Be forewarned vegetarians: you may want to skip this post .

BIG NEWS: Last night I hit a major culinary milestone – I deboned a whole chicken! Embarrassingly, I am completely squeamish around raw meat so working with an entire chicken has always seemed like a big hurdle. I’m happy I was forced to just suck it up and do it. It was actually quite fun!

As mentioned, my roommate Allison and I took the Knife Skills class at CulinAerie. I’d never done a class there before but when a friend offered me 2 certificates that she couldn’t use I was pleased to take them off her hands . Particularly because after my “real” culinary class knife skills session I realized I could do with a lot more practice.

CulinAerie is adorable by the way. Here’s our little station all set up for the evening.

We spent the first bit of class time learning how to do various cuts on an onion, carrot, pepper, tomato, melon etc. Who knew there was such an art to it all? I must say though, everything looks a whole lot nicer (and is prepped a lot faster) with some good knife skills.

Then we learned how to cook what would be the evening’s supper – Chicken with Grainy Mustard, Cream and Tarragon. And of course that all begins with a deboned chicken. After watching the demonstration this little guy showed up on our board.

Not so intimidating right? Allison and I took turns on each side and while it wasn’t exactly a breeze – the instructor did at one point stop by and say “What are you DOING!?” (hehe)  – it was totally manageable.

Then we cooked!

Along with a little red wine, this was insanely delicious. And something that could easily be recreated at home.

A very fun night with my very fun roommate. And a big thank you to Rachel for the free class .

- Beth