Filtering by Tag: Summer Camp,Armonk

Guide to Kids Cooking Camps & Classes (2024 Edition)

Features Cooking Classes Kids Cooking Camp Kids Cooking Classes Cooking Summer Camp Homepage

Hannah Goodman

Spring is right around the corner and summer will be here before you know it, so why not stay ahead of the game and take advantage of the many kids cooking classes and camps being offered all over Connecticut? There’s nothing quite as important as your children’s diet. Each of these courses will teach them about nutrition, kitchen safety, food preparation, different types of cuisines, and how to make food and cooking fun. Every child is creative in their own right, so let these culinary chefs help foster their creativity and you may just have someone cooking for YOU…and let’s be honest, that would sure be a nice change. 


Guide to Kids Cooking Camps & Classes 2023

Features Guide Cooking Classes Kids Cooking Classes Kids Cooking Camp Summer Camp Cooking Homepage

April Guilbault

There are so many kids camps and classes to choose from these days, why not choose one that starts with the basics: our food. Classes at these following establishments range from the basics of utensil skills to cooking up favorite foods and learning about nutrition and where our food is grown. That’s a whole lot of inspired learning about something that is both important and delicious and can be carried with a person long past a single summer. Bon appetit, foodies-in-training!


Guide To Kids Cooking Camps & Classes in Connecticut for 2019

Features Cooking Cooking Classes kids cooking party Kids kids activity Summer Camp

April Guilbault

Hot summer days and you don’t feel like cooking. The stove, oven, even the grill…it’s all so hot. But hold on a minute there, maybe *you* don’t have to! With a little foresight (read: now), your kids can learn to cook this summer, get inspired and whoa-oh, looks who’s not in the kitchen anymore?! Beyond your parental joy, though, kids will enjoy learning cooking skills, whipping up some pretty cool menus from around the globe and even having a cooking competition or two just to test their mettle. Just be sure to sign up your aspiring chefs soon, these classes and camps fill up quicker than hot grease will jump out of a pan!


CT Guide To Kids Cooking Classes & Summer Camps

Features Cooking Classes kids activity Kids Education Summer Camp kids cooking party Homepage

April Guilbault

“MOM! MA! Mommmmmmm… “What?!” “I’m bored.” Oh boy.

Have you heard this lovely little conversation often during the summer months? Kids young and old let that horrifying phrase fall from their lips at an astounding rate. Are you just cringing thinking about how you will derail these declarations for 10 weeks? Well, now you can consider yourself informed and prepared to battle the cries of blahs and beat the little buggers at their own game! We’ve got some tasty ideas so that you can wave goodbye to boredom, and say hello to a creative and fun summer (not to mention, delicious). Maybe your kids will even treat you to a meal or two along the way. Maybe you’ll get the last laugh this summer…

Here are 14 Kids Cooking Classes & Summer Camps.


CT Guide to Outdoor Dining: 40+ Restaurants for Summer

Restaurant Armonk Bethel Darien Fairfield Norwalk Outdoor Dining Patio Stamford Stratford Westport New Canaan Best of CT

April Guilbault

There are some ingredients in this world that, when you add them to anything, they pretty much make it spectacular. Bacon, for example. It would probably make a sneaker taste good. “Air” is another ingredient. Air-a bizarre ingredient on an episode of Chopped? No. Air, as in fresh air. Eating outside. Have you noticed that when you eat a lobster roll outside on a deck overlooking the ocean, it makes you happy? Or eat a grilled burger at a picnic table on a warm summer evening?  Or sip a frothy cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe? What is the common ingredient here? Fresh air. Good food combined with a hefty dose of the outdoors.

And lucky for you, we’ve put together a long list of our favorite eateries (40+) that have lovely outdoor dining spaces. 

If we missed an outdoor venue you frequent, please share your find below. 

For more Summer Eats see our Guide to The Best Warm Lobster Rolls on the CT Coast. 


CTbites Staff & Chef Picks for TOP EATS OF 2013

Restaurant Armonk Bridgeport Danbury Fairfield Norwalk Washington Westport New Canaan Best of CT

CTbites Team

As food writers, photographers, and chefs, we have the pleasure of eating a lot of really great food. Fairfield County has experienced something of a restaurant explosion over the past year, as new chefs move in and move on, and menus expand. We've endeavored to expand our coverage beyond those borders, seeking to cover more of the state and sharing those experiences that are worth seeking out. Instead of coming up with a top ten list ourselves, we asked the CTbites extended family to share some of their most memorable meals and dining experiences this past year. 


"My Signature Dish," Chef Jodi Bernhard of Fortina in Armonk

Restaurant Armonk Chef Talk Italian My Signature Dish

Lou Gorfain

"My Signature Dish" is a new CTbites column featuring a rotating cast of chefs, and the dishes that define their cooking style, or simply make them happy to fire up the stove. 

Jodi Bernhard hardly hesitated when choosing her signature dish at Fortina, Christian Petroni’s "casually hip" Italian restaurant in Armonk.  Her eyes gleaming, she said, "It's our Pork Braciole." Braciole, hip? 

If you grew up Italian, you probably hold memories of Braciole near and dear.  This classic rolled, stuffed meat roast, usually serves as centerpiece for those sprawling homemade Italian dinners that lazily linger across Sunday afternoons into evening.  Braciole invokes home.  And family.   Instant Nostalgia.

Ok, so how does a chef modernize a memory?  Autograph a treasured family photo? 

“That is the gist of our approach at Fortina,” Jodi explained. “ We try to not stray too far from ‘mom's’ version, but still make it a restaurant dish with our stamp on it.  We are true to simplicity and flavor.”

The notion of putting  “Mom’s dish” on Fortina’s playful, hip menu was Christian’s, one of the restaurant’s owners.  (Patroni and and Jodi once cooked together at Barcelona in nearby Greenwich.) Though she and Christian work as collaborators, the task of “restaurantizing” this homey meal was largely up to Bernhard.  


Cooking with Fire: Fortina in Armonk

Restaurant Armonk Italian Pizza Comfort Food Kid Friendly

Amy Kundrat

Cooking with wood fire has a preternatural, almost primal appeal. You could argue that as cavemen, it was our first foray into comfort food. The intense heat and smoke has the power to transform otherwise unassuming ingredients. The six-month old Fortina in Armonk, begins with this deceptively simple ethos–Italian food, cooked simply, in wood fired ovens–and elevates it with a thoughtful culinary execution and a familiar, if familial, disarming vibe.

There is a complexity to the simplicity,” said Rob Krauss, one of Fortina’s three partners along with John Nealon and Christian Petroni, nailing what makes the restaurant’s cuisine tick. I’m fairly certain Krauss is also referring to the restaurant’s team, an extended family of sorts that works equally hard at the food as they do cultivating the culture at Fortina

More than the sum of its wood-fired parts, Fortina relies on the culinary prowess and Italian heritage of partner and Executive Chef Christian Petroni, formerly of Barcelona Greenwich, as both muse and ringleader. “My background is Italian, I grew up spending summers in Ponza. One of my favorite restaurants is Peasant. As a young cook, Frank de Carlo was an inspiration as a chef. I was intrigued by cooking in wood ovens. There is something about it that is so gratifying. It’s a beautiful thing.” Along with chef de cuisine Jodi Bernhard, formerly of Barcelona, the kitchen has the creative chops responsible for its daily printed menu.

 


Fortina Restaurant: Casually Hip Italian Opening in Armonk, NY

Restaurant Armonk Greenwich Italian Pizza Stamford Comfort Food Kid Friendly

Nancy Kleeger

Fairfield county residents will be soon crossing the border (passports not required)-- into Upper Westchester County's suburb of Armonk, after this week's opening of Fortina.  Chef Christian Petroni, recently Executive Chef of Greenwich's Barcelona Restaurant, is joined by John Nealon, ex-GM of the same provenance and Nealon's childhood friend, Rob Krauss as business partners. Both Nealon and Krauss originally hail from Westport.  Petroni, a local himself, is also co-owner of Cooked & Co., in Scarsdale.

Recalling the many memorable meals he had eaten during his time spent in Italy, Petroni's vision was to bring Italy's simple authentic flavors, cooking methods and presentation to the dishes he serves at Fortina. This vision is executed with the help of 2 wood burning ovens imported straight from Naples, Italy which serve as a focal point in the main dining room. In fact with the exception of just a few menu items, everything is cooked in these fiery hearths...even a pasta dish or two! (And you should hear Petroni when he speaks of his ovens...like a proud new Papa )