The Good Life Kitchen in Norwell holds couples' cooking classes. Here, Chef Bernard Kinsella shows chopping technique.

Good Life’s owner, chef Bernard Kinsella says having fun is the bottom line when picking up a knife and preparing a meal. Here, Kinsella talks technique with Greg Keefe and Donnalee Guerin.

“People get together in these classes, they cook together, laugh and have a good time,” said Kinsella, who ran two schools in Atlanta before opening his Norwell operation. “It’s just fun.”

With the proliferation of food shows on television, interest in home cooking has blossomed, Kinsella and others chefs said. Here, Greg Sullivan stirs risotto with Courtney Palek.

As many men as women are taking courses these days, according to Pamela Beaudet, who runs Cooking With Pamela classes from her Walpole home.

Many instructional chefs are teaching healthier food preparation, she said, a necessity in a nation plagued by obesity. Here, Tony Scola of Quincy dishes salmon over roasted vegetables.

In one of Kinsella’s recent classes — held in a brand-new, wide-open kitchen with two commercial gas stoves, an induction oven, and all manner of wonderfully sharp chefs knives — four couples took part. Here, Kinsella with student Valerie Riley of Quincy.

Three came as a group, and the fourth happened to know the others. They were greeted by Kinsella with an assortment of cheese, crackers, hummus and wine, and as the night progressed, all engaged in cooking vegetable and mushroom risotto, a soy-and-honey glazed salmon dish (pictured), and that earthy wine-poached pear dessert.

They did it under the guidance of the affable and animated Kinsella, who punctuated his lessons with the occasional “Boom!” much the way celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse uses “Bam!” only at a much lower volume. Here, Valerie Riley and Kevin Riley make red wine poached pears for dessert.

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