A seared chicken thigh in a stainless skillet with pan sauce being spooned over it

Live online cooking classes · Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Restaurant technique, at your own stove.

I've spent my career in fine-dining kitchens from Boulder to San Francisco. Once a month I teach one dish, properly, live from Sioux Falls, to anyone with a pan, a cutting board, and ninety minutes.

Next class · Monday, January 4, 2027 · 6:30 PM Central · $39 per household

Seared chicken thigh with glossy shallot and white wine pan sauce

Next class

Restaurant-style chicken and pan sauce at home

The dish I'd teach anyone first. Dry the skin, get the pan hot enough, leave it alone, then turn what's stuck to the bottom into a sauce in four minutes. You'll leave able to do this with pork, steak, or fish, without a recipe.

Date
Mon, Jan 4
Time
6:30 PM CT
Length
90 min
Price
$39 / household
South Dakota prairie at dusk in late winter, snow-dusted fields and bare cottonwoods

Out here we get four seasons, hard ones. The fifth is the one you make inside.

I grew up in Sioux Falls and left to learn: culinary school, then the fine-dining kitchens of Boulder, then a Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco. I came home to cook here, and to share what those kitchens taught me with people who will never set foot in one.

The Fifth Season is a place for that. Honest recipes, tested in a home kitchen. A monthly class where you cook alongside me. And a short list of tools, because most of what's sold for kitchens is noise.

More about me and the name

Flat lay of a skillet, chef's knife, fish spatula, tongs, microplane, scale, thermometer, sheet pan, bench scraper, wooden spoon, cutting board, and Dutch oven

Kitchen essentials

Twelve tools. No gadgets.

I've cooked on $3,000 ranges and on a two-burner apartment stove, and the tools that mattered were the same. This is the list I give friends who ask what to buy, with a sensible version and a buy-it-once version of each.

See the essentials list