Course Work

Ellen Bick cooks dinner every night, just as she has for years. People tell her she's a decent cook -- good, even -- but lately she's been disappointed by virtually everything that has come out of her kitchen.

''I've been cooking for so long that it all tastes the same to me now," says the 57-year-old retired Brookline resident. ''I love spices; I love sauces; but for some reason I do the same things with them every time."

Bick isn't alone in her dilemma. Fortunately for her, and for a lot of other home cooks unwilling to throw in the culinary towel, some of Greater Boston's finest restaurants are stepping up to help. Many restaurants have opened their kitchens to the public for cooking classes, part of an effort to bring in new business as well as to help amateur chefs whip up some edible inspiration.

''A lot of students come in bored with their usual repertoire of recipes and are looking for the motivation to try something new," says Esti Parson, co-owner of Radius, a chic French restaurant in Boston's Financial District. Each year Radius offers a series of Saturday afternoon classes: For $125-$150 a class, participants get several hours with top Radius chefs; a chance to stir, chop, and sauté in the restaurant's state-of-the-art kitchen; and a delicious meal they can proudly tell friends they helped prepare. Each class has a theme, from braising to sauces to hors d'oeuvres. The next class at Radius, in keeping with the Valentine's season, will focus on creating a romantic dinner.

''Nobody is going to make [at home] everything we make here [in the classes], because they don't have an army of sous chefs in their kitchen," Parson says. ''But while it's probably not exactly the same when they make it at home, they leave here inspired and ready to be creative with their cooking again."

Also offering inspiration is the Elephant Walk, popular for its French-Cambodian combinations, which offers classes on Saturday afternoons, before the dinner rush. Chef Gerard Lopez leads French cooking classes at the restaurant's Cambridge location, and founders Longteine de Monteiro and Nadsa de Monteiro offer classes in Cambodian cooking at the Elephant Walk in Boston.

For $69 per class, participants don white aprons and spend three to four hours in the kitchen, helping to prepare elaborate, three- or four-course meals.

If you're going to expend a lot of effort on cooking, Lopez says, you might as well bone up on enough of the basics to make that effort pay off. ''It takes a long time to make a meal," he says. ''Why waste hours in the kitchen and then have the meal taste mediocre when it can be great?"

On a recent Saturday, Lopez leads a group of eight through the preparation of gingered-squash soup, leek-tied mushroom crepes, and seared duck breast with apple cider and onion confit.

Two hours into the class, as students dutifully labor over their creations, Lopez admits he has never made any of the recipes before.

''I just made them up the other day," he says. ''These classes help me expand my menu, because I try things out and then decide if I want to serve them."

As Lopez works, he peppers the class with a steady stream of advice. Always buy fresh vegetables, he says. Prepare your sauces a day ahead if you're short on time. And so on.

As the group muddles its way through the delicate art of flipping crepes, Lopez goads them on with tales from his hometown in the south of France.

''Come on!" he says. ''In France they do this on street corners."

Brookline resident Maya French, 36, gives the crepe-flip a shot, but it falls flat, folding onto itself. Lopez laughs and tells her that, when it comes to crepes, ''the first one is always for the chef."

The mother of two and a non-practicing attorney French said these days she's used to flipping foods of a different sort for her kids.

''[Learning to cook a French meal] is the kind of thing I usually see on the cooking channel, not in my own kitchen," she says. ''I'll take this over grilled-cheese any day."