Rouxbe Teaches Home Cooks How to Cook a Turkey and Orchestrate a Stress-Free Traditional

Nov. 9, 2009 - PRLog -- Vancouver, BC  -- Rouxbe offers home cooks Thanksgiving dinner ideas as well as step-by-step instructional videos on how to prepare the perfect Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Rouxbe's unique multi-task player shows how to successfully manage preparing eight dishes at once. The online cooking school also provides planning tools including nine tips on how to cook a turkey, planning check lists, jobs for kitchen helpers, live support team to answers any questions, plus a full range of Thanksgiving dinner recipes.

Vancouver, British Columbia - November 9, 2009 (PressReleasePoint) -- Rouxbe.com, the world's first-ever online cooking school, knows the fear that cooking Thanksgiving turkey dinner can strike in the hearts of home cooks. Expectations are high and the dishes are multiple, as are the questions: How to brine a turkey? How long to cook a turkey? How to carve a turkey?

This holiday season, Rouxbe ( http://www.Rouxbe.com ) is offering free online tools including Thanksgiving turkey tips, Thanksgiving dinner recipes, and step-by-step, high-definition instructional videos on how to cook a turkey. Rouxbe also leads home chefs through one of the hardest parts of any meal: how to manage multiple dishes all at once so that everything hits the table hot, delicious, and – most importantly – at the same time.

"Even the most graceful hosts and talented cooks struggle to properly time and serve an entire holiday meal to the table where the turkey isn't cold, the gravy hasn't developed a top-layer skin, or the whipped cream for the pumpkin pie isn't melting," said Chef Joe Girard, co-founder of Rouxbe. "The tools we've created show holiday entertainers how to orchestrate a delicious meal. Make Rouxbe a part of your Thanksgiving feast and you and your guests will see and taste the difference for yourselves."

Main Course: The Multi-task Player

At Rouxbe.com cooks will find a traditional Thanksgiving menu and recipes including: roast turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes for a crowd, traditional stuffing, garlic-prosciutto baked brussels sprouts, maple-roasted yams, Cassis cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie with maple whipped cream and spiced pumpkin cheesecake ( http://rouxbe.com/thanksgiving-dinner ). But that's where similarities to other online cooking websites end. With Rouxbe's unique multi-task player, cooks are led through each recipe via close-up, high-definition videos that are arranged chronologically: two to three days before, one day before, and T-Day (day of). The 'day of' video series is broken out into 17 detailed steps, providing a complete guide from the moment the cook puts the turkey into the oven, to the moment the complete meal is placed on the table. Not only do the cooks know exactly how to prepare each recipe but they are hand-held for three days so that they know when to start each step, systematically preparing each dish in a way that is virtually stress-free.

Second Helpings: Additional Preparation Tools

In addition to the multi-task tool, Rouxbe has cooked up a number of other helpful tools to make everything go flawlessly. The Daily Planner lists out exactly what needs to happen when, from one week to just one hour before the feast. It also comes with shopping, equipment and wine pairing lists.

Need a little extra help on the Big Day? Rouxbe chefs will be monitoring contact forms in real time to ensure that you won't go without help if panic sets in. Cooks simply need to go to http://rouxbe.com/contact to be connected to Rouxbe support.

Even with the best planning, the final hour before the meal is ready can be hectic, so cooks shouldn't be afraid to ask for help from their guests. Rouxbe's Helper List enables them to easily delegate a few key tasks: they can print it out and give each helper their list of things to do.

Indulge Year-round: The Rouxbe Cooking School

For anyone who wants to create holiday-worthy meals year-round, there's the Rouxbe Cooking School. The Rouxbe Cooking School features hundreds of cooking videos packaged in a top-quality, step-by-step format that makes learning to cook as easy as pie. Course lessons include everything from Knife Handling to Pasta to Eggs to Steaks and even how to make restaurant-quality Sauces, and include practice exercises, quizzes, and online discussions with other students. For the complete curriculum, visit http://www.rouxbe.com/school . The year-old school has won rave reviews and attracted students from more than 180 countries.

"I've been teaching people how to cook for 15 years and I can honestly say that the Rouxbe Cooking School can teach some concepts better than I can and in much less time," said Tony Minichiello, Rouxbe culinary instructor, co-owner of Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver and avid blogger. "Video, if well scripted and performed, is the tool of the future for any culinary learner."

Unlike other online cooking sites that focus on recipes, celebrity chefs and short technique videos, the school uses a two-pronged approach that is unparalleled in the online cooking world. It pairs excellent "how-to" content, which teaches skills and techniques necessary to drive cooking success, with unique "why-to" content, which helps students understand cooking fundamentals and frees them from following recipes.

When cooks simply follow a recipe step by step, they often don't understand why they are doing what they are doing. The result? Their success is hit and miss, and they end up with a single dish from one recipe. However, once at-home cooks start to understand the how's and why's of cooking, they can begin to apply this learning to successfully create countless other dishes.

The Rouxbe Cooking School doesn't just teach students how to cook; it empowers them to think for themselves in the kitchen and to create gourmet meals like a professional chef. Plus, Rouxbe students can learn on their own schedule in their own home in a quarter of the time it would take to complete a traditional culinary program, allowing busy home cooks to have their cake and eat it too.

While the recipe and technique videos are free, a monthly subscription to the complete Rouxbe Cooking School costs $15, an annual membership costs $99, and a premium lifetime membership costs $199. Rouxbe contributes 10 percent of all membership fees to Rouxbe for Life, which feeds hungry children in developing countries. To date, Rouxbe has fed more than 100,000 children.

To get a taste of the school and experience a free lesson, simply visit www.Rouxbe.com . Bon appetit!

About Rouxbe
Rouxbe.com (roo-bee) is the world's first-ever online cooking school for home cooks. Unlike many cooking sites that focus on celebrities, Rouxbe celebrates food by delivering close-up technique and skill instruction to aspiring at-home cooks seeking solutions that drive successful results each and every time. Created by two professional chefs, Joe Girard and Dawn Thomas, Rouxbe.com was launched in 2006. The Vancouver, B.C.-based company also offers its rich content through premium partners like HarperCollins Canada, Dean & DeLuca, and MetroKitchen.com. To see what's cooking at Rouxbe, visit http://www.Rouxbe.com.

Contact:
Deborah Pleva
Rouxbe
Vancouver, BC
Canada
503-250-4750
deb@rouxbe.com
http://www.rouxbe.com/