"The Starting Points Series" Online Cooking Class
Use seasonal ingredients to cook more creatively and intuitively with this self-paced, online cooking class by chef and author Ronna Welsh. Create your own personalize pantry of Starting Points for cooking countless meals.
The Starting Points Series
A refrigerator full of Starting Points
Tired of how long it takes to cooks meals from scratch?
Bored of making the same dishes?
Looking to broaden your range of cooking skills?
The Starting Points Series teaches you the techniques and proven strategies to turn dozens of ingredients into building blocks for making many different dishes.
Starting Points help you become more
Creative
Starting Points give us opportunities to see the full potential in our ingredients, allowing you to be immediately more creative.
Resourceful
Starting Points cut down on food waste because they help you use all parts of your ingredients to their fullest potential. Having Starting Points ready also saves you time and energy when you are making any meal.
Nimble
Starting Points are extremely flexible so they are perfect for any kind of cook, including those who don't meal plan, have dietary restrictions, or are novice chefs. They help you adapt to changing circumstances around what we eat, whether it’s what ingredients we have on hand, how much time we have to cook, or how many people we need to feed.
What are Starting Points?
Starting Points are individual preparations of ingredients that create many opportunities for making a meal.
The Class
Learn dozens of practical, original, and delicious ways to cook a variety of ingredients, rooted in the flavors of the Mediterranean, and grounded in the changing seasons.
With almost four hours of video instruction, this mastercourse combines five cooking classes in one!
Pantry
Pantry Starting Points are items prepared for embellishing, dressing, or enriching other ingredients.
Think how much easier it is to put together a salad when you already have a dressing on hand.
STARTING POINTS INCLUDE:
Cumin-coriander salt, Many-spice rub, Buttermilk dressing, Refrigerator door relish, Anchovy butter, Tahini sauce, Quick poaching broth
Winter
It’s easy to get into a winter cooking rut, especially when we find ourselves with limited fresh produce and root vegetables for months on end.
Starting Points help us find new ways to use winter ingredients, leading us to new, creative meals.
STARTING POINTS INCLUDE:
Citrus supreme, Roasted oranges, Onion jam, Braised fennel, Fennel and Coriander Braised Pork, Creamy and Crispy Polenta.
DISHES INCLUDE:
Winter market salad with shaved fennel, scalions, grapefruit, and caper-citrus vinaigrette.
Fennel and coriander pulled pork with roasted oranges, onion jam, and crispy polenta.
Spring
Spring brings relief to root vegetable-and-stew-weary cooks.
Young vegetables are more tender and heavy braises give way to lighter proteins. Sauces become brighter and lighter, but we need to account for greater perishability.
STARTING POINTS INCLUDE:
Pickled asparagus, Infused herb butter, Herb Tank, Roasted radicchio, Wine-poached chicken breasts, Crispy chicken skin, Salt-baked potatoes, Creamy boiled potatoes.
DISHES INCLUDE:
Spring soup with poached chicken, asparagus, potatoes, and herbs.
Poached chicken and salt-roasted potatoes with pickled asparagus and buttermilk dressing.
Summer
Summer produce is often best eaten raw.
While we may not need to do much to help summer produce be ready and tempting to eat, there are some Starting Points that will help us vary the kind of meals we’ll eat and preserve our perishable garden gems.
STARTING POINTS INCLUDE:
Tomato confit, Zucchini confit, Roasted cucumbers, Tomato-braised squid, Par-cooked pasta.
DISHES INCLUDE:
Tomato-braised squid and zucchini confit linguine.
Chilled roasted cucumber and buttermilk soup.
Fall
Fall means we have to start leaning into squashes, mushrooms, hearty grains, and long-cooking meats.
We’ll create dishes that are rich, but still light and anything but ordinary.
STARTING POINTS INCLUDE:
Crispy sauteed mushrooms, Braised wild mushrooms, Wine-poached sunchokes, Roasted sunchokes, Seared kale, Braised chicken legs
DISHES INCLUDE:
Braised chicken with roasted sunchokes and garlic ginger sauce.
Toasted quinoa with braised oyster mushrooms, seared kale, and anchovy butter.
Hi, I’m Ronna.
I am the chef and founder of Purple Kale Kitchenworks in Brooklyn NY and author of The Nimble Cook. In the Starting Points Series, I give you an in-depth look at the core strategy honed in my 25 years as a professional chef.
+ Click here to read my story
Before starting my cooking school, Purple Kale Kitchenworks, I worked at the helm of some beloved restaurants in NYC and abroad, in Spain, Greece, Italy, and France. I lived to cook, and I loved to eat.
Off hours, of course, I rarely cooked for my tiny household of two. Then when two became four, I found my professional skills were no match for relentless distractions and ceaseless demands of new parenthood. I found myself struggling to make even the humblest dish for my young family to eat. After having kids, I had to re-learn how to cook.
In short order, I began to adapt restaurant practices to the home, including its whims, mishaps, and changing circumstances. This meant abandoning meal planning much of the time, focusing instead on quickly and easily turning small sets of versatile ingredients into building blocks for making many different, delicious plates of food. I regained confidence and joy in cooking again, and fed my family the way I always imagined.
This ingredient-first way of cooking was intuitive for me, but I realized it was not for most home cooks, who were more comfortable buying groceries for a week of set meals. I turned my "nimble" methods into classes, and eventually into an acclaimed cookbook, The Nimble Cook.
$249.00
Frequently Asked Questions
+ I do not have advanced kitchen skills. Is this course for me?
Yes! The methods in this course fit any skill level or circumstance. If all you know how to do is boil an egg, or if you’re a more accomplished cook looking for a new perspective, you have a home here. As long as you can see the potential in every ingredient, you can become a nimble cook.
+ Is this a vegetarian class?
Strictly speaking, no, but 98% of the 30+ recipes ARE vegetarian. Ronna's cookbook, The Nimble Cook, was recognized as a top 10 vegetarian cookbook of 2019 by FoodPrint magazine, even though it isn't strictly vegetarian. The cookbook has been recognized many times for its original way with vegetables.
+ How much time will this course take?
The course sections range from 25 to 45 minutes, and may be watched all at once or individually. You'll have access to the course for a lifetime, so you can check in with the class each season. The class is designed to be content-rich and transformative, but not disruptive.
+ What if I already have your cookbook? What if I've taken one of your classes before?
If you have my book or have taken any of my studio classes, many of the recipes in The Starting Points Series will be familiar to you. Here you'll see many of those recipes demonstrated and discussed in greater detail.
+ I have more questions. Who can I reach out to?
Email me directly with any questions you have about this course. Let's make sure it's a good fit for you. You'll reach me at ronna@purplekale.com