The Viking Cooking School [Greenwood, MS]

Last weekend, I visited the town of Greenwood, Mississippi to attend a cooking class at the Viking Cooking School.  It was a birthday present from the hubs.  I had a great time at Viking Range! Want to know more?

Viking Range, a division of Middleby Corporation, manufactures high-end kitchen appliances with their headquarters located in Greenwood, Mississippi.  The headquarters, along with six other locations, includes the Viking Cooking School where classes are offered for the novice to the seasoned cook.  Ben surprised me with reservations to attend a hands-on class where we learned to whip up true southern recipes based on the movie, The Help.  Have you seen it??

The Help was filmed in Greenwood and is only an hour-and-a-half drive from our home.  The class started at 10:00 AM, so I headed out the driveway at 8:00 AM thinking it would take a few extra minutes to actually find where I was going!  😉  I was wrong.  GPS took me right where I needed to be.  I parked on the street and headed into the building marked “Viking Range” where I could look through the glass windows and see this:

…our classroom.

Our instructor was Chef Lauren, who was the sweetest gal!  At the beginning of class, she rounded up all of the students and handed us a booklet of the recipes we were going to be making.  She then gave us a nice little run-down of the first two recipes – cornbread and biscuits.  YUM!  This was the pattern for the rest of the 3 hours of class.  Chef Lauren would go over a couple of the recipes, we would then divide into groups and each have our turn to help stir, pour, fry, boil, shape dough, etc.

It was fun to get our hands dirty, but it was very nice that all of the ingredients were measured for us and anything that needed to be chopped or shredded was already done!

I loved chatting and making new friends during the class.  In fact, I was one of only two of us that were not part of a bachelorette get-together.  What a fun idea for the bride-to-be!  The ladies were super sweet to include me in their celebration! And, guess what?  They traveled from practically EVERYWHERE!  One gal came from Germany where her husband serves in the United States Air Force, a few drove from Alabama, two from Nashville, one from D.C. and a few from Texas, I think?

I got to know a little about each student.  It truly was like standing around your kitchen island in your own home, chatting away while you cooked together!

Let me tell you about the biscuits we made.  Best.biscuits.EVER!  I cannot even start to explain how light and fluffy they were, and EASY, too!  I loved using the cookie scoop to scoop the dough and dump it into a cloud of flour, then gently shaping each dough ball into the round cake pan. Totally my go-to recipe for now on.

Okay, don’t these ladies look like they should be on a cooking show?  And, see there!?  I was not the only one using my phone to take pictures and post on Instagram!  Speaking of IG, click here to see a video of us frying up the chicken.

Check out that load of fried goodness! (Yes, I did smell like fried chicken when I came home.)  🙂

And, our finished meal. (Fried chicken, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, light and fluffy biscuits and cornbread.)  At the end of class, we sat down together and enjoyed our creation!

This class was such an enjoyable event!  The classroom was clean, the instructor was fun, steps were efficient and the sweet tea was excellent! 😉  I hope to take more classes in the future, and maybe bring a friend with me next time!

The Viking Cooking School is located at:

325 C Howard Street
Greenwood, MS 38930

Visit Viking Range for more information.  (Class schedules, registering information and other locations).

I also included a street view and clickable map for you:   😉