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To cook with ease, to dance with the seasonal offerings year-round whether you have a garden or shop the local markets, to let go of perfection, and find enjoyment both in the creating (which truly can be quite simple) as well as the eating. I am so excited to be able to make available to you a new video course that teaches you how to experience all of this.
I began tinkering in the kitchen with the help of my mother who is a wonderful baker and cook when I made my first lemon meringue pie. Tart au citron or lemon meringue, whichever form it takes, continues to be a trusted favorite for dessert in my book. The exploration continued as I LOVE delicious food, and was determined to learn how to make it for myself as I often had a small budget being a public school teacher, and the kitchen became a place to feed myself well.
Fast forward to studying in France when I was 21 back in 2000, and I discovered why the French are known for delicious everyday fare, as we enjoyed three or four-course meals both for lunch and dinner everyday while at school in Angers. The neophyte foodie purchased and packed French cheese to bring home on the long flight, and needless to say, I was a stinky arrival when I stepped foot back in Portland, Oregon, picked up by my parents. Happy to be home, as it was my first solo-excursion, but carrying with me scrumptious memories of the food!
The years rolled by, and eventually I returned to France in 2012, again enjoying classic, yet everyday dishes that tickled my tastebuds. Gradually, now over the past seven opportunities to visit France, having taken French cooking classes in Provence with Patricia Wells, Susan Hermann Loomis in Louviers, Normandy, as well as in Portland, Oregon, and then just recently enrolling in Le Cordon Bleu Paris’s short courses to learn the fundamentals of sauce creation, the kitchen is a place of great enjoyment for me.
While yes, I do occasionally have dinner parties with friends, it is the everyday cooking and occasional baking that I love. I don’t spent a lot of time during each instance I am in the kitchen, but I regularly enjoy making all three meals during a day for myself. Most of the time without a cookbook, and always with the help of my trusted tools, a well-stocked épicerie/pantry and seasonal produce to keep my palette satiated and my body and mind healthy, yet satisfied, my kitchen is a happy place to be, a place of nourishment that elevates the rest of my life as I go about living and doing where my work and interests take me.
In this new video course, I want to show you how you too can do this. It is possible, and especially if you are cooking for yourself, you deserve to care for yourself well. And if you live with multiple family members and/or a partner, finding a rhythm of cooking where everyone can discover both the ease and delight of creating meals and treats they love, this course will provide the skills to explore and find the joy in creation for everyone.
Throughout the 11 Lesson-course, you will progress through the building blocks of knowledge, first, ensuring you have the best tools, but not excessively so (sharing which to invest in and which there is no need). Then stocking your épicerie/pantry for year-round support to make whatever you crave or need to make the seasonal menu you choose. Next, we begin with what is at the heart of delicious French fare year-round – vegetables. Yep! The French do not subjugate les legumes to a lesser-than on the plate, and in fact, it is often the only thing on the plate and it is delicious always!
Gradually, as you move through the course, different skills will be repeated as a reminder of how everything dances with each other, and once we have covered proteins and how to add flavor, we step into the sweet side of life as only the French know how to do so deliciously and beautifully well.
Again, all of what is taught is for everyday enjoyment. We leave the fancy, artistry food and dishes to the cookbooks and the true chefs to teach you should you be interested in continuing your cooking and baking journey after learning these essential skills.
Shared below is the overview of the 11 lessons, but as you will note, one is missing! Once you enroll, you will discover what that lesson is, but I assure you it is a daily item to savor that you will never feel guilty about. Tucked throughout the course are ‘easter eggs’ sharing details about the French food culture, and many different photos and videos of my trips to France – the markets, the food, etc.
(1) Kitchen Essentials for Success
(2) Cooking with the Seasons
(3) Vegetable Sides as Decadent as a Sauce
(4) Cooking with Seafood
(5) How to Add Flavor to All Dishes (veg, starches, etc.), including other Proteins
(6) Cooking with Eggs
(7) Cooking with Sauces (How to Keep it Simple)
(8) Vinaigrette (how to make your own salad dressing every time)
(9) Baking Classic Pastries
(10) Classic Simple Desserts
(conclusion) How to “Dance” in the Kitchen and Enjoy Cooking!
At the End of Each Lesson: To conclude each of the 11 lessons, I will be offering a challenge for you to complete before you move on to the next. This is completely optional, and nobody is checking your work. 🙂 But I wanted to make this opportunity available to you as a way of gradually building your confidence because we only grow in the ease we seek through hands-on experience.
Let’s take a look at the trailer for the course
Now to the free gift from France for the first 20 who enroll on Sunday August 24th!
I am delighted to share with you that Filt’s classic net shopping bags, the large net design with short handles in the color Scout, will be shipped around the world for free to whomever those lucky 20 enrollees are. Have a look at the bags below as modeled in my kitchen at Le Papillon. They are sturdy bags, and easy to store when not in use as they can be tucked away into a pocket or inside your market tote.
This free gift from France is available to everyone (members or non-members), and is open to all students wherever you may live in our grand world. You simply need to be one of the first 20 people to enroll on Sunday August 24, 2025.
The Price and a Limited-Time Discount!
We launch this course just as La Rentrée is about to begin. A time of the year when we look ahead into a new work and school schedule, following a few weeks or months of les vacances. Choosing this time of year to launch the course was decided for two reasons – it concludes the 10th Annual French Week (peruse all 21 posts shared during the week here) AND there is time to take and complete the course before September arrives should that be your goal.
With 15 hours of video content, I project it will take students about two or three weeks to complete it with steady progress. Based on the length of the course, the price is $95 (regular), BUT if you are an Active TOP Tier Member, you will find the special promo code in August’s A Cuppa Moments that when you apply it at checkout, will save you 20% off. Just make sure you purchase the course within the first month of its launch. So, the discount is only available for use from August 24th until September 24th.
Because this is a self-paced course, and yours for life, you can start taking the course whenever it best suits your schedule. And any updates or additions to the course, are yours as well for free.
Enrollment begins on Sunday August 24th at 11am Pacific time, and you will visit the Online Courses/Classes page on the blog to enroll.
Be sure to check out the FAQs page for the course here if there are any questions you have.
I look forward to sharing with you the joy I have discovered that most definitely elevates my everydays, and I know it will yours as well. Bon courage !
Explore all of the Posts Shared during TSLL’s 10th French Week
So looking forward to this!
I do hope you enjoy Cathy! 🙂
I am really looking forward to this cooking class even though I have been cooking for 56 years!
My hubby will probably be watching along with me as we enjoy cooking together, and I know he will benefit adding new skills to his repertoire. Merci beaucoup Shannon! xx
Karen, I love that you are looking forward to the course 🙂 and I have a feeling you both will be cooking together and enjoying exploring these simple ideas that are full of flavor – the delight in tasting and exploring – the adventures in the kitchen only ask us to experiment, taste and then discover!
Just yesterday I was reminded how with my many blackberries in the garden at the moment that pairing them with apples is a fantastic combo. Great exercise for the brain, much like a puzzle, and I will give some tips and definitely resources so you can expand this pairing skill to dance with what you have available to you!
Fantastique! I’m looking forward to it!
Linda,
Thank you for all of your engagement during French Week last week. I sincerely appreciate your time and effort and especially interest. 🙂 I do hope you enjoy the course!
I’m so excited to take this class. I love cooking but since I’ve been on my own, I’ve lost the joy or something of cooking and I end up eating not so delicious or nutritious
meals. Reading your description of the class made me go find a pretty apron as I prepare my dinner tonight! Wait til I take the class😀
Phyllis,
Thank you for sharing your inspiration for being curious about the course. I know you are not alone, and it will be something I talk about indirectly throughout the course – knowing how to make the cooking and baking enjoyable lies in not making it complicated because our life is full! And even if we have time sometimes, standing in the kitchen for hours is not most people’s definition of fun, but we want the food that can be created in the kitchen, and I will be sure to share dependably delicious approaches so the latter can be achieved, and time can be saved.
I love that you purchased a new apron for the occasion! Your intention to follow your curiosity into this course makes me smile and it is my objective to make sure you find the course to be helpful and enjoyable. Allons-y !
I too love to “dance in the kitchen” and either I or my husband cook every night. But there is always room to learn new techniques and skills, or polish old ones, and I am so looking forward to your cooking class! Merci bien, Shannon! xx
May you enjoy the course and find something new to sprinkle into your cooking and baking! Thank you for your interest. 🙂
I have been on board since you first announced this course. One thing I know is that you are an excellent teacher, Shannon. With each cooking program in the past, you energized me. Like many, I have been cooking a long time, but I am constantly studying cookbooks; there is always more to learn and still peruse my hard-bound Gourmet annuals. A passion of mine, I sure do miss that magazine. My spatulas and grater are all lined up and ready to go, see you then. *** little aside, I recently took two online courses, each one was two hours in length. One was on sous vide cooking, the other on preserving vegetables by pickling. Each one costs more than this entire course. There were other issues, but the lady who was presenting the information was trying very hard to help us adopt these methods. I guess my point here is that we already have a comparison with the many no-cost shows Shannon has already given us, so we can rest assured that this one will not disappoint.
Lucy, I totally agree, I trust Shannon’s teaching skills implicitly and have so enjoyed The Simply Luxurious Kitchen for many years now, one reason alone to sign up for her class. Ah Gourmet magazine was one of my favorites as well. I still have, and enjoy immensely, subscriptions to both Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country. And so now–Spatulas Up, can’t wait!
I love it, Spatula’s Up!!!
Yes spatulas up! Lol!
Karen, we have a theme!!
😄
Haha! Our mantra as we dance in the kitchen. 😂
Thank you for your comment Lucy. 🙂 Your enthusiasm these past few months has been a delight to read in your comments and on IG. Thank you, thank you, merci, merci! 🙂
As I mentioned before, I know you are a well-seasoned cook and baker (no pun intended), so I know you will be savvy to some of what will be shared. I do hope you find new ideas and additions that will elevate your cooking and baking even further. While excerpts from many past cooking show segments will be included in this course to support the lessons taught, my objective is to put them in an approachable chronological order so that when trying to learn a particular skill, you now have a bevy of skills along with suggested recipes to consider when you explore cooking any particular area of food – seafood, veg, other proteins, etc.
Thank you for sharing your confidence in my teaching skills, and you are most definitely right – the approach in presenting the course will be exactly like the cooking show over the past seven years that you have become accustomed to, so no surprises there. If you enjoyed that style, then you are in for 15 hours of cooking class exploration and fun! 🙂
Thank you so much for your comment and I apologize for the delay in my response. 🙂 One day to go!
I am looking forward to this!
I do hope you enjoy and find it helpful in everyday cooking and baking for deliciousness and ease!
Shannon I have been so looking forward to this. I am hoping other members will share their journey and maybe some of us can even do some zoom cooking or dining after trying your recipes! This is just delightful, as always, thank you for bringing this textured content to us.
Rebecca,
Thank you for sharing your interest in the course! Within the course, students will discover an opportunity to share photos of their creations as well as moments that made them smile or they enjoyed. Explore how to do this in your Curriculum Dashboard following enrollment. 🙂
Thank you for your kind words and one more day to go!
I have fallen into a cooking rut, and this course looks like a fun way out!
It also occurred to me that this course would make a nice gift to my daughter.
Is it possible to gift this course?
Cannon, My apologies in being delayed to respond to your question. I know that we have now communicated by email, but I will answer again here in case others are curious – you absolutely can gift this course, even though it will be the same process as purchasing for yourself. Just make sure that you are not logged with your membership and purchase as a visitor (so to speak), then it will not be associated with your account and you can forward the details on to your recipient for them to login (be sure to create a Username for them as that is the only detail that cannot change following purchase – they can change their email and Display Name).
Let me know if you have any other questions. I am delighted to know you are interested in the course and I do think you will both find it fun to watch and immensely helpful with oodles of approachable ideas for wonderful flavor and ease of cooking and baking. 🙂
I, also, am so excited for Shannon’s class to begin! I agree with the comment above that she is a great teacher! It will be fun!
Tickled you are looking forward to the course Carol! Thank you for your kind compliment. xo
This looks amazing! I look forward to signing up ❤️
I do hope you enjoy Donna. 🙂 Thank you for your interest!
I am so looking forward to signing up for this course this weekend! I always thoroughly enjoy the TSLK series each year and I know I will find this course both useful and enjoyable.
Thank you Shannon 🙂
Sarah
Sarah, Tickled you are looking forward to enrolling!
As I shared with Lucy below, as members who have watched many, if not all of the cooking show videos, you will see many excerpts from those recipes throughout the course. The difference is they will be shared as examples of either the skill, food item or occasion that is being taught in that particular lesson in the course. The objective of the course is to give you the skills and then a library of ideas to play with and consider as you dance with whatever ingredients or season you may find yourself. Use the ideas I share as examples to begin your catalog in your memory of ideas to consider when deciding on the meal, and then expand from there making the recipes your own to tailor to your tastes.
Of course, there will also be other and new recipes shared throughout this course that have never been shared, but I wanted to make sure you knew that you will recognize many of the excerpts as I know you are a well-versed viewer of the cooking show! Thank you for your long-time interest in TSLK! 🙂
🌟🎉Bonjour!
Thank you Shannon for offering such a great course to become a better French cook. I am French Canadian by Heritage I love to be in my kitchen, creating and dancing as you described – my happy place. I am currently recovering from a total knee replacement, and will not be able to actually cook in my happy place for another two months, but I will so enjoy watching all the videos and looking for the day where I can actually cook the recipes. I have been enjoying. I have been enjoying your blogs, books(I have all of them), cooking shows, and writing for years. You are always so inspiring , Shannon.
Merci! Blessings and happy cooking to everyone, Priscilla💕
So tickled that you too find your kitchen to be a happy place in your home where you enjoy ‘dancing!’ :)Thank you for sharing Priscilla 🙂
May your recovery continue to go smoothing and bring you to full recovery come mid-autumn! It will be here before you know it, and may this course provide enjoyment in the viewing. As I shared on the FAQ page, there are notes associated with each lesson, so you will be easily able to jot down ideas or fill in details as you view the course as you are tailoring this to the seasonal offerings where you call home, and that will be unique to each of us. So really, this time to wait and not jump right into the kitchen immediately will actually be quite helpful as it will allow ideas to percolate! 🙂
Thank you for your kind words. I am chuffed by all that you have shared. Thank you for your kindness and one more day to go!