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In this week’s Nibbles, kids wield sharp knives, knead dough and bring home dinner from an after-school cooking class in Lafayette. Plus: News about new spots pairing sweaters and truffles, vintage jeans and margaritas, and arepas with gyros. And we have a fall chowder recipe using locally grown potatoes, sweet corn and onions.

Heading to the mountains for fall foliage? While you are leaf-peeping, check out signature eating spots in the hills, from the Gold Hill General Store & Pub to the Wondervu Cafe, in our roadside guide. 

— John Lehndorff

Rock your best ’80s look and join us at eTown Hall for an awesome night of ’80s hits with The Goonies, amazing food by Pasta Jay’s, a paddle raise, a silent auction and one high-voltage community coming together to party with a purpose: ending homelessness in Boulder County.

At 4:30 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon, class is in session at Gray’s Misen Place. Six kids ages 8 to 13 take their places at stainless steel tables in a Lafayette commissary kitchen. While the six students munch on a garlic bread snack, former Frasca Food and Wine cook Gray Tattershall talks them through the prep list, the recipes and what they will craft from scratch in the next two hours: focaccia pizza and chocolate chip cookies. His advice: “Have fun, be nice, don’t poke anyone in the eye.” 

They start by learning to cream sugar and butter for the cookies. “You should whisk until your arm hurts,” Tattershall says with a grin. The students are remarkably adept at cracking eggs into the bowl, but he teaches them how to retrieve shell pieces using another eggshell. Finally, they fold the flour, butter, eggs and chocolate chips together to keep the mix “nice and fluffy.” 

At Gray’s Misen Place, a student scrapes creamed sugar and butter into flour to make cookies. Credit: John Lehndorff

The kids have to clean up after themselves and wash their hands frequently, but school assistant Alicia Sidara bakes the cookies and deals with dirty dishes, including lots of spoons.  

Tattershall keeps a bin of about 100 teaspoons in the class kitchen. “I’ll say: ‘Let’s stop and taste the sauce.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s really gross!’ I’ll say: ‘Now we’re gonna add salt and taste and see what that does.’ I have a whole box of spices for them to try, too,” he says.

“I can’t tell you the number who say that their child is very picky about food. By the end of the class, their child is tasting everything including new-to-them vegetables. One parent emailed me wondering how I got their kid to eat zucchini. I just let them taste things as we progress.”  

For the past year, Gray’s Misen Place has offered four-week cooking classes for kids with a nice twist: The students go home after each class with dinner.

“They put the meal down and they walk everybody through how it was made. It’s the only extracurricular thing I can think of that provides something wonderful for the family, other than knowing who’s better at soccer,” Tattershall says. 

“The classes give them a sense of accomplishment and teach them to think about the ultimate purpose, which is serving others — their family and community.” 

The school’s name is a play on the French phrase mise en place, meaning “everything in its place.” In professional kitchens, it means organizing, preparing and cleaning your workspace so it’s easier and faster to cook. 

Without being too teacherly, Tattershall manages to work in lessons on math, measurement, time awareness, the science of fermentation, safety, learning from mistakes and the fact that food doesn’t come from a box. As the kids mix and knead the extremely wet focaccia dough with olive-oily hands, he asks: “What is gluten?” 

Easygoing but energetic, Tattershall was clearly born to educate as he engages the class on its own level. It’s like a Mr. Science show, except hands-on with yummy stuff. 

Students at Gray’s Misen Place apply muscle to mixing pizza dough. Credit: John Lehndorff

It makes sense when he talks about his day job. 

“I love what I do. I’m a para-educator at Sanchez Elementary,” he says, adding that he would love to teach full time.

Tattershall grew up in Lafayette and started cooking at The Gondolier in Boulder when he got tired of being a waiter. His real culinary education began when he worked at Pizzeria Locale (now Pizzeria Alberico) and later at Frasca Food and Wine. That’s where he first understood the serious attention to detail that fine dining required. “When my son was born, I started to get really burnt out. It’s kind of a terror, like you see in ‘The Bear’ [the FX series],” he says. 

Coming home to Lafayette, he cooked at a daycare center, taught adult cooking classes and worked as the executive chef at Community restaurant.  

“At Community, we were hiring mainly high schoolers — 16- to 19-year-olds that had never had a job, done prep or washed dishes before. I realized that my job was really education and I was teaching them all the first kitchen lessons,” Tattershall says.

“I really liked it. A lot of us don’t know how to cook and it stresses us out. Too often when the kids come into the kitchen, we say: ‘Get out of here, I’m cooking.’ It should be: ‘Come on in,’” Tattershall says.

The experience inspired the launch of Gray’s Misen Place. 

By 5:30 p.m., the pizza dough is oiled and stretched, and the kitchen is filling with the aroma of cookies and pizza sauce. Tattershall starts the sauce by sweating chopped onions with salt. “What is caramelization?” he asks as he shows students the pan. They add the canned chopped tomatoes as he notes: “Don’t let the tomato can slip through your greasy fingers.”

Then comes the moment guaranteed to cause any adult watching to cringe a little and hold their breath. Each student is handed a knife — not a plastic kids’ cutting tool, either. These are sharp steel knives that each child carefully uses to cut pizza toppings.

“Hide your fingers and curl your knuckles,” Tattershall says. When a knife tumbles to the floor, he reminds them: “Never catch a falling knife.” No blood is shed in the making of these pizzas. 

The students suggest that the worst pizza toppings are strawberries, pickled asparagus, hot peppers, mayonnaise and sardines. Most opt for bacon or sausage along with mushrooms and green peppers. One of the older girls seasons the sausage, and a surprising number of students add pineapple.

For the last day of each class series, the kids get to decide collectively what they will cook. The classmates loudly debate what they want to make, ranging from sushi and chicken with waffles to green chile and pasta. They settle on barbecue ribs and twice-baked potatoes. They nix anything involving broccoli. 

By 6:24 p.m., the topped pies are wrapped in plastic and accompanied by bags of big cookies. A few kids suggest with a sly grin that they have extra siblings in order to grab an extra chocolate chip cookie. 

Kids add sausage, bell pepper and pepperoni to their focaccia pizzas – black olives and anchovies, not so much. Credit: John Lehndorff

“I want to bump into you guys in 10 years and hear you say: ‘I remember when you taught me to make pizza. I make it much better now,’” Tattershall says.

At 6:30 p.m., the parents start arriving and smile when they see the kids carrying dinner. 

The demand for these classes has only increased, according to Tattershall, but kitchen time at the school’s current location is limited because so many caterers are working out of the space.

“I’m looking for another kitchen to call home. I’d like to find a place where I could expand the classes and do winter break and fall break sessions. A lot of adults have asked if they can take a basic kitchen skills class, too. That’s really the next dream.”

Find upcoming classes and register at Gray’s Misen Place.

More Boulder cooking classes for kids

Boulder’s Food Lab hosts cooking classes and camps including a Kids Fall Baking Workshop.

Sur La Table at Twenty Ninth Street Mall offers workshops for kids including the Boulder Tiny Taste Makers: Pinwheel Party for children ages 2 to 4. 

Many older kids and teens can also take classes with adults at Food Lab, at Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, and at Piece, Love and Chocolate. 

The Boulder Valley School District offers food classes for students at Boulder High School and at Fairview High School. 

New spots pair sweaters and truffles, jeans and margaritas, and arepas and gyros

New Mexico-based Chocolate and Cashmere has opened a shop at 947 Pearl St. selling chocolate truffles and cashmere clothing. 

Drifters Thrift Bar has opened at 624 Main St. in Longmont, offering vintage clothing, $10 cocktails and live music. 

Tayrona is open at 956 W. Cherry St. in Louisville, serving Latin and Mediterranean dishes, including Cuban sandwiches and lamb shawarma gyros. 

Applefest celebrates harvest season; Denver Bake Fest seeks bakers

The Community Fruit Rescue Applefest, from 3 to 6 p.m. Sept. 27 at Boulder’s Benevolence Orchard & Gardens, includes music, fresh cider pressing and an apple-themed potluck. Register here. 

Got an apple, pear or plum tree or a grapevine at home that needs harvesting? Community Fruit Rescue harvests and donates the fruit to local food banks and animal sanctuaries. Harvesting helps keep local black bears safe. Contact CFR here. 

Organizers of the Oct. 3 Denver Bake Fest say that bakers from Louisville, Lafayette, Boulder and Longmont have already signed up to compete in six categories: focaccia, layer cake, two-bite treats, citrus, biscuits and lamination. Bakers must register by Sept. 27.

Still got apples, pears and plums on your trees? Community Fruit Rescue volunteers will pick them, share the fruit with food banks, and help protect hungry bears. Credit: Community Fruit Rescue

Chilly fall evenings call for corn and potato chowder

Hearty and soothing chowder is made for chilly fall evenings. This week’s recipe from the Boulder County Farmers Markets features locally grown potatoes, sweet corn, onions and thyme. Get the recipe here.

Use freshly harvested new potatoes and corn straight off the cob in this hearty Potato Corn Chowder. Credit: Boulder County Farmers Markets

“A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that’s when cuisine is truly exciting.” — Chef Charlie Trotter

Want more Boulder bites?

Boulder’s new Temaki Joint pairs affordable sushi hand rolls with high-end omakase

After more than two decades in Denver-area kitchens, chef Duy Pham has brought his French training and Japanese influences to a new Baseline Road restaurant. Continue reading…

Check out recent editions of Nibbles:

🥂 Michelin Guide adds Casa Juani to Boulder’s all-star restaurant roster

🥕 Lafayette’s food scene has a new Sunday ritual

🍕 Longmont stakes a claim as Colorado’s pizza capital


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John Lehndorff is Boulder Reporting Lab’s food editor. A Massachusetts native, he has lived in Boulder since 1976 and has written about food and culture here for nearly five decades. His Nibbles column has run since 1985, and he also serves as Food Editor of Colorado Avid Golfer magazine and Exhibit Historian for the Museum of Boulder’s upcoming Boulder Eats exhibit. A former restaurant cook, caterer and cooking teacher, he has been Food and Features Editor of the Daily Camera, Senior Editor at the Aurora Sentinel, and Dining Critic for the Rocky Mountain News. His writing has appeared in Westword, Yellow Scene, the Washington Post and USA Today. Nationally recognized as a pie expert, he is the former Executive Director of the American Pie Council and longtime Chief Judge at the National Pie Championships. He has hosted Radio Nibbles on KGNU-FM for more than 30 years and co-hosts Kitchen Table Talk.