Foraging Lessons
Hunt, Gather, Saute: Paleo Cooking & Foraging 101
HGS Paleo Cooking 101 is a comprehensive cooking lesson interlaced with nutrition dialogue and without a doubt, it’s a feast. The knowledge and skills you’ll acquire will get you started efficiently making amazing meals to improve the long-term quality of life for you and your loved ones.
This class will focus on the preparation of maximally nutrient dense foods and how to efficiently turn them into delicious meals that should be the staples of your paleo lifestyle.
Interested in private or small group lessons? Scroll down below the FAQ for more information!
Syllabus
I cover the most important types of dishes for eating a maximally nutritious and tasty diet of paleo foods. This is just an outline and may vary depending on seasonal availability.
- Making broths/stocks from bones, tendons, organs for mind-blowing soups/stews and for healing the gut (marrow-based broth* for chicken and cauliflower leek soup)
- Brining, slow-cooking (pulled pork*; beef o-bone stew)
- Multi-purpose sauteing and sauces (paleo ‘spaghetti’ marinara or curry)
- Fermenting (sauerkraut; kefir*)
- Eggs (poaching, quiche techniques)
- Fast foods: (fish salads, jerky-making* and pemmican*)
* indicates eating/tasting and discussion only; all other dishes we’ll make from scratch.
Next classes:
Sunday January 15th 2011 at 12 p.m. > > LPCF Members only - Individuals $75
Learn More / Frequently Asked Questions
Are there any prerequisites? It is strongly recommended that if you’re new to nutrition concepts associated with the paleo diet you attend a nutrition education class first!
This class will get you started by learning in the most effective way: learning through doing. I’ll talk you through the preparation and all related talking points, we’ll eat the food, and I’ll answer questions as we go along.
We’ll take a few eating breaks during which we’ll discuss sourcing, herb-pairings, time-saving formulas, and recipe adaptation. You’ll get complete instruction on how to use the simple yet elegant ingredients, tools and methods you’ll use week in and week out. I’ll be teaching only the most time-efficient methods for making paleo food. This is not a class where you’ll learn to make a 25-step dish that you’ll only have time to make once a year.
Why do you teach not to follow a recipe? Learning to improvise the creation of a dish is liberating. Learning principles and methods and seeing/tasting their implementation in class and finally on your own drives home the whole ‘paleo isn’t a diet it’s a lifestyle’ line. Choosing wisely and effortlessly transforming what ingredients are available to you where ever you are and being able to whip them into a nutritious meal is a pretty major game-changer in such a complicated world of food choices and time-constraints.
While the internet abounds now with paleo recipes, they’re not necessarily the most nutritious, time-efficient, or necessarily tasty. You’ll learn how to take a recipe and make it more time efficient and how to improvise within and improve upon a recipe. You’ll learn how to surprise yourself and wow your friends and expand your family’s palate with these skills.
What do you mean by maximally nutritious foods? Not all foods are created equal, even ‘paleo’ ones. Sure, the switch from a SAD diet of nutrient-poor, gut-irritating foods to a paleo diet will likely elicit some major positive changes. Even more-so when your paleo foods are selected more wisely and prepared with some more savvy. Existing illnesses or conditions may require a bit more knowledge and application in tweaking your paleo diet and lifestyle.
Immune, hormonal, and cardiovascular health as well as body composition rely largely on the composition and health of your intestinal flora as well as the composition of the foods you eat. Getting consistent intake of the most nutrient dense foods can be difficult if not impossible without the knowledge and skills to locate and prepare these foods amid a busy lifestyle. We live in an incredibly complex world now where our food is produced in ways usually undisclosed if not confusingly disclosed. More often than not the mainstream food supply is starkly nutritionally poor due to inputs, processing or preparation, the worse for our health by over-consumption thanks to lack of information or availability. You’ll get all the tools you’ll need to meet the highest health goals you can set for yourself.
What about after the class? Indeed, learning to effortlessly cook to achieve health goals is a process. Along with the class itself will come some handy tools to help you execute on cooking efficiently and nutritiously every week including a guide for cost-effective foraging in the South Bay, a detailed index of paleo foods and tips, self-education resources, and all the recipes from that day.
Can I attend more than once? Yes! And many people have. The menu and crowd are usually different enough to be a learning experience. Plus, starting with the 11/13 class, the format is changing to include more time for discussion of methods and formulas.
I signed up. Now what? You’ll get an email the week of the class with an address and reminders.
Private lessons
Want a private lesson for you, your family, your gym or organization? I teach affordable private or small group lessons that you can cater to your family’s/group’s needs and goals. Contact me for more information!
Family cooking lesson
Quotes from past participants:
“I highly recommend this class to anyone looking to better their nutrition, regardless of whether or not they’re looking to live a 100% Paleo lifestyle for health reasons or just want to clean up their diet to improve athletic performance and lose the body fat. Even if you already eat a Paleo or Paleo-esque/clean diet, you are likely stuck eating the same, bland foods and recipes repeatedly. If you’re an athlete and you have to eat more than the average person, this can be even more grueling and lead to burnout. Remy will show you how to prepare recipes that taste better than most “cheat” foods and how to do so in a way that will provide several meals or days worth. She is a wealth of nutritional knowledge from both textbook and personal experience. This is an excellent “How” lesson in Paleo cooking and eating.” – Matt, fire fighter
“I highly recommend this class to the beginner through the advanced. I have been cooking most of my paleo meals for the past year and still learned a ton. Remy rocks!” – Cheli, high school asst. principal
“Definitely, without any doubt Kale, Avocado and Bacon salad. This may be my new favorite salad…. Though the Curry Shrimp was delightful as well! Thanks Remy for teaching us how to use greens I would never be brave enough to try to cook with!” – Amanda, USAF
“I really enjoyed how practical and reality based it was. There was no complex or time consuming recipeies and I learned quite a bit and broadened my paleo food scope.” – John S., writer/comedian/filmmaker
“The part I enjoyed most and was useful to further implementing eating paleo was the fact that the recipes were less “here’s how you make it step by step using this and this” and more “this is what you could also use instead, let’s toss this in there too” stressing the use of different spices and different greens, meats, etc. I think with the majority of people, when introducing a new dietary regimen the toughest part isn’t eating but the variety. The way you did the class helped further show how much actual variety you can get, that the more comfortable you get with trying different things, eating paleo is everything BUT restrictive and mundane. Equally important and never would’ve thought about it until brought up are all the prep tips that help speed the meal-making process, much appreciated!” – Gus G.
“I really enjoyed the cooking class. I took the class to learn how to make great tasting meals in bulk implementing paleo. I was very pleased. My favorite part about implementing paleo is I know that I am supplying my body with the nutrients it needs, especially after the intense training. The class addressed all my concerns. The recipes/spreadsheets were very detailed and easy to understand/implement. All the meals were delicious and full of flavor. It was appealing to me that food could be so amazing without salt. This is something that I have also begun experimenting with and so far it’s great.” – Crystal C., EMT
