pie class with Evan Kleiman-an update to working with a rockin' chica

(gone in 60 seconds: Evan's tomato n' gruyere cheese pie)

so this past weekend i had a canning class with Evan Kleiman-queen-of-pies, Good Food host and so much more on pie filling and pie crusts at her restaurant Angeli Caffe.
have to admit-the nerves where a runnin' though me realizing that i was going to be teaching canning this and that with a woman who is, in so many words-a "mera-mera" of culinary So Cal and then some....there were lots of, "please don't f-up this...put your A-game on" type thoughts going through my head for sure!

(starting the workshop with a quick talk on basic canning)

but as soon as i walked into Angeli on Saturday morning i felt at total ease-something that is automatic with Evan. she is a woman with charm and a great energy that you feel like you are coming into her home. Only an hour after arriving, we were met with our 8 students-pretty amazing seeing that we only started promoting the class a little over a week before.

(Evan teaching pie crusts)

I started out the workshop talking about canning while Evan blanched peaches for filling.  After the filling was made and we loaded the jars Evan taught the students how to make 2 different kinds of pie crust and everyone made little pies made in jelly jars that they could put in the oven later (see above).

(the finished product was a quart of organic peach pie filling for each student)

Even though we were both a little tired, the day ended up being really wonderful and has inspired us to do another workshop on tomatoes (will be posting about this next week)!  Most of all, it has been really great to work with someone so inspiring...