Education & Classes in Glenview

Many cooks would insist that a trusted recipe is the foundation of a good meal, but at Cooking Fools, it’s the first thing to go. Their cooking classes unshackle pupils from their cookbooks and encourage creativity in the kitchen. Their chefs exercise the same artistic license over the meals they assemble for catering, takeout, and cooking parties. Adhering to three main principles—quality ingredients, good style, and common sense—the staff crafts healthy versions of typical to-go food, decreasing saturated fats but never flavor. Many of their entrees radiate global inspiration, and are arranged in a modern, artistic way that doesn’t outshine flavors. In keeping with the contemporary theme, the servers who circulate the understated dishes at catered events are young, trendy, and rarely whip out their license to prove that they’re young and trendy.

With baskets full of hand-plucked, wild blueberries, Vincent Colombet and his cousins happily crammed into their Alsatian grandmother's tiny kitchen. In that quaint room, equipped with only a wood-burning cast-iron stove, Vincent learned over the years how to tuck berries into pies, prepare meats sourced from neighboring farms, and eventually produce elaborate meals for his entire family. 

Driven by his passion for French family-style cuisine, he traveled to Paris before a longing for experiences abroad tugged him across the pond and into the arms of the Windy City in 2004. The following year he opened Cook Au Vin, where he leads three-hour BYOB cooking classes centered around classic techniques and organic ingredients. Patrons may also enlist the Cook Au Vin team to cater special events, or swing by Colombet's Logan Square bakery, La Boulangerie, for butter-infused inhalations, freshly made crepes, and crusty baguettes.

At The ComedySportz Theatre, audience suggestions keep an all-ages, family-friendly and fast-paced vortex of scenes, games, and songs spinning in competitive shows that pit two improv teams against each other. Inside the intimate, 149-seat theater, spontaneity rules as a referee moderates the all-ages-appropriate hilarity pitched between the Chicago Bosses and The Evanston Express. At the end of each comedic duel, the points and audience votes are tallied to determine the winning team, sentencing the losers to feed the doves that live inside the winners’ top hats.

ComedySportz's seasoned instructors also host regular workshops to teach aspiring yuksters the art of improvised hilarity and the essential virtues of spontaneity, risk taking, and engagement with the moment. Through scene work, ComedySportz games, and short- and long-form improv, students learn to keep audiences roaring in order to jump-start a career or become a more affable bank robber.

Chicago Photography Academy hones photographic eyes and bulks up shutter-snapping fingers through a host of short-term and intensive classes geared to all skill levels. Students can gauge their education by personal interests and schedule, hunkering down for a one- or two-day crash course or leisurely learning during a six-hour compact-digital class that frees cameras from the yoke of automatic settings. Instructors impart a working knowledge of photo-editing software during lightroom classes, whereas introductory video sessions teach how to shoot realistic video of faked moon landings. Students can build the skills necessary to snap stunning wedding photos, or immerse themselves in the CPA's colorful curriculum with a one-year certificate program in photography, which combines all of the school's classes into one linear progression. Classes include all necessary supplies for printing images, and do not require shutterbugs to purchase additional lenses or retro fedora hats.

Sometimes finicky eaters can become fascinated by food when they have a hand in making it themselves. The Kids' Table's proprietor Elena Marre discovered this with her own sons when they started helping her prepare meals. Eventually she took this idea and created her own family cooking school geared toward children aged 2–16.

During classes, kids prep produce at tot-sized countertops and sinks. They whisk together ingredients with tools calibrated to their little hands as they learn to appreciate varied flavors and textures apart from “plain” and “unslimey.” Parents can get in on the action by working alongside their tots during classes or by signing up to learn how to make baby food, create family meals, or please picky eaters.

The squeegee-wielding band of artists and interns at Fugscreens Studios infuses shirts, posters, and wall prints with original artwork for clients including The Dead Weather, Corona Beer, and the Aragon Ballroom. Through screenprinting classes and workshops, founder Zissou Tasseff-Elenkoff and his team reveal essential skills for silk-screening. During intro classes, students receive individual attention as they transform their own designs into colorful prints. Textile-printing classes enable students to create repeated patterns on yards of fabric, and T-shirt-printing classes instill essential skills for crafting band or family-band-reunion-tour merchandise. During private lessons, students can pursue their own design visions and brush up on their software skills with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.