MEET & EAT – Let’s Get Cooking!
Michigan Meeting & Planning Magazine
By Jeanette Hurt
Forgoing traditional team-building activities like trust walks at outward bound centers or get-to-know-you games in conference rooms, Bonnie V’Soske’s team instead turned to building gingerbread houses.
V’Soske, manager of meeting planning for the Michigan State Medical Society, and her co-workers donned aprons at Le Chat Gourmet in Eaton Rapids, Mich. There, the group learned how to make gingerbread houses, and then constructed their own. “It was just a fun event,” V’Soske says. “You really get to know people when you’re working together. Everyone did something (for the house). Then, we took the finished product back to our office.”
Fun and food have traditionally mingled together at meetings and events, but when you host that event at a cooking school or bring a professional chef in to teach at a meeting, you literally add some spice.
Team-Building Bounty
One of Chef Denene Vincent’s specialties at her Eaton Rapids school, Le Chat Gourmet, is running classes for corporate and executive team building groups. Vincent also recommends cooking classes for holiday gatherings, employee rewards and special clients. Ideally, the groups are comprised of 12 to no more than 24 people. The typical class runs about 3 1/2 hours—approximately 2 for cooking and 90 minutes to dine and run the meeting and take care of business. “When people come in for a cooking class, they have to use organizational, planning and communication skills just as if they had received an assignment as a group,” says Vincent. “But it’s a more fun-filled environment!”
Since Vincent’s classes are private, the sky’s the limit in terms of the cuisine or cooking techniques that can be taught in class, and it’s all hands-on learning. Popular menu themes include Gourmet Steakhouse, Taste of Italy, Savoring Michigan, Spanish Tapas, New Orleans Surf & Turf, French Bistro, all appetizers and all desserts.
The Gourmet Steakhouse menu features…
APPETIZER
Warm Crabmeat-Pepper Jack Cheese Dip
with Tortilla Corn Chip Wedges
STARTER
Summer Sweet Corn Soup with Butter Poached Lobster,
Fresh Tarragon & Smoked Olive Oil Drizzle
ENTRÉE
Whole Oven Roasted Beef Tenderloin Steak
Gourmet Steakhouse Salad
– crisp butter crunch lettuce, shaved radishes, sweet corn,
vine ripened tomatoes and homemade green goddess dressing
DESSERT
Classic Crème Brule
with Caramelized Brown Sugar Crust & Fresh Berries
Each participant receives a recipe booklet to take home.