Anna Teresa Callen's Italian Cooking School
Main ingredients: Cookbook author and teacher Anna Teresa Callen's maxim, repeated throughout each class, is: "A recipe is only a trampoline -- a jumping-off point. Be creative." (Still, even she has clear limits: "You can put anything you want on a pizza -- but please, not kiwi.") Students range from the totally green -- a young Asian woman who wants to learn to cook for her kosher-observant husband -- to the seasoned pro: Dan Leader, the owner of Bread Alone; Grace Balducci Doria, of Grace's Marketplace; and Louis Balducci, of Agata & Valentina, have all been pupils.

Classes are lively and relaxed. Even during the more formal parts of the teaching, she digresses often, dispensing pointers on how to make bread crumbs, burnish a copper pot to a reflective shimmer, or store porcini (add peppercorns to the container to discourage bugs). Each student has his or her own workstation, with a knife and cutting board, on the long countertop.

Signature dish: The food? In Dan Leader's words, it's "honest, simple, delicious." Her drunken cauliflower -- soaked with wine and baked -- couldn't be easier and provided a nice counterpoint to an uncomplicated roast chicken. Dishes included her bracing gamberi tonnati (shrimp with tuna sauce) and an elegant and complexly flavored minestra Abruzzese (vegetable soup), dubbed simply il cardone ("burdock") by cognoscenti of that region. And her flourless torta di nocciole e cioccolata -- hazelnut-and-chocolate cake -- is so blissfully rich it ought to be deemed a controlled substance.

Details: 59 West 12th Street (212-929-5640). Mondays 6 to 9 p.m. (you'll inevitably stay later, supping and sipping -- Callen often has to throw her students out). Price: $675 for five nights. Limit, six people.

Italian Traditions
Main ingredients: For two weeks every fall and spring, this program's two presiding chefs, Rossella Grillo and Maria Consiglia Nappi, arrive in town from their native Italy. Rossella cooks with the northern flair and flavor of the Veneto, while Maria, from Naples, produces a hardier, more peasantlike fare; the result is a well-rounded Stateside tour of Italian cuisine. It's an expensive class, compared with others of similar format, but the price is justified by the small class size and above-average wines served with the sit-down meal (made all the more festive by the presence of the chefs' family members). Most important, the recipes will leave your favorite Italian cookbook in the dust.

Signature dish: A typical class meal might include polpettine di melanzana, gnocchi al pesto, insalata di mare, arrosto di maiale in crosta di patate, pepperoni alla Napoletana, and tirami su.

Details: Location and schedule vary (212-545-1154). Prices: $175 per three-hour session. Limit, ten students.

HAVE WHISK, WILL TRAVEL

There are plenty of itinerant chef-instructors who will come to your home, whether for a one-on-one lesson or a group class. Even teachers with their own spaces will make house calls on request, so it pays to ask. And if you organize and host the class, you might get free tuition.

Suki Hertz
Main ingredients: "I'm your personal trainer in the kitchen -- for your heart and well-being," proclaims Hertz, the only registered dietitian I encountered during four semesters of cooking classes. Educated at the New York Restaurant School and the Natural Gourmet and armed with a master's degree in nutrition from NYU, Hertz also worked for years as a restaurant line cook. She now specializes in private lessons, with an emphasis on nutritional counseling and learning to cook healthfully. Hertz doesn't offer many of her own recipes (most were from other chefs and authors); here the focus is on technique.

Another thing that separates Hertz from the rest of the pack is that she provides a breakdown, hour by hour, of what needs to be done when, so that students develop a sense of timing. She's an affable, laid-back instructor who tailors her class menus to the client's needs, which makes this a great class for those learning to live with dietary restrictions. One couple came looking for a repertoire of eight to ten delectable and healthy meals they could reliably reproduce, sans Suki, for dinner guests. So far, they have mastered a Sicilian fish stew.

Signature dish: In one private class, we made crunchy and spicy cheddar palmiers to munch as we prepared a Moroccan feast, including savory game hens, an artichoke-and-preserved-lemon salad, Tunisian harissa, and a low-fat lemon-ginger ice cream. In another, we prepared butternut-squash risotto, a toothsome grilled-vegetable medley, and feisty banana-mango crêpes with ginger sauce and raspberries.

Details: Call 212-946-6546. Prices: $75 per hour per student; food is additional, and generally runs about $100. Limit, three students.

Stephen Schmidt
Main ingredients: Schmidt can be a purist. "I never even look at margarine! I'm appalled by it," he bellows. "I think they should ban it." We couldn't agree more. But he'll readily teach his class less egregious alternatives to tradition, such as how to make an intense sauce without stock. A former Queens College English instructor, Schmidt is a much better lecturer than your average chef. He provides a master shopping list for participants (something few teachers do), who generally do the shopping before his arrival. Still, he is likely to arrive with a surprise treat, as he did on one occasion, bearing crackers and home-made clotted cream for us to savor while we got started. He's a marvelous baker and author of a handy kitchen Baedeker, Master Recipes.

Signature dish: In one class we produced an extravagant Christmas feast, with a tender, standing prime-ribs roast, accompanied by a vibrant salad of roasted pears, Port-infused figs, and walnuts, and a hearty potato-onion-and-bacon pie. In another class, we whipped up a feisty banana-caramel cobbler with a pecan-biscuit crust.

Details: Call 212-369-3697. Prices: $500 per three-to-four-hour class, plus food costs of about $15 per person. Limit, fifteen students.