The fall edition of the Urbana Park District Program Guide is now out, and this means that fall registration will be open soon. Mark your calendar for August 6 if you want to be first to sign up for our fall cooking classes. If you already have the catalog, flip to page 28 to preview all the cooking classes coming this fall — and they're all new! Here's a summary of what's coming up in our long-running PRINCIPLES OF ETHNIC COOKING class series at Urbana Park District's Phillips Recreation Center. This is a series of "cooking parties" where all students will participate in the preparation of the dishes on the menu: On  September 11 , I will be sharing the results of my latest home kitchen experiments in a Taste of Georgia class. Georgia is a former Soviet state nestled between Europe and Asia with a unique and vibrant cuisine. Join us for this special Georgian feast, which will include the world-famous Georgian Kharcho (beef stew) and two other exot...

On July 10, guest chef Aliya Dosmanbetova led a cooking party with 10 students, and we made a delicious Kazakh feast! Aliya was a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois for the last 12 months, and as a parting gift for our community, she shared her favorite family recipes with us at this farewell dinner. We made a lamb pilaf from scratch with the help of a pressure cooker, then we whipped up a lovely fresh salad with tomatoes, onions, and peppers, and finally, we also fried up a big batch of Baursaks (Kazakh fried bread), which Aliya made from scratch with flour, milk, and sugar. If you missed this class and want to try out her recipes, they have been archived on my website .  Aliya also shared stories about her life back home, her country's culture and history, as well as her experiences here in America. We drank tea, cooked up a storm, and ate up everything that was cooked up that night. Aliya is now on her way back home, but she will take back some...

Soul food is an immigrant cuisine that combines West African, Western European, and American culinary traditions. The expression "soul food" originated in the mid-1960s when "soul" was a common word used to describe African-American culture. Soul food is intensely seasoned and uses a variety of spices to add robust flavor to food and savory sauces. While all soul food is Southern food, not all Southern food is soul. Soul food cooking is an example of how really good African-American cooks cooked with what they had available to them. Our guest chef for this class will be Darlene Anderson, who will present a healthy and tasty all-vegan menu of her favorite family recipes which will feature her own  Kentucky Fried Tofu Nuggets  recipe. Darlene is a teacher with a master's in childhood education, a former passenger service agent for American Airlines, and a former model for JC Penney. She grew up in a Chicago neighborhood where everyone knew each other and th...