Team-building Cooking Classes with Jay Harlow

"Our objectives were to enchance how we worked together as a team. We found the class a lot of fun and very effective in allowing our team to move beyond their routine interactions....Jay was excellent in guiding this interaction. It was a very pleasant and enjoyable afternoon and our whole group enjoyed it immensely."
--Christine LeGrand, Scient Corporation

"It's a great way to have a team interact, since the emphasis is on cooperation rather than competition. As top sales people, our group is plenty competitive. We enjoyed the opportunity to work together toward a common goal."
--Michele Cambra, Netscape iPlanet

Corporate team-building programs don't have to involve strenuous outdoor activites like whitewater rafting or climbing ropes. As a growing number of companies are discovering, a participation cooking class can offer an equally memorable team-building experience, with a bonus — a delicious meal cooked and served by the team members.

Whether it's senior executives, an assembled sales force, new associates, or a hard-working department celebrating a major project done, team members get a chance to expand their interpersonal as well as culinary skills as they work together in the kitchen.

Team-building classes are available for groups of 7 to 40, at any level of difficulty, in various teaching kitchens around the Bay Area. A typical three- to four-hour session begins with guests enjoying a prepared appetizer as we discuss the multicourse meal they are about to prepare. Briefed and armed with recipes, they roll up their sleeves, don aprons, and break up into teams to prepare one or more courses of the meal. Supported by a talented team of sous chefs, I move around the kitchen, instructing and demonstrating key techniques and providing pointers to success, with the emphasis always on the do-it-yourself experience for the team members. When it's time to eat, each team in turn serves its course, then yields the spotlight to the team that prepared the next course. All join in the sense of accomplishment and the mutual applause at the end of the meal.

Although my specialty is seafood, I am equally comfortable with many other foods and with various ethnic styles. Want to build a menu around local king salmon? Provencal rosemary-crusted roast lamb? Handmade Italian ravioli? Spanish-style tapas? An intricately spiced Mexican mole? Cantonese whole steamed fish? All these and more are possible.

Whether you want the menu easy or challenging, the table setting formal or casual, I would be happy to work with you to tailor a program to your needs.

Past team-building clients include:

Aetna AllBusiness.com

Barclays Global Investors Cut Loose

Genentech GlaxoSmithKline

iPlanet The Permanente Company

Scient Corporation Veranto