Denis Culinary Tours

SUSHI ROLLING CLASSES Want a Private Sushi Rolling Class? 1.  Require 5 guests minimum and up to 12 in a class. 2.  $25 per person - includes one of our top Chefs from Japan, either Fumi or Koji, the class, the ingredients for the roll, you keep and eat the roll and a souvenir.   3.  You can purpose drinks, food during the class, etc.  We will provide you a table for the class and one for dining.  4.  We only do these classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. any time To have this Chef come to a private home - we charge $500 minimum; for 2 hours.  The $25 per person still applies along with anything else a la carte you might want.  The class details would be the same; He would bring the "class" with him basically.      Nara Japanese Restaurant 1617 Main Street  Kansas City, MO 64108  Ph. 816-221-6272  Website

It’s All About the Pit While the term Pit Master is one everyone in the barbecue biz may be familiar with, the rest of us probably have heard but really don’t understand it.  “Think of it as being the executive chef in a high-end restaurant,” smiled Tim Keegan, Executive Pit Master extraordinaire at Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue .  “Most Pit Masters have at least five years’ experience in an open pit, that’s a wood fire.  They control everything – the meat choices, the cuts, the fire and meat temperatures, the rubs, the sauces, everything.” Jack Stack, with five restaurants, has five Pit Masters and the “youngest” has about nine years’ experience.  They get up VERY early and are usually at work by four or five in the morning, put in a 12 hour day typically and then go home to dream about barbecue.  They each have two assistants who are “in training” for the Pit Master job. Jack Stack began life as the Smokestack in 1955 and Tim was ...

One Great Chef:  Erik Camacho The title of this blog should be “Defying Expectations.”  I went for lunch with my publisher the other day and we went to Pinstripes in Prairiefire.  I am not going to talk that much about our lunch, though we got four different items including a very unusual version of carrot cake sitting in a pool of caramel that was tantalizing and acorn squash with burrata that was a true unique treat, but we also met their executive chef.  There are eight Pinstripes, mostly in the Midwest, and their head chefs’ titles are Bistro Chef.  Whatever.  They’ve clearly found a gem in Erik. Chef Erik’s background is a little bit unusual.  He was in the army for 11 years, working on tanks.  When he came home to California, he really didn’t know what he wanted to do.  But he’d been cooking for his large family for years and thought, “Well, I love to cook, why not culinary school?”  So that’s what he did.  He w...