I’m enrolled in the Alice Waters Teaches Home Cooking MasterClass at the moment. I get early access to the course as part of my All Access Pass (check out the catalogue). And I’m absolutely blown away.
People who love natural cooking, love being around calm caring energy, and people whose philosophy of cooking is making delicious meals that create wonderful emotions and memories will love this course.
This is a course for people who want to learn to cook so they can enjoy long healthy meals with family and friends filled with laughter and memories. I know that might sound a little corny – but isn’t that what life’s all about?
Before I get into this Alice Waters MasterClass review, a few things. First: this is just part one of the review. The course is still being added to right now so I’ll break my review into parts. And second: this review contains affiliate links. I love MasterClass so much I decided to recommend them officially but all opinions are completely my own.
Now let’s get into the Alice Waters Teaches Home Cooking MasterClass review!
My Alice Waters Teaches Home Cooking MasterClass Review (Part 1)
You know it’s going to be a wonderful experience right from the start of this MasterClass.
Alice Waters immediately sets the tone with a resonant introduction where she introduces her aim to make us recipe free. Thomas Keller strove to do the same thing in his Masterclass (my review here), which I really loved. So I’m happy to see that’s the focus here.
In the most gorgeous workbook of all the MasterClass courses (it looks like those old cookbooks our grandmothers had with those line pencil drawings of fresh vegetables adorning the pages), Alice writes a lengthy introduction that introduces her whole cooking philosophy.
Here are a few choice quotes that convey the tone of this MasterClass better than I ever could:
“You will learn how to explore your local farmers’ markets and perhaps even your own back yard, using all your senses to find ingredients that are at their peak. You will learn how to trust your own taste, and let it guide you to what is best and most flavorful.”
My interest was immediately piqued with this. This is the kind of cooking I’m for! Natural, living, breathing, intuitive understanding of food and making a connection to where it came from.
“This is isn’t about adhering to a set of recipes or strict rules—it’s about exploring and marrying flavors and ingredients as they change through the seasons. I want you to be able to cook with spontaneity, building your confidence so that you can leap away from a script.”
Again, this is very similar to the Thomas Keller class and is a big reason behind why I got so much value from it. I would much rather learn how to cook than what to cook.
I’ve always been dependent on recipes and, despite cooking being a joyful experience, it always causes me some anxiety when I’m making something new. I want the confidence to throw away the dependence on recipes and understand how to make something myself that is uniquely my own!
Alice also says:
“What I’m teaching is not new. Our grandmothers and our grandmothers’ grandmothers thought about food and eating and cooking like this. But it has been forgotten here in this country, and it is being forgotten around the world.”
Some of my favourite childhood memories were in my grandmother’s kitchen. Unfortunately she passed away when I was very young so the cooking lessons stopped abruptly but I’ll never forget all the times she showed me how to make delicious vegetarian recipes (I was a veggie, not her). And it’s these sorts of memories I would love to have with my own children and grandchildren.
Alice talks about her aim with this MasterClass being like this:
It’s about learning to feed ourselves deliciously, economically, and in harmony with nature. It’s about the slow, patient joy of waiting for a tomato to sweeten on the vine. It’s about the conversations we have with the farmers who care for the land, and the connections we make when our family and friends gather at the dinner table. It’s about helping our children explore the incredible biodiversity of our planet, letting them dig in the soil with their own hands, growing and harvesting and cooking their own food so that they effortlessly absorb lessons of sustainability. And more than anything, it’s about taste and pleasure. Because this is the greatest secret of all: When you start eating this way, you will fall in love. It is that simple.
You can see how, before the MasterClass even began, I was giddy with excitement.
Maybe there are people out there who want to learn a few recipes and be done with cooking, not caring about connecting with nature and family and friends. But I’d wager they’re in the minority. And this isn’t a MasterClass for them. This is a MasterClass for people who truly love food and everything it stands for.
What a blessing it is to have access to Alice Water’s teachings! And all the other chefs (Ramsay, Puck, Keller) that make the Masterclass All Access Pass such a no-brainer.
What you get in the Alice Waters Teaches Home Cooking MasterClass
What’s really exciting is that Alice Waters delivers the MasterClass in her own house and introduces us to her daughter Fanny who grew up in her kitchen and shows us how she learnt the lessons her mother taught.
If you’re looking for a class to enjoy with your own daughter (or son), this would make a perfect bonding experience.
I honestly believe cooking together is one of the best bonding experiences people can share. And the result is something that will benefit the whole family – not just when they consume the meal but through their whole lives as they healthy and happy, and even beyond that as recipes, techniques, and the joy for cooking gets passed down through the generations.
Alice also takes us to Chez Panisse, to her backyard garden, to the farmers’ market, and even to her edible schoolyard project.
So there’s a lot going on in this MasterClass!
As I already mentioned, the course is in the Early Access stage at the moment. There’s already a couple hours of video modules and a workbook available, with more classes continuously being added to over the next few months. I actually prefer it this way because I have a tendency to binge-watch these courses (they’re quite addictive), so it’s nice I can spread the course out over a longer period.
What I’m loving about the Alice Waters Teaches Home Cooking MasterClass
I can’t give away everything that goes into the course, but here are a few things that I’m loving so far about the Alice Waters MasterClass.
Firstly, the inspiration factor is very high. Alice makes you want to get down to your local farmers’ market immediately. She talks about the difference between food you order in and food that you pick yourself, forming connection with the person who grew it, and how when you pick the leaves of a salad with your own hands or tie the ravioli with your own hands, your friends and family can taste and feel the difference when they eat it.
This is a course about slowing down, enjoying life, and not being in such a rush all the time.
I loved it when Alice takes us to the farmers’ market with her. After showing us how she does it, she even gives us a little assignment that requires us to go to the farmers’ market near us, ask certain questions, and follow Alice’s shopping guidelines, along with the big command: not going in with a shopping list.
Alice makes the process of finding the best ingredients less daunting and removes the mystery surrounding it all. She teaches you how to follow your senses.
I loved actually getting to see her talking to all the different merchants and the kinds of questions she asks them.
This section was amazing. Really fun, educational, and inspiring. I learnt so much.
Once we’ve seen how to source ingredients, we then get to see our first recipe and learn how Alice uses those ingredients to create a delicious vegetable lunch.
She walks us through her process and approach so not only can you replicate the dish she makes and learn how to prepare vegetables in three different ways, but you can learn to approach any meal in a similar way – so even if your ingredients are different, you can produce something beautiful.
I love the care and attention Alice gives to every ingredient.
Something about her style resonated with me more than the other chefs (even though I loved all of the other cooking classes a lot). Alice made it all seem so easy, desirable, and achievable.
We got to learn about timing in cooking, setting up a process, how to roast something in order to intensify the flavour, how to steam for delicate flavours, how to marry texture and flavour, different salad recipes, sauce recipes, plating, and lots about Alice’s philosophy of food.
Another one of my favourite lessons was about how to keep your pantry well-stocked. Sounds like basic stuff but I learnt so much and I’m sure parents taking this course with their children will get value from the kids’ eyes lighting up at all the different ingredients.
We learn the best foundational ingredients to keep stocked in our pantry and Alice shows us seven dishes all sourced from those pantry ingredients along with a special dish she makes whenever she comes home from a trip and finds an empty fridge.
What I loved most about this lesson was not just the practical tips and the general frameworks and Alice’s great teaching method, but I loved seeing the warm and loving exchanges between her and her daughter.
I hope I can have the same relationship with my children in the future.
This lesson was also a mini masterclass in olive oil, vinegar (mastering the perfect vinaigrette), the geography of different spices, different salts, rices, beans, pastas.
I personally loved Alice’s advice about buying olive oil, where to buy, what to look for, how many and what flavours to have, and also loved her advice on having an annual olive oil tasting party after the new oils come out in the fall.
I didn’t realise how complex olive oil was – you can actually be an olive oil connoisseur in a similar way to how many are wine connoisseurs!
Another favourite section of mine was the lesson on leaves, herbs, and aromatics, and making your own herb garden.
We learnt how to use herbs for different dishes and how to find a use for the whole plant (not just the leaves).
Not only am I inspired to start attending my local farmers’ markets, but I can’t believe I’ve actually been inspired to start growing my own herb garden. Such an exciting project to get into!
There are so many ideas for different herbs – tons of ideas for fig leaves alone from her restaurant that I can’t wait to try!
Alice goes through her rationale for what to choose to grow in her garden and shows us how to cook from our own kitchen garden, learning in one section how to make a very simple delicious sauce based on those herbs and how to prepare a beautiful salad.
Should you get the Alice Waters Teaches Home Cooking MasterClass?
I’m learning so much more than just cooking from this MasterClass. But the cooking lessons alone are so inspiring, easy to digest, remember, and apply, and I continuously marvel at Alice’s creativity and artistic way of creating dishes.
If you have even a passing interest in cooking wholesome home meals, or learning how to bond with your family through the joys of cooking, then, yes, you should definitely check out this MasterClass.
If you’re really interested in cooking, it makes more sense to pick up the All Access Pass because then you’ll be able to watch all of the MasterClass instructors. There are a bunch of other great cooking courses from Thomas Keller, Gordon Ramsay, and Wolfgang Puck, so it’s great value for money.
That’s part one of my Alice Waters MasterClass review! I can’t wait to get stuck into the rest of the course and update you with part two. Now I’m off to bake a delicious galette just like the ones in Alice’s Restaurant, Chez Panisse.
You can check out the Alice Waters Teaches Home Cooking MasterClass here.
