Yesterday I took a bread class at CulinAerie, the sort-of new cooking school near McPherson Square, and was totally impressed. And not just because TV stars like Top Chef's Carla Hall Lyons and our own Tim Carman teach there.

The founders of this place, Susans Holt and Watterson, did it right. They created classrooms that are for teaching, not showing off (see Sur La Table for evidence of the latter); the classes are hands-on instead of mostly demo; and, if my class is an indication, they've hired engaging, knowledgeable instructors who make you want to go home and cook your ass off, or in my case, knead it.

Cookbook author and lecturer Amy Riolo, who specializes in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking and food history, taught my class. About a dozen fellow food nerds and I (in two separate groups) made focaccia, simit (sesame bread rings that look like bagels), fougasse (Corsican olive bread), and semolina griddle bread. Three of them were total winners (the semolina bread, a bit bland, needed a bowl of beef stew to make the effort worth it). All in all, it was the best cooking class (of a whopping three) I've taken in my lifetime and I felt like a better yuppie for having spent my Sunday learning yeast is not the enemy.

Recipe after the jump.

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No matter how frustrated I get with the forced theatrics and contrived confrontations of Bravo's Top Chef, I always find myself curled up on the couch, watching the damn reality show. Some nights I hate myself for it. This season, though, we have a local contender gunning for Top Chef---Carla Hall, a Nashville native who now lives and works in D.C.

Starting on Wednesday, when Season 5 premieres, Hall will be competing against 16 other "cheftestants" (I did say that I sometimes hate myself for liking the show, right?) I'll be watching closely to see how far Hall goes. Will she make it all the way to the top? Or just far enough to create the kind of buzz that propelled Spike Mendelsohn into quasi-celebrity status and burger joint fame? I guess I'll be watching like everyone else to find out. 'Cause Hall can't say nothing about the show. Period. Can't even drop broad hints, like she wanted to claw Padma's eyes out after one episode.