Can you cook or can you follow a recipe?

Now, there’s nothing wrong with using a recipe to guide you through a dish. But the difference between knowing how to cook and simply following a recipe is the difference between painting by numbers and free handing a landscape.

Besides, cooking is a creative endeavor and there’s only so much satisfaction you can get out of following other cooks’ recipes (except mine, please keep using them). So if you think you’re ready to close the cookbook and take your culinary skills to the next level, then this may be the class for you.

Susan Watterson, co-owner of the D.C. cooking school CulinAerie, is looking for a few students who are willing to spend two intense days learning how to cook...really cook -- poultry, meat, fish and shellfish, with accompanying sauces and sides. There will be no recipes, there will be no beginners.

There will be lunch.

It won’t be easy, but you won’t be alone. I’ve agreed to take the class to chronicle the experience for D.C. Foodies. I’m also eager to find out what I know (probably not much) and what I don’t know (probably a whole bunch).

So what do you say, are you ready to cook?

What: Beyond Basics cooking class
Where: CulinAerie, 1155 14th Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005, (202) 587-5674
When: July 25 and 26, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
How much: $325 per person
Why: Because you want to become a better cook.
(Disclosure: I assist at CulinAerie regularly.)