Couples can have a night out and a cooking lesson at culinary school

CAMBRIDGE - The evening was labor-intensive for Kirill Boyarin. It involved peeling about 70 cloves of garlic. But he toiled away under the watchful eyes of his wife, Marina, and their cooking instructor, Hong Xue.

Kirill, a software engineer by day and badminton instructor by night, and Marina, a grants administrator at Massachusetts General Hospital, were, at 42, the oldest in their couples cooking class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Their 18-year-old son is in college and in anticipation of their empty nest, Kirill suggested they start cooking more together. Marina, who was in charge of their kitchen for the last 20 years, eagerly bought him a class for his birthday, despite the fact, she says, that she "didn't think he really meant it."

Of all the recreational classes offered at the culinary institute, says Julie Burba, a cooking instructor at the school, the ones for couples are the most popular, and have been since they were introduced five years ago. "We haven't seen a drop in enrollment in these classes yet," she says.

Just the fact that a cooking school would offer a couples class speaks to something in our culture right now. Most couples don't cook together, or in many cases, cook at all. For some it's a lack of interest or ability, or a busy, two-career partnership. Whatever the reasons, it's easy to hide behind a wall of take-out containers, pizza boxes, and simple frozen meals. But while couples may not be cooking at home, the kitchen still draws them in. A night spent preparing a dish together is part lesson, part novelty, part date.

The Boyarins braised chicken thighs with white wine and the astonishing mound of garlic. The dish went off without a glitch. The chicken all but fell off the bone and the garlic was sweet and mild at the end of cooking, not at all too much. Kirill was glued to his wife's side, often watching as she, an accomplished cook, led the way through the stainless steel jungle of the industrial kitchen.

Here's how it works: Couples choose from a course in the basics, or, as the Boyarins did, something more specialized: Italian, French, vegetarian, Spanish, tapas, and the newest, sushi (all cost $140 per couple). About a dozen people attend, and most sessions end with a sit-down meal, either family-style or at tables for two. Some instructors split up the couples and have them cook with strangers, putting more emphasis on learning to cook than on learning to cook together or simply having an unusual date.

Xue, the sprightly tapas instructor on this particular evening, let the couples choose a dish to make that night, gave some vague instructions - how to distinguish mincing from chopping, for example (mincing is finer than chopping) - pointed to the wine and the paper cups, then spent the evening moving around, demonstrating a proper mussels de-bearding technique here, averting a grease fire there.

All the food was heaped on a counter or stored within the chilled confines of the walk-in. Couples staked out a station with cutting boards, sharp knives, and starchy white aprons and began searching for their ingredients, treasure-hunt style. All the necessary tools were at their disposal and, perhaps most luxurious of all, dishwashers - human and mechanical - were there to do the cleanup.

Flank steak tacos with red-onion jam were tag-teamed by two couples. Mindy and Rob Ashcraft and Jessica and Chris Snow are friends who might otherwise have spent a Friday night at a restaurant together. The class, says Burba, "is a very different experience from dining out." She thinks learning, cooking, socializing, then eating can be much more fun.

Jessica Snow thought she needed the class. A recent trip to Spain inspired her and her husband to try tapas on their own, but they're a two-career couple who rely mostly on takeout. In the class, the four made flour tortillas by hand, grilling them individually on a cast-iron skillet. (Flour tortillas are not on menus in Spain, but potato and egg tortillas are).

Eating mashed potatoes off each others' fingers were Rhonda Roumani and Hani Mowafi, both 32. Neither Mowafi, a doctor, nor Roumani, a journalist, has many free hours to cook. Especially not the time-consuming Syrian dishes Roumani's mother taught her. The couple eat out a lot, or invoke the convenience of her George Foreman grill. When they do cook together, Mowafi usually wields the spatula. In class, their pace was leisurely, and their cod puffs among the last tapas to come up. But neither seemed in any rush.

Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, 2020 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-354-2020, or cambridgeculinary.com.