Private lessons expand the home menu

Dana Volman watches as chef and teacher German Lam spices a basic tomato sauce. (Erik Jacobs for the Boston Globe)

WAYLAND - Dana Volman sets down her knife as she listens. Her eyes are closed for a moment, in a kind of culinary meditation.

"Imagine you're a dancer," begins German Lam, standing in chef's whites next to her. "You have to hear the music, hear the rhythm. If you think of this as a chore, it's going to show."

Lam is something of a personal trainer - for the kitchen. A former restaurant chef, he now brings his skills to the homes of the busy, the timid, and the curious. He helps them with knife skills and saute techniques, and with intangibles, including his philosophy: enjoying what you're doing.

Home cooking lessons are becoming more popular, as evidenced by personalities like Lam and Ellie Deaner, a Framingham-based cook whose services are often bought by newlyweds with a kitchen full of new gadgets and no idea how to use them. Lam's lessons, which he calls Glam Foods, start at $150, which includes instruction for up to three dishes (clients buy the food). Deaner's cost $250 for two hours. Some adult-education classes cost about $70, but they can also run well over $150 for an evening with a celebrity chef.

Volman, a recent client of Lam's, is an outgoing stay-at-home mother of two with a newly remodeled kitchen and a limited repertoire. She's done, she says, feeding her kids out of a jar.

And so, on a recent weekday afternoon while the kids are occupied elsewhere, Lam and Volman make marinara sauce, a curry sauce to use with other dishes, and chicken teriyaki.

On the phone before Lam came over, Volman chose the menu from suggestions he had offered. Volman told Lam she had a hard time coordinating the preparation of a meal and deciding which dishes to cook at which time to serve everything at once. She also wanted to learn some new sauces.

The first task is the marinara, for which Lam uses whole canned plum tomatoes from the volcanic soils around the Italian city of San Marzano, the sweetest available. They saute onions and garlic with dried basil and oregano, puree the tomatoes, and add them to the pot. Simmer. Done.

To this basic recipe, Lam suggests adding chicken stock, to turn the sauce into tomato soup, or vodka, to toss with linguine for guests. While he works, he doesn't offer measurements. He's more interested in teaching Volman what something should look like. He muses that she should sweep her hand over the pot to smell the sauce and train her senses.

Lam studied culinary arts at Newbury College. He was born in Santiago, Chile (his parents are Chinese), and raised in Boston. He has worked at the Harvard Club of Boston, Chatham Bars Inn, and the Charles Hotel.

Next, the chef and his student make curry, cooking chopped onion, ginger, garlic, and lemongrass before adding cumin, coriander, and curry powder. Wave hand, smell. They add chicken broth, let the mixture simmer for 15 minutes, then add coconut milk, and puree it. This is a sauce to toss with shrimp or spoon over vegetables.

Volman will often roast a whole chicken and serve it with a sauce that combines apricot jelly and French dressing. Sometimes, when she and her husband, Josef, are eating, after the kids have gone to bed, she'll prepare fish - usually swordfish or salmon - with a bit of mustard or curry powder rubbed on it before cooking.

So Lam isn't starting from scratch with Volman. She already has some cooking instincts.

Other clients turn to the chef when they're in a rut, as Charles Vandenbossche of Waltham did. At the end of their work day, Vandenbossche and his wife, Elena, want to slip into the kitchen and make an Asian-inspired meal. Lam taught them Thai spring rolls, which can be filled with chicken or shrimp, or, using the same ingredients, turned into a stir-fry. The couple has already booked a second lesson: miso soup and chicken lo mein.

"German is so patient and knowledgeable," says Vandenbossche. "And my kitchen never smelled so good."

Glam Foods, 617-999-3868, www.glamfoodsllc.com.