by Laura Roach

Kathy Gallant, owner and chef of Blue Moon Market has declared her newest "by the light of the moon" cooking series to be all about the art of preparing soups. Every Tuesday night in the month of March, eager amateur cooks looking to learn to make scrumptious soups can attend classes at Blue Moon Market. The four classes, each taught by Kathy, will be hands-on and participants will go home each evening with the soup they made to share with their families.

Each class will highlight a specific kind of soup made from Blue Moon original recipes. The first class introduced the basics of soup-making: knife handling, ingredient basics, herbs, stock science and how to make chicken and rice soup. In the second class, Kathy will be instructing students on making a delicious minestrone soup. The third class will highlight the art of chili, and the final class will be all about chowder. The classes are $40 each or $125 for the whole series. The ingredients will be provided by Blue Moon but participants must bring their own soup pot and preparation knife.

Kathy Gallant is an experienced cooking instructor and has been running cooking series at Blue Moon for ten years on how to prepare vegetarian, raw and other cuisines. In the past she has merely demonstrated cooking techniques, but due to requests the soup series will be all hands-on. "I developed this series because people were struggling when they went home to try and implement what I had shown them in class. With the 'hands-on' approach I can guide students while they're cooking." The teaching method in this series demands smaller class sizes, so each class has a maximum capacity of ten students. Anyone interested in the series must register and pay in advance. Six participants are needed for the class to run.

Blue Moon Market is a Green Alliance business partner which promotes sustainability through a holistic approach to personal health. The Market has a café with a heavily vegetarian menu, an organic grocery and a yoga center. The Tuesday night soup series is one more contribution Kathy Gallant has made towards a healthier community. She will also be presenting “For the Love of Green” this weekend at the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) winter conference.

Below is the schedule for the “By the Light of the Moon” soup series

The Basics: March 2, 7-9pm

The Art of Minestrone: March 9, 7-9pm

For the Love of Chili: March 16, 7-9pm

Cheers for Chowder!: March 23, 7-9pm

For more information on Blue Moon visit http://www.bluemoonmarket.net

For more information on the Green Alliance visit http://www.greenalliance.biz/