought you knew," said Annalisse Gauci -- how to crack an egg without getting shells in the bowl, how to chop an onion.

"Our goal is to teach something," said Chef Eric. But, he adds, the class is as much about enjoying yourselves.

Absolutely, we agree, as we dig into our chocolate cake.

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For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow "taking the kids" on www.twitter.com, where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments. Look for her latest Kids City Guides to Los Angeles and Chicago from Globe Pequot and available from major booksellers