Passion for Spices™ is Thankful for Breaking Bread with Communities

November 27, 2024 May Fridel

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of the year to show your gratitude for your family friends and community. Passion For Spices™ is grateful for all of our clients, friends and family, who have come to our cooking school, enhanced their culinary acumen, while breaking bread.

We are very appreciative of our wonderful team at Passion for Spices™ which make this all happen. It gives us joy to share the culinary knowledge and showcase the foods of the world while promoting healthy eating and sustainable lifestyle practices.

Women in Business Inspirational Leadership Luncheon

Here is an TapInto **article** by Bobbi Pier showcasing a Women in Business luncheon that Passion For Spices™ hosted recently.

Please enjoy our curated, complimentary menu from Passion for Spices™ for you and your family this holiday season. (credits to our content artist Dmitri G. for these awesome illustration).

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Aromatic Turkey

Ingredient:
1 20 pound whole turkey
1 cup kosher salt
1 cup honey
4 allspice berries
2 cinnamon sticks
3/4 cup celery
2 bay leaves
4 peppercorns
1 sprig thyme
2 tsp. Keralan curry powder
10 cups water or to cover turkey
1 cup dry white wine
Ghee
Paprika
Recipe:
1. Heat all ingredients and bring to a boil.
2. Let the brine cool before adding to the turkey. Then stir in white wine.
3. Refrigerate in the brine for 4 days.
4. Once the turkey is ready to roast, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. dry turkey well then coat with ghee and paprika.
5. Roast the turkey in the oven until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees, about two hours. Take our the turkey and tent it with aluminum foil for an hour.
For more recipes visit our ***Recipes*** page

(credits to our content artist Dimitriji G. Medenica for these awesome illustration).

To learn more about our upcoming events, please check out our Upcoming Cooking Classes in the link below:

Upcoming Cooking Classes

Thankful for Passion for Spices™ Cooking School

We are very thankful for the growth of our cooking school. We welcome everyone from beginners to experts to join us, as you experiment with real food, and enhance your cooking skills. We are thrilled that more and more community and friends are interested in our exclusive culinary experiences where you get expert culinary instruction. Our classes are available for Kids Classes, Adult Classes, Corporate Events, and Private Events.

We want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

This holiday season, we are grateful for introducing some specials for celebrating the holidays with friends and family. We would like to share the wide vareity of cooking classes avbailable and break bread with your friends and families.

Holiday Specials

Thankful for Our Organic Spice Line

Keralan Curry

Kashmiri Garam Masala

Our spice blends are crafted using the highest quality of spices complete with anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatories to help boost the immune system for optimal health. These blends were also produced using a sustainable and eco-friendly process which creates its flavorful finish.

Give the Gift of Spices For the Holiday Season

Passion for Spices Gift Card

A unique gift that can be used to register for a cooking class, buy spices, and book a private cooking event!

Shop Gift Cards

Memories From Our 2024 Around the World Summer Cooking Camp

August 28, 2024 May Fridel

At Passion For Spices™ this year, our 15th annual Summer Around the World Cooking Camp was a great success again. We are thrilled to provide a platform for our young generation to learn about food and culture, and provide a true culinary experience. Our team at Passion for Spices™ were so happy to see the eagerness of our young chefs and their enthusiasm in learning new skill sets. We had a great group of happy campers. Please see the details below.

American Road Trip

Cajun: Where the campers prepared gumbo, red beans, and dirty rice, and Roux and Beignets during the workshop

Southern BBQ: Where the campers prepared Pulled Chicken, Cornbread, and Cole Slaw and BBQ Sauce From Scratch with Chicken during the workshop

New York: Where the campers prepared New York Style Pizza and Chili Dogs, and Pretzels with Mustard during the workshop

New England: Where the campers prepared Johnny Cake and Baked Beans, and Pumpkin Whoopie Pie during the workshop

Midwest: Where the campers prepared Juicy Lucy and Runza, and Michigan Pasty during the workshop

Around the World

Italy: Where the campers prepared Homemade Ravioli, tomato sauce, and Garlic bread, and Biscotti during the workshop

China: Where the campers prepared General Tso’s Chicken, fried rice, and Dumplings during the workshop

Mediterranean: Where the campers prepared Muhamara, Hummus, Pita Bread, and Shakshuka during the workshop

France: Where the campers prepared Split Pea Soup, Croque Monsieur and French Apple Tart during the workshop

India: Where the campers prepared Butter Chicken, Raita, Naan Bread, and Sweet and Savory Parathas during the workshop

Arts and Science

Breads: Where the campers prepared Chocolate Zucchini Bread, Savory Cheese Puffs and scones during the workshop

Pickles and Canning: Where the campers prepared Quick Pickles, Jams and Canned Peaches during the workshop

Dumpling Day: Where the campers prepared Gyoza, Samosa, and Dumpling Soup during the workshop

All About Cheese: Where the campers prepared Cheese Fondue, Fresh Homemade Ricotta, and Ricotta Pancake during the workshop

Art of Pies: Where the campers prepared Chicken Pot Pie, Seasonal Fruit Cobbler, and Seasonal Fruit Galatte during the workshop

Farm to Table

Corn: Where the campers prepared Corn Chowder, Corn Muffins, and Popcorns with Various Toppings during the workshop

Squash: Where the campers prepared Butternut Squash & Lentil Curry with Rice, Seasonal Squash Muffin, and Pumpkin Bread during the workshop

Eggs: Where the campers prepared Curried Deviled Eggs, Classic Quiche, and Madelines during the workshop

Tomatoes: Where the campers prepared Tomato Soup, Baked Fries, Ketchup from Scratch, and Tomato Tart during the workshop

Stone Fruits: Where the campers prepared Peach Chutney and Chicken Kebab, Strawberry Ice Cream, and Seasonal Fruit Cobbler during the workshop

Culinary Teen Competition

One of our students, Miles LoPrete, wrote an account of his experiences during our Week 5 cooking camp:

This is my second year at Passion For Spices Culinary Teen Competition Summer Camp. Passion For Spices is an amazing highest-rated cooking school in the Summit area that helps you learn a bunch of new skills and techniques in cooking. The chefs and all the staff at Passion for Spices are more than happy to help you if you need help with learning something. Below I wrote my day-to-day experience and everything we learned!

On the first day of the camp, we learned how to make rice, soups, and knife skills. First, we made a soup, which was a super flavorful corn chowder that used the corn cobs in the broth to make the soup extra delicious. Next, we made traditional fried rice with eggs, vegetables, and spices. For our knife skills, we learned how to cut things that are a little trickier to learn such as ginger, and herbs.

On the second day, we learned how to make a super flavorful and simple grilled zucchini with fresh herbs, shallots, garlic, and topped with fresh tomato sauce. This day we also learned how to spatchcock a chicken and cut a chicken into 8 pieces. Spatchcocking is hard but it’s super important to learn ways of cooking a chicken. Most people don't know how to do this skill but it is super important to learn for a cheaper option for chicken. With this, we made two types of chicken, Super delicious and flavorful tandoori chicken, and a simple yet super good herb-grilled chicken. We also made an amazing garlic confit mashed potato. In the end, we all enjoyed this delicious meal.

On the third day, we learned how to make pasta two ways. First was an egg pasta dough used for the ravioli we were making, which we filled with a ricotta spinach filling that turned out great. We then used a cutting tool to get the pasta into a square shape. This was served with a homemade basil pesto sauce. Next, we learned how to make Semolina Pasta for the Orecchiette, which is a pasta with a similar size of gnocchi rolled over a fork or a tool with lines to get its iconic look. We served this pasta with an amazing homemade tomato sauce.

On the fourth day, we learned how to make 4 different types of desserts. The first one was a Peach Crisp which had a bunch of delicious fresh peaches, lots of warm spices, brown sugar, and topped with a homemade biscuit for the top. The second dessert we made was a Plum Cobbler Tart which was filled with fresh plums, an apple, and a bunch of warm spices along with a crisp crumbly top! Next, we made a Vanilla and Chocolate Pudding. It was super good and not overly sweet which I thought made it better than any other pudding I have had before. Last we made meringues which was for the next day because they had to sit for hours out to set. These where made with egg whites and sugar. At the end of ghe day we topped everything with ice cream!

On the last day, it was time for the cooking competition which was where we made a big meal for all of our families. We arrived 3 hours early to start our big meal. We started with prepping everything for a buffet-style meal. We also had to prep the dining room with tablecloths, silverware, plates, and napkins. We got assigned what to do in the kitchen and we tried our hardest to make the food super good in big batches. We also were assigned roles when the parents started coming in working as hosts and greeting people, as well as helping people to their seats. Once the parents started rolling in at 6 pm we started to bring out our food we worked super hard on. For this meal we had, garlic bread, fruit plates, smashed potatoes, Grilled zucchini with fresh tomatoes, Spinach Tahiri Rice, We also made Grilled chicken, and tandoori chicken as well as some ricotta-filled ravioli with a choice of tomato or pesto sauce. For dessert, we made peach cobbler topped with a scoop of fresh vanilla ice cream and meringues we prepped yesterday! It was really fun to feed the parents and our siblings and see them enjoying the food we worked hard on.

Overall the Passion-for-spices teen culinary camp was an incredible experience where I learned so much with making food from different cultures. I'm happy I did this camp a second year and overall truly enjoyed this class.

Soups, Salads, Broths: Our campers made a very well liked soups and starters, Corn Chowder and Spinach Tahiri for this event, as well as Grilled Zuchini. The Teens also built their skills like knife skills and basic stock making.

Starters, Homemade Pastas, and Sauces: in the spirit of the name, campers prepared a full complement of starters, with a Dumpling Assortment, Chicken Satay, and Semolina Pasta.

Sides and Desserts: Campers produced French Style Potatoes and Mediterranean Couscous with Rice to accompany any main course

Main Course: Our campers prepared the savory Roasted Spatchcocked Chicken with Classic Style Ratatouille, fit for a king. The final day, we had our annual cook off, where the camper’s parents came to sample everything that the campers had made.

Mystery Market Basket Competition: The Campers cooked a three course meal to present to friends and family.

Passion for Spices Cooking School™ Wishes You a Happy New Year 2024

January 9, 2024 Nicholas McTernan

Passion for Spices™ would like to wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year. We hope you have a great start to the New Year! We are very grateful for a very productive and fun filled 2023, while introducing more chefs, new clients, and more community project involvement. We are ever so grateful for the platform we have to share the knowledge of good food and breaking bread with our community. We are looking forward to a fabulous 2024!

Here are some of the curated culinary events at Passion for Spices™ Culinary School.

Our Annual Passion For Spices™ Around the World Summer Cooking Camp Highlights

We had a houseful of enthusiastic young chefs for our Around the World Summer Cooking Camp 2023. We had seasonal after school classes where young kids came and prepared different seasonal food and enjoyed the food they prepared.

Our fifth week of our camp was our culinary teen competition. In this program, The young teens build their culinary skillset, and was able to prepare a full course menu from a given mystery basket. The food was served to the families and they appreciated and were thrilled to see the gourmet food they prepared.

Passion For Spices™ Adult Cooking Classes

Our Adult Cooking Classes showcase, Mediterranean, Latin, and Asian cuisines. Based on season and popularity, we curate different classes with different themes. Some of the popular Adult Cooking Classes included Taste of Morocco, Beer and Gourmet Bites, Taste of Thai, and Classic Indian Made Easy. Above are some highlights from our Taste of Morocco class which happened before the pandemic hit.

We are also thankful for our new classes taught by expert culinary educators, Shelley Wiseman and Kathleeen Sanderson. We are pleased to announce that our Cooking Classes are available for the new year.

Passion for Spices™ Corporate Team Building

Passion for Spices™ Plans for 2024

We will be adding more curated classes and pop ups from around the world, where you can come and enjoy amazing culinary experiences. Also food and wine culinary adventures will be announced soon.

We want to wish everyone a Happy, Healthy, and Safe New Year and we hope that everyone can enjoy more cooking and quality time with their family.

We are also in the process of planning our annual five week summer camp, starting on July 8th to August 5th. Save the date!

Create a Memorable Thanksgiving Table

November 21, 2023 May Fridel

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of the year to show your gratitude for your Family, friends, and colleagues who you have in life. Passion For Spices™ Team is grateful for all of our clients who joined us in our Cooking School. We are also aapreciative for our wonderful team that makes Passion For Spices™ special. It gives us joy to spread the culinary knowledge and showcase foods of the world as we teach all levels of cooking skills, promote healthy heating and share family time (Tech Free) together.
Here is a complimentary Thanksgiving menu curated by Passion for Spices™. The recipes are easy to make, delicious and will stand out on your dinner table!

Thanksgiving Menu

Thankful for Passion for Spices™ Cooking School

We are very thankful for the growth of our cooking school. We welcome everyone from beginners to experts to join us, as you experiment with real food, and enhance your cooking skills. We are excited to have expanded our cooking school to include Kids Classes, Adult Classes, Corporate Events, and Private Events.

Here’s some of the highlights of cuisines that we offer in our cooking classes. We are grateful for our culinary team and our guest culinary educators who offer classes at our culinary school.

We want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving from the Passion for Spices Team™!

This holiday season, we are grateful for introducing some specials for celebrating the holidays with friends and family.

Holiday Specials

Give the Gift of Cooking For the Holiday Season

GIFT+CARD.jpg — Passion for Spices Gift Card

A unique gift that can be used to register for a cooking class, buy spices, and book a private cooking event!

Shop Gift Cards

Thankful for Our Organic Spice Line

Keralan Curry

Kashmiri Garam Masala

Memories From Our 2023 Around the World Summer Cooking Camp

August 31, 2023 May Fridel

At Passion For Spices™ this year, our 14th annual Summer Around the World Cooking Camp was a great success again. We are thrilled to provide a platform for our young generation to learn about food and culture, and provide a true culinary experience. Our team at Passion for Spices™ were so happy to see the eagerness of our young chefs and their enthusiasm in learning new skill sets. We had a great group of happy campers. Please see the details below.

American Road Trip

SouthEast: Where the kids learned how to make pulled chicken, and hand pies during our workshop.

Midwest: The Children learned how to make classic Midwestern dishes like Corn Runzas, and frozen custard pies

SouthWest: where the campers learned how to how to prepare chicken burritos and salsa & chips, as well as flour tortillas during our workshop

Appalachia: Where the campers prepared Appalachian delicacies, like turkey sausage, buttermilk biscuits, and fried apples

Louisiana Creole: Where the campers prepared gumbo, red beans, and dirty rice, and Roux and Beignets during the workshop

Around the World

Italy: Where the campers made egg based pastas and Biscotti for the workshop

Morocco/North African: Where our campers prepared Shakshuka and authentic Pita and Mezze

Thailand: Where our Campers made chicken curry and some vegetable pad thai, and some Khamon Tom for the Workshop

France: Where our Campers made Ratatouille and French Pastries

India: Where our campers made Malai Kebab and parathas for our workshop

Arts and Science

Breads: Where our Campers indulged in the science of baking, by making some classic Irish Soda bread, and Mini Cinnamon Truffles, as well as Pizza from Scratch during our workshop.

Dumplings From Around the World: Our campers educated themselves in the application of dumplings, with Mongolian Buz and Periogi, as well as baking some Samosas and Chutney during our workshop.

Pies: Our Pie making class involved us making a pie dough, Shepherd’s pie, and apple dumplings, whilst putting together fruit hand pies.

Cheese: The Campers cheese class was mainly using ricotta, pancakes, with fruits and bacon bits. The accompanying workshop included ravioli with ricotta cheese.

Noodles: Our Camper applied themselves in making noodles, from fettucini noodles and Chicken Yaki Soba noodles. The workshop included pici pasta with garlic sauce.

Farm to Table

Corn: Our campers tried themselves at making corn in Corn chowder and Corn Muffins, while our workshop goers tired their hand at making various flavored popcorns.

Squash: Our campers made various configurations of squash in delectable ways, like a buttermilk squash with lentil curry and roasted zucchini. Our workshop was about the creation of zucchini chocolate cake.

Eggs: our day about eggs had our campers prepare curried deviled eggs, quiche, and madeleines. The workshop as well had other egg dishes, like meringues/Pavlova with fruit

Tomatoes: Our camper prepared NJ’s favorite vegetable, both a tomato tart, and Caprese salad. During our workshop, the campers also made sauces.

Fruits: The Seasonal fruits classes included grilled chicken with peaches, as well as a peach cobbler. The workshop as well included a peach crisp and a blueberry sorbet

Culinary Teen Competition

One of our students, Miles LoPrete, wrote an account of his experiences during our Week 5 cooking camp:

Passion For Spices has been an incredible experience for me. I have made new friends and can't recommend Passion for Spices enough! For those who might not be familiar with Passion-For-Spices, they are a Farm-To-Table Culinary school that believes in using fresh ingredients. The chefs at Passion For Spices help with personalized guidance whenever necessary, Which makes learning new recipes easy! Passion For Spices has amazing spices that you can purchase online and a cookbook and a bunch of free recipes! This class really shows people how easy it is to cook!

On the first day of the week we focused on knife skills. Chef Thomas taught us how to chop, cut, slice, and mince lots of vegetables and other ingredients such as Onions, Peppers, Garlic, tomatoes, and so much more. After cutting all the vegetables we cut chicken for the Chicken Vegetable stir fry we made, which was super delicious! The next thing we learned to make was a Corn chowder With a corn cob broth we made earlier. Overall the first day was super fun!

On the Second day of the camp we made amazing dumplings which chef Thomas taught us how to wrap the dumplings in multiple ways. With the dumplings, we made a super easy and delicious dipping sauce! The second thing we made on day 2 was two types of homemade pasta with super fresh eggs. The first type of pasta is an Egg pasta dough, which we flattened out and we made fettuccine sized noodles with it. The second type of pasta we made was semolina flour and water pasta, Which we made Orecchiette with. After all that, we made a super simple tomato sauce and everything was amazing!

On the third day of camp we started right away making Potato Gratin which is a super delicious french dish with lots of potatoes, Cream, and cheese. With this dish we learned how to use a mandolin, Overall the potato gratin was super tasty and fun to make! The second thing we made was Zucchini ratatouille with tomatoes which was delicious, And for dessert we made a fresh berry pie which tasted super good. Overall day 3 was super fun and I learned a lot!

On day four of camp we learned how to make Herb Grilled Chicken with a delicious marinate. The second thing we learned on the 4th day was how to make a super tasty Moroccan Couscous that was super flavorful with the keralan curry that May (The founder of Passion-For-Spices) sells! We also made grilled zucchini which was super delicious. Over all day 4 was some hard work but was worth it because everything was delicious!

On the last day of camp we did the Teen Cooking Competition where we served all of our parents and siblings food we made. With this competition we used all of the skills we learned over the week to make a 4 course meal! We came at 3pm to start cooking, which gave us around 3 hours to make all the food before our families came over for dinner. After we all gave each other roles for what to do in the kitchen we saw the mystery ingredients they gave us, we had decided what to make almost right away. We decided to do an all around the world theme for our courses! After lots of cooking in big batches we were all tired but super excited for the families to come and try out our food! As 6pm struck all the parents arrived. For the first course we made chicken, carrot, garlic and ginger dumplings with a super good dipping sauce. After course 1 all the food was gone because it was so good. For Course 2 we did a pasta course where we made fettuccine pasta and an amazing meat tomato sauce. Once we were done with course 2 we went straight to course 3 which consisted of Potato Gratin, Ratatouille, and a bunch of herb grilled chicken. After this course everyone was super full from all the great food we made. For the last course we did a peach crumble topped with vanilla ice cream. The teen cooking competition was super fun and it was my favorite part of the week, and I would do it again!

Overall The Teen Cooking Competition week was super fun, It was super hands on, meaning you cook a lot. I also learned a lot from Passion-For-Spices and it was super great to eat all the stuff we made. From this camp you learn new flavors, new skills and so much more, I couldn't recommend Passion-For-Spices more!

Soups, Salads, Broths: Our campers made a very well liked soups, Corn Chowder and Galangal soup for this event, as well as Cold Soba Noodle Salad. The Teens also built their skills like knife skills and basic stock making.

Starters, Homemade Pastas, and Sauces: in the spirit of the name, campers prepared a full complement of starters, with a Dumpling Assortment, Chicken Satay, and Semolina Pasta.