Third Space was the perfect venue for our bachelorette party activity. The cooking class was…read morefast-paced and interesting, the food was delicious, and the atmosphere--with music, BYOB & time to socialize--was super enjoyable!

We hosted a pasta making birthday party at this spacious and updated space. The kids had a great…read moretime making the fettuccine from scratch and decorating the birthday cupcakes. At the end, they sat down to eat together and enjoyed their creations. The chef instructor was wonderful too!

You know how there can be a huge disconnect between what you ThinK you know, and what you really…read moreknow? Pick-up lines, working out, fashion (white sneakers do NOT go well with black jeans), marriage, cars, smartphones, laundry........ quite a sobering and humbling experience when you realize you're not a Sheen Goddess. For me, apparently, cooking is yet another one of my non-talents. A group of us attended Savory Green U last night to delve head-first into the secrets of non-phone-order fine dining. How to clean mushrooms, how to properly saute onions (DEFinately was doing that one wrong for 20 years..), how to zest a lemon, and use ramekins in setting up the 'mis en place'......... Admit it, I sound sexy now, no? Taught by Tracy Stamos (who may or may not be related to John Stamos), we learned about the long term and meaningful benefits of organic food, non-processed ingredients, and most importantly, efficient process in prepping and cooking. What makes SGU a bit different from other culinary classes is that Tracy takes a meaningful 'green' approach to teaching and cooking. Applying her Harvard degree in Environmental Sustainability, on top of her two education degrees, and combining it with food science and art from the Cambridge Culinary Institute, Tracy has created a niche in.... ............ "Sustainable Yum Yum". Teaching out of a brand new, commercial-grade kitchen in her home, SGU comes complete with a huge kitchen packed with Star Wars grade shiny pots, pans, weapons, and trinkets. After cooking is complete, students transfer to the extremely comfortable and classy dining room to feast on the completed food art under gorgeous chandelier lighting. Need a breather? You can sprawl out on one of the uber comfy couches in the attached living room, and bask in your newly acquired Jedi food tricks to woo your future romance. There is no intimidation factor here for first-timers, as Tracy's attentiveness immediately puts to ease any anxieties you may have. Highly recommend it! PS - she caters too!

I hardly ever get to connect with anyone any more. I think the closest I've gotten to meaningful…read morehuman interaction lately outside my home was when I flipped a guy the bird this morning when he cut me off on route one. Everyone has their face pushed up into their smart phones, iPods, lap tops and even when they're not, it seems they would rather look at their own scuffed shoes then say hi to someone. Tony invited me to cook with Tracy Stamos and friends at Savory Green. I love to cook. I cook all the time. I figured an opportunity to get out, learn a new recipe or two and see friends would be fun. There were 9 of us plus Tracy and her assistant. We were given the nights menu and tasks were divided up among us. We were given the task of creating the pork loin dish. It was an Herbed Coated Pork Tenderloin with ingredients like fresh parsley, mint, sage and dates. Yes she had an herb garden growing right on the table. Tracy's forte is sustainable cooking. Oh, and this is a state of the art kitchen. It was freaking awesome. I loved having knives that Freddy Krueger would be jealous of and two ovens as well as tons of cooking stuff...... There's something great about getting your hands right into food and making it yourself. The smells, tasting it as you begin to pull it together, cutting, marinating, mixing, basting, ... It's primal. It's also fun. BUT the thing I was getting at which made this so amazing, was the communal feeling of being with a group, working together to create something, having real interesting conversation and enjoying the fruits of our labors together. Quality time. That's what this was. Too often we go out to bars and drink ourselves stupid. We scream to be heard above the roar of crappy music and go home feeling like we might as well have skipped the whole night. This was the opposite of that. I got to enjoy delicious food. I got to enjoy good people. We ate in a beautiful living room with wine and the food WE cooked and continued our conversation and YES I was the life of the party but that isn't the point. The point is we all connected. I left full with a doggy bag wanting to hug people again. I didn't....but that's why I need to go back. We need to put down our phones and look around. We all need to experience things sometimes. Smell the sage, goat cheese and mint that's out there. Taste new things and experience things out of our comfort zones sometimes as well as hear what people have to say as we really listen to them. I loved this night. I would go back again and share this experience with others. And I will. Special Thanks to Tony and Tracy.

I love sushi. I love cruises. So when I saw a Gilt offer for a sushi-making harbor cruise, I…read morethought, "Wow. Dreams really do come true." Unfortunately this dream ended up being mediocre at best. Gilt advertised the event with photos of delicious-looking, hand-crafted rolls in a classy, nautical setting. In reality, we were all on the warm, crowded bottom-most deck of a booze cruise. After the demonstration by Sea To You (which was a bit difficult to understand because of the chef's microphone and accent), we were handed boxes containing overly-sticky rice, seaweed, a stick of imitation crabmeat, and shredded carrots and told to go for it. But wait! Don't get too crazy! We're not allowed to eat the sushi we make. What?! I could already imagine the conversation I was going to have with my coworkers the next day when they asked me about the cruise (which I, of course, was gushing excitedly about during work). "So how did your sushi turn out?" "Well I don't know how it tasted... but it looked pretty good." I obviously wasn't going to let that happen, so my friends and I snuck in bites despite the company's warnings. It didn't taste great.. the rice was way too sticky, and there just wasn't much else to it. But we had to do it. And I'm still here to tell the tale. The company obviously realized that they couldn't have us make sushi without eating some (and for $35, I sure hope some food is included!), so they brought prepared boxes of salmon, tuna, and avocado rolls. These rolls were extremely simple and did not taste very fresh. There was too much rice, and it was also hard and refrigerator-cold (I don't know why this company has so many rice troubles). We were still pretty hungry afterward (which is also part of the reason we ate the ones we made). Afterward, we went up to the top deck of the Provincetown II and has a fantastic time drinking and dancing. The sushi portion just didn't make much sense with the setting and could have happened anywhere. In the future, I'll just go on the cruise sans sushi. And if I ever sign up for another sushi class, I'll make sure to inquire if we actually get to eat what we make. Who would've thought this is a question someone would need to ask?

Sea to You is located on a quiet corner off of the busy Route 9. 2 hour free parking is a pleasant…read moretreat - no feeding of meters are always a plus! When you enter, you are greeted by a glass case of fresh raw fish in front of you and freezers of ingredients such as BBQ smoked eel $9 for a pack ($7 per pack for 2 or more) and Tamago (sweet egg) $14/$12. If you like, you can also get a bottle of eel sauce for $4.99. Walk in and by the cash register just beyond the serve yourself bar with sea weed salad, various sizes of fish eggs, and what not there is a menu binder. Turns out some items can only be ordered in advance online and en mass ($20 minimum?) like the bento boxes. The roll menu is pretty small, so I ended up ordering the sole two cooked rolls they had - Dragon Roll $12.95 which is basically California roll topped with a slice of eel apiece, and shrimp tempura roll $8.95 made with pre-fried battered shrimp. Service here was friendly, but a little tough to understand. I saw my rolls being made before my eyes, but oddly enough, upon consuming them, they reminded me of supermarket sushi with less moist rice. (I'm under the impression that supermarkets over vinegar the rice to keep it from drying out during the holding period.) They were okay, but not especially good.

I went with three other people and we were looking forward to learning some cooking techniques that…read morewere pertinent to Syrian cuisine. Really? The class was advertised as a three hour class that where you would get "hands-on cooking techniques (like knife skills)". please. that took less than 5 minutes to observe, since only 2 people got to use a knife. I was not as surprised as the others were, since I read the reviews just before we left. The reviews are as people have said. "Buyer Beware!" The biggest issue I have is the misrepresentation of this class. The class was about an 1 1/2 hours and most of it was filled with rhetoric, as poetic as it was, in lieu of hands on experience. The food was tasty, however, the meal should have been more comprehensive along with the instruction.

I took Mr. Yasin's "class" last summer after purchasing it from groupon. Although it was quite some…read moretime ago, i feel compelled to post this now as I see he has listed his classes with living social. Buyer beware. Following are excerpts from the email I sent Mr. Yasin on 7/13/11 after taking his class: "My two friends and I were incredibly disappointed with your class we attended last evening. It was nothing like the description on groupon nor your website and, frankly, we feel scammed and ripped off. As the others went outside, I specifically asked you if there wasn't supposed to be more to this class than a recipe for a marinade and hummus. You said the classes varied and we were getting "an incredible value" and sometimes the classes included salads and sometimes it was hummus. Please correct me if I am mistaken, but I think the only reason you even served the salad was because of my comment as it was not mentioned before. It seemed as though you had intended it for your later dinner with your wife and company you told us about. And, when asked about the recipe for the salad dressing, we were told "that is another class." (along with the recipe for the pomegranate item that another student asked about three times) According to your website, this is the evening (3-4 hours) we thought we would experience: "We'll prepare and feast on colorful and nutritious salads, appetizers, an exotic dinner and desserts. Ahmad will discuss Arab food history and how to use the wonderful spices and herbs in Arab and Syrian dishes." The class we attended fell FAR short. Hummus and a marinade for salmon does not match that description. And when I came home and realized that you had sold more than 500 of these classes on groupon, I was appalled. Is there a reason this was at your home instead of the professional kitchen described on your website? Both groupon and your website say your classes are 3-4 hours. Tonight we were brought inside to your kitchen at 6:25 p.m. and were finished (after the garden "Tour" and getting in our car by 7:45 p.m. I think we spent more time talking to the other attendees outside on the porch than learning anything in a "cooking class." Perhaps you were trying to rush us through so you could have your dinner after, perhaps not. I expected the promise of learning new cooking methods, sampling a delicious array of foods and spices. A marinade of garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, cummin and pepper is not anything special. The fish was nicely cooked, however you did that separately and we were not included. I recognize that you have groupons commission to consider when deciding to promote through them, but no matter the deal you make for the advertising, you should fulfill the promise of the class for the people who purchased. And, you did not. Not only did I not think this was anywhere near the $85 value promised, based on what was provided I don't think it was even worth the $42 I paid for it. I (and my friends) will be contacting groupon for a refund with a full explanation of why we are doing that. Perhaps you could let me know if for some reason you were "off your game" last night. We expected a professional class in a professional kitchen and instead had a quick demo in a private house. Is there a reason we did not "prepare and feast on colorful and nutritious salads, appetizers, an exotic dinner and desserts?" Otherwise, I think I just consider this deceptive and false advertising." AND, this is the response I received: "The description you have read is for classes that cost $85.00/person and last 4 hours with four meals. I have conducted 300-400 groupon classes and sincerely got back very positive comments and emails. However yours is the first one! For $22/class you can't expect much to be offered. Pomegranate was not on the agenda and I (sic) will not give out information irrelevant to the class. No one should expect to learn so much about a cuisine in one session and paying so little. Cooking classes with so much information and dinning afterward may cost hundreds of $$. I do not know how much you cook but it takes hours to prepare a class such as the other night from the time you shop to finish cleaning up etc etc. I have gone to Sushi classes and others. The conductors who taught were not professionals, the food was not edible, the place is filthy..... " Obviously, although he advertises his classes as "an $85 value," he has no intention of providing and $85 value. For the record, we did contact groupon with our complaint and received a refund.

Cheryl and Tracey are amazing. I went tonight with my family and we had the best time. My niece has…read morean egg allergy so they went out of their way to make sure our salad dressing was egg free and they had a separate egg free gnocchi recipe just for her! We all had so much fun learning the new recipes and eating all the food!! I highly recommend for a girls night or family night!

Clean, organized, engaging, fun, educational and memorable are all just a few of the positive words…read morethat come to mind when reflecting on the experience I had with my two children under 5 at Mixitup-Kitchen! Ms. Farhat has the patience of a saint and an incredibly warm and nurturing approach to working with the children. We enjoyed making apple crisp in the first of a series of classes focused on the ABC's which included preparing and mixing ingredients, sampling different kinds of apples and charting individual taste preferences, using crayons to draw their favorite apple on a copy of the recipe to take home and finally story time with a book that tied into the theme while waiting for the apple crisp to bake. The children were all kindly asked to wash their hands prior to handling any ingredients and were kept incredibly safe with activities designed to keep them away from the oven and used kid friendly kitchen tools in preparation of ingredients. I highly recommend registering your child for an upcoming cooking adventure at Mixitup-Kitchen and bring the joy of cooking to your children!

I took my first-ever pottery wheel lesson at Thrown Ceramics and had the BEST time! Diana was an…read moreincredible instructor - patient, encouraging, relaxed, and great at breaking down the steps so even a total beginner like me could actually make something on the wheel. She explained the process and steps so well (and without anything feeling overwhelming) that I instantly knew I'd found my newest hobby! Thanks to Diana's lesson I was able to make a mug and I'm so proud that I made anything at all, let alone a mug (which I've used everyday now)! The studio is absolutely gorgeous so charming - it has such a calm, welcoming vibe. Mike and Diana are so welcoming and approachable, and have clearly created a space that makes you feel comfortable the moment you walk in and it feels like the kind of place where you immediately want to stay and keep creating. They also have an incredible selection of glazes, tools, and beautiful handmade pieces and gifts in the shop. Mike and Diana were so kind and knowledgeable as I asked millions of questions on what the different tools were used for, it's really cool that they have such a variety. AND they're right across from the Waban T stop which I love. I walked in excited to just try out something new but left completely hooked on ceramics. I can't wait to go back for more lessons!

Loved ticking off a bucket list item by learning ceramics from Diana from Thrown - a patient and…read moregifted teacher & wonderful human. I made this bowl for my wife for Mother's Day & filled it with home-baked scones. The personal lesson was great and it was given lots of opportunity to try new things and develop a technique. A great thing to do in Waban - especially wedged between some Stone L'Oven pizza or for parents looking to be busy while their kids are in the Karate studio next door. I'll definitely be back. Top notch experience!

Great food and…read more great service This is a review of a Holiday party for the New England Scientific Manufactures Association that was held at the Culinary Center at Gordon's. I'm not much for fancy type parties but I have to admit this was an impressive display of culinary talents. Chiefs Paul Turano and Anne Moynihan kept my unsophisticated palette entertained by such delicious, delicate and delightful creations like Mionetto Prosecco, wild mushroom and goat cheese tart, braised escarole and pumpkin bread pudding. At the end warm apple crostata and butter pecan ice cream filled up any remaining space in my cavernous gizzard. Some truly incredible food. In between courses different wines were passed and and discussed. Since I know virtually nothing about wine it was a fascinating and mesmerizing experience. I never applied such adjectives as zingy, fruity, silky, toasty, or round to booze before. The food was prepared on a table right in front of the audience and servers and chefs were personable, funny, entertaining and just as nice as can be. I learned that there is more to food and booze than just seeing how fast you can shove in down your throat. It hard to imagine a place to hold an event better than Gordon's Culinary Center. Oh yeah, they also sell a lot of cool booze in the store on the other side.

I had to make a special page for the Culinary Center @ Gordon's because of all of the amazing…read moreevents they throw, that are totally different from the simple booze shopping expereince. Sommelier Smackdown, once a Yelp event and now a monthly happening is just about the coolest event out there! Think of it like a "dinner and theater date" only, your theater is standing in front of you joking away as they cook your meal and battle to pick the best wine! $65 bucks gets you a four course meal, cooked right in front of you by Chefs Louie and Ian of Sel De la Ter and pours of 8 different wines, picked by well known Sommelier's around town! The Sommelier's battle to pair the best wine with each course as you are entertained by cooking jokes and quips like "Chuck Noris can smell what the rock is cooking, because the rock is his person chef" that fly through the air right next to wine knowledge and cooking tips! I must admit, I love it so much, I have been going to the last 3 months straight and plan of being a pretty permanent fixture! If you are really into wine, and wine makers, make sure to check out the calendar of other events and lots of well known wine makers come through Gordon's for tastings. Hope to see you at the next SMACK DOWN!

Great teachers, great environment, a wonderful place to learn. Recommend 10/10!! Best art classes…read moreI've taken in Boston

Amazing Delicious Thank you Great service Tuesday offer…read moreis great too Recommended