I consider myself a decent cook, I spent most of my childhood watching my mom prepare meals for my family before we got the super new and super fast 56k modem, which kind of gave me a good cook-sense. (Like spidey-sense, but with food)
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Your class sounds as if it meets a real need in today's world. I'm a decent cook, but I can get distracted. I excel at salads, which is really more design, and fail utterly at baking, where timing and technique are paramount.
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My husband and I both are actually really good cooks. My great grandmother started teaching me how to cook when I was three, so I've been cooking for as long as I can remember.

We make homemade meals five nights a week and love to experiment with different types of cuisine. This means we're a big hit with all of our friends as most of them don't know the first thing about cooking.

I love your idea of starting a small cooking class. More people should be exposed to the fun of cooking their own meals...or at least knowing how. Good luck with your class!
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I think it's more a cultural thing specific to families. If you grow up in a home that plans meals and gets the kids involved with making them, chances are you'll grow up wanting to cook. If you grow up in a home where getting dinner on the table is seen as a chore or a necessary evil, like mopping the floor, chances are pretty good that you won't spend much time cooking, and you'll never learn how to do it well.

I grew up in a home like that latter, with lots of microwave frozen meals and take-out, and consequently was a kitchen disaster when I moved out on my own. At some point, I decided it was ridiculous that I couldn't make even the simplest meal, bought some basic cookbooks, and began to teach myself to cook. Now, not to toot my own horn, but yes, I'd say I'm pretty good at it. I also love to do it! Everything about it. But a lot of my friends who grew up in similar situations didn't go in this direction, and still live on frozen dinners and fast food.

Like many situations, I think the saying "attitude is everything" applies here. You gotta eat, so you might as well learn to love making dinner. Apparently cooking is making a comeback due to the recession, so a lot more people will probably be good cooks in a few years time.
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Mike and I are both good cooks, each with our own specialities, and we live in rural Northern CA (for your regional information). We only go out 3 or 4 times a month.
I think home cooking is making a comeback, especially with the economy the way it is. As evidence, I offer the current popularity of crockpots. Many of our friends don't like to cook, but have had to return to fending for themselves because they can't afford restaurants.
Having a source of instruction wouldn't hurt, though, especially where it focuses on how to make a single cut of meat last through the week, or in combination with gardening. Good luck!
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I think I am an average to poor cook. More through lack of practice than anything else as my wife enjoys cooking.
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I can't cook at all. I am 23 years old. During college I'd eat at the dining hall. Now I live at home while I'm in graduate school and my parents feed me or I eat out.
I figure I'll just cook when i have to which will probably be once I graduate and move out or when I get married.
I think your class would be effective for 20-somethings like me.
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I consider myself a decent cook although since I have gotten older getting tired of thinking of things to cook.

I love your idea of doing a cooking class. I was going to do one for kids, but my location is in a small town so no profit for me. Do some warm chatter to see if you get any interest. Start also with the basic of cooking, like measurements, wet and dry. Ingredients you can substitute when you run out of something. Also making menus. This can be helpful to someone that already knows how to cook. Have the class prepare the meal and eat it. Good luck, I would love to be doing this!
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I love to cook and consider myself a decent cook if Isay so myself!!
Partially because my mom was a pretty poor cook (when I got to college, I thought the food was great)... I learned by watching and experimenting and pretty soon, you find what works!

But yes, I love to cook and I love watching my friends and family enjoy the food I make. Food brings people together and is always present at great get togethers; be it a football game, a birthday party or a wedding, not to mention how special food can make an evening with a loved one (dinner and a movie anyone?)

I'm WAY into your idea of a cooking class! I would totally go! Good luck!
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Interesting this should come up as I was just lecturing a friend of mine whose sixteen year old daughter doesn't know the first thing about cooking or even doing laundry. I was taught to cook by my mom and grandmother. As a child in the 50's and 60's we would have what my mom called "Depression Dinners" that she remembered fondly from her childhood. Stewed tomato dumplings, mushroom soup on toast, and stuffed cabbage were among these treasures. My friends and family consider me a good cook who can create tasty meals out of virtually nothing. Your idea of a class on Simple Cooking would be a big hit, in my thinking, with the right marketing. The economy is creating a whole generation of people who are broke and can't cook anything that's not heated with a microwave. Best of luck to you.
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I'm a pretty decent cook, but I'm unusual. In my family, my mom took the time to teach me to cook (even though I didn't want to learn at first). Her brother is an excellent chef (actually a lawyer, but hey). My dad's whole family and most of my mom's are good cooks.

In college, my roommate and I made some decent money making stuffed potatoes for other students who didn't know how to make them. That, and peanut butter carmel popcorn balls.

In between college and grad school, I managed a gourmet market with a catering end. And in grad school I did a bit of catering on my own. In both cases there was someone involved that I both helped and learned from.

And I married another foodie, who is the only foodie in his birth family. One generation back on both sides, though, they're all foodies and great cooks.

Which is why it was so strange that his sister couldn't cook until her kids were school-aged. She and her husband and kids would go out to eat in nice restaurants every single night! Her parents had divorced when she was about the age at which many girls start to seriously learn to cook. Her mom went back to work; my husband did the cooking (he was an older teen) so she never learned.

She finally did learn from one of her friends. She was too embarrassed to ask family. She took a couple of classes, too.

I know I've seen news items and blog posts about how many people in their late teens through about age 30 or so grew up under so much pressure for academic success that they weren't required to do anything around the house. Thus they missed learning how to do everything from laundry to cooking to cleaning silver--all kinds of home maintenance and necessary house and car work. And it impacts their lives in all kinds of ways, to having to pay high fees to farm things out, to being in poor health from always eating processed foods, to getting ripped off by home and car repairmen.

So in many areas there are clubs, where members teach each other things that in the past would have been learned at home. And there are classes in everything from knitting to cooking to managing credit to fall home maintenance jobs. In my food-buying club (like a co-op but with no building), monthly classes are offered by members, for members. We've had classes on canning/preserving, breadmaking, yogurt making, drying, and more. Our next one will be teaching kids to cook! I do consider these kinds of life skills an important part of a child's education.

So I think your idea is a great idea. I'm sure your friends will find it helpful!

Here is the perfect lady to teach you some additional meals for people who are struggling to get by, but still want something tasty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OPQqH3YlHA
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I consider myself an above average cook. There are very few recipes that I've tried and have utterly failed. I'm also pretty good at making something out of nothing or throwing together a bunch of seemingly unrelated things to produce something edible, which I guess is a carry over from living as a starving student for four years. I'm often surprised by people who simply cannot cook or seem clueless as to what types of flavors/spices work well together - I guess because it seems like a given to me. That being said, I think being a good cook is about 80% instruction/practice and 20% intuition and gut feeling. I learned how to cook by watching and helping out various family members, all of whom had different styles and specialties, throughout my lifetime, for which I consider myself lucky.
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