Tagged: Cooking School

17 Aug

One of the most frequent pieces of feedback we’ve received from our students over the years, is that you want a better sense of direction – a better way to navigate all of our current and future content. Consequently, we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes, building one of the biggest features for Rouxbe, to help further guide you to learn to cook, better: Learning Paths.

Introduction To Learning Paths

Firstly, we wanted to apologize for the delay in the updates about Learning Paths. Things are taking just a bit longer than originally planned, and therefore, our original expected release date has been pushed back to this Fall – only a couple of months away. However, Learning Paths is shaping up well and we’re really excited to release it to you. It has been a massive under taking, but it’s finally coming to a state where we can begin to introduce you to it.

The details behind Learning Paths are difficult to explain in words, so we thought it might be more helpful to start off this first explanatory post with a diagram. The illustration below shows how the new class structure will significantly enhance your learning experience. It visualizes how Learning Paths will enrich lessons, which will help you tackle a small set of skills and techniques, to a clearly structured and engaging path that enables you to master entire areas of cooking. All of this with a Rouxbe certificate at the end.

Check it out, tell us what you think. And yes, we love both good and constructive feedback so don’t be shy!

Learning Paths Narrative

View full sized image

Questions Around Learning Paths

Who will have access to Learning Paths? All paid students of Rouxbe.
When will this launch? The new estimated date is sometime this Fall (I know, pretty vague, sorry, but I promise it will be worth the wait).

Beta Access Update

The next part of this update is for those eagerly waiting for details behind beta access. We’ve had a tremendous response to our open application for beta. Thanks to everyone that applied.

Starting today we will need to close off any new applications for beta. For those who have signed up to beta list already, you have not been forgotten. You will be receiving an email shortly with further details on your acceptance status.

Filed Under: Adminstrative, Behind The Scenes, Business, Cooking School, Featured

Tags: Cooking School, behind the scenes, feedback

17 Aug

7 Comments

Site Updates at the Rouxbe Cooking School

by Joe, Co-founder of Rouxbe

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick post to let you know that there will be a few new changes to your “My Rouxbe” page (formerly the “Home” page).

First off, if you are not logged in, you should automatically be prompted to do so. This is due to a lot of feedback we’ve received from paying members (who were not logged in) that were asked to pay again when trying to view video content. Select the “Remember me” option to by-pass this prompt.

Secondly, we have re-organized the content on the new “My Rouxbe” page to prepare us for a number of exciting changes which we will be implementing over the next several months. You will also see your profile picture and masthead image on this page (which you can customize), as well as a few links on the left-hand side of the page (What’s Happening on Rouxbe, Cooking School Progress, and Bookmarks). In general, expect this page to become more of a “My Content” utilitarian-type dashboard in the very near future, particularly as we add new features that many students have requested.

What features, you ask? We aren’t ready to announce them quite yet, but they will be significant, including additional purchase options for Rouxbe, more guidance to help you work through Rouxbe’s instructional content (and to identify the content most relevant to your personal learning goals), and recognition for your learning achievements. More details will follow soon, and Rouxbe members will be the first to find out.

If you have any problems accessing the site or viewing any of the content, please drop us a note. Also, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to add them below.

Cheers,
Joe Girard
Co-Founder and VP Product Development

Filed Under: Adminstrative, Behind The Scenes, Business, Cooking School, Miscellaneous

Tags: Cooking School, my rouxbe, updates

31 Mar

36 Comments

Rouxbe Version 3.0

by Joe, Co-founder of Rouxbe

For those of you that have been Rouxbe fans for the past two and half years, we are happy to inform you that we are about to embark on a much desired Rouxbe facelift. With the new addition of Stewart Butterfield to our team, we wanted to take a brief step back to start making some major site improvements. But before we do, we want to hear from you.

As you know, Rouxbe has been focused solely on producing the finest instructional cooking content on the web. In fact, we’ve been in the test kitchen and producing lessons now for 15 months solid. It’s time to begin planning and implementing some supporting features that will make the Rouxbe Cooking School even more powerful.

So, we’d like to hear from you to find out what features and services you think Rouxbe should be doing and/or introducing to help you become an even better cook. We’ve already heard some great feedback, but we want to make sure that we hear from all of those that would like to contribute.

So, how can Rouxbe help you become a better cook?

Please keep in mind the following:

1. Rouxbe is not a recipe site. We do have a lot of recipe content and we’ll continue to add new recipes, but our focus is on helping you become better at cooking and recipes do not help you here (read more). The path to better cooking is skill and technique and the understanding of how each cooking process impacts the other. Recipes are your vehicle to practice your techniques and will not always get you to your desired end goal.

2. Rouxbe aims to position itself as a complement to your favorite recipe resource (whether that’s a cookbook, culinary magazine, food show or another online website). We’ll teach you how to “braise” and provide a few examples, but let’s leave the inspiration to all of the great chefs out there, your favorite recipes resources and/or even your moms and grandmas. Our goal is to help you actually become less dependent on recipes and to help you consistently have success in the kitchen.

All feedback will be most appreciated. And no ideas are bad ideas. Please post your comments below.

Next week, we will jump back into the discussions to work with you to refine some of the ideas. The goal is to work collaboratively with you and our strategic development team to short list an action plan for Rouxbe 3.0 by the end of April.

In the interim, while we will continue to produce new cooking school lessons, we will NOT be releasing new lesson content for the Cooking School until May as deploying content, uploading lessons, copy, etc… is one of the more time consuming jobs at Rouxbe. Instead, these resources will be allocated to strategic planning functions and working with you to define Rouxbe 3.0. So, use the time to get caught up in the Cooking School if you are a little behind or participate in this community-driven site upgrade with your ideas.

We will still be releasing new recipe content each week (video and text) and our staff continues to be available for questions 24/7. And like most weeks, new recipes can be found in (see Rouxbe Certified Recipes and/or the Rouxbe Test Kitchen).

Thanks for your understanding.

The Rouxbe Cooking School Team.

Filed Under: Cooking School, Cooking Tips, Miscellaneous

Tags: Cooking School, instructional content, rouxbe 3.0, site upgrade, stewart butterfield

28 Feb

5 Comments

“Why Doesn’t Rouxbe Publish More New Recipes?”

by Joe, Co-founder of Rouxbe

I received a great question from a user today and I wanted to respond publicly to help people better understand why Rouxbe exists and what our purpose is.

USER’S COMMENT/QUESTION:

I come and look at Rouxbe every few days to see if there are any new recipes, but rarely am I rewarded with one. I would find this site more useful if there were more recipes available.

WHY IS ROUXBE ONLINE – WHAT’S OUR MISSION?

Rouxbe exists to teach motivated home cooks how to cook.
So in response to this user and to all of you, let me explain why we are not currently focused on recipe production.

First, and most importantly, recipes do NOT help people become better cooks. They provide great inspiration and great ideas for sure, but they do not teach people very well.

I wrote about this a month or so ago in a post entitled: “Biggest Misconception in Cooking – Millions in the Dark“. It’s a long post so I’ve reprinted some of it here:

Why are recipes NOT a solution to becoming a better cook?

For decades in professional cooking schools around the world, budding professional cooks have been taught skills and techniques, not recipes. Recipes are used simply to practice skills and techniques. In fact, a recipe is really just a step-by-step set of techniques, stacked one on top of the other. For example, cut this, mix this, pan fry this, then braise this and voila, you are supposed to end up with something delicious to eat.

The challenge, however, is that each of these small steps requires skill and technique knowledge. You need to know how to handle the knife, how to mix properly, how to use a fry pan, etc. And most importantly, you need to understand ‘why’ you do what you do when cooking and how it affects everything else moving forward. Recipes simply provide the do this, do this, do this, step-by-step direction but they don’t, and in most cases can’t, help you execute the technical parts in a recipe. Recipe methods are littered with culinary terms (techniques) that provide little help to an at-home cook who doesn’t possess basic culinary knowledge (sweat, simmer, brown, sear, deglaze, sauté, etc). And the tough thing about cooking is that it’s not very forgiving. If you don’t know how to sweat for example, one small error here in the beginning of a recipe and the whole dish could easily be ruined.

Go here for the full post.

So, at Rouxbe, we are focused on laying down the foundation – a culinary foundation that will empower you to successfully tackle any recipe from any of your favorite recipe resources.

Consider Rouxbe a complement to your favorite cooking resource – not a replacement. We will help you have better cooking success with any recipe you try, whether it’s from a google search, allrecipes, epicurious, or any cookbook/magazine. With Rouxbe, you’ll even be able to try and re-create that recipe you see on Top Chef. We are your “chef instructor” in your back pocket.

It is our contention, that if you take a bit of time to learn the basics, that you will only need recipes for ideas and inspiration (and there are millions out there – millions!). So, rather than learning how to make “braised shortribs” – learn to braise. It will open the door to a creative freedom that will shock you.

Lastly, in the near future, we will be launching additional recipes and a new feature that will take recipes to a whole new level. But for now, we challenge you to spend 20 minutes a week in the Rouxbe Cooking School to change your cooking forever. I promise you that you won’t be looking for new recipes for long. You’ll be creating them!

I welcome your questions and comments as always, particularly on this important topic.

Rouxbe Cooking School

Filed Under: New Recipes

Tags: Cooking School, New Recipes, culinary, techniques, videos

08 Feb

1 Comment

Back to Basics: Rouxbe Cooking School Lessons

by Joe, Co-founder of Rouxbe

We’ve received a lot of feedback from members around the world regarding the various lessons we’ve released in the Rouxbe Cooking School. We wanted to take the time to highlight a few of the lessons that may not be very technical and challenging in nature, but from what we’ve heard, they certainly are helping a lot of people become better cooks.

We’d like to challenge you to bookmark this post. Then, over the course of the next few weeks, set aside 10 to 15 minutes to check out each lesson, if you haven’t done so already.