Got a special home baker or amateur chef on your holiday gift list this year? Why not send them to Boot Camp? The Culinary Institute of America’s Boot Camp programs will put them in the kitchens and bakeshops of the CIA for hands-on experience in the culinary arenas of their choice.

From “Taste of” 1-day Boot Camps to intensive 5-day sessions, the Boot Camp experience is intensive, fast-paced, and fun. For a food enthusiast, there’s really no other gift like it.

Subjects of interest covered in separate Boot Camps include Hearth Breads, Specialty Desserts, Spanish Tapas, Skill Development, Techniques of Healthy Cooking, Entertaining and Dinner Parties, individual country cuisines (such as French, Asian, and Mediterranean), and Pastry. Attendees will come away with a wealth of practical knowledge, and some sweet perks: aprons, toques, and other nifty gifts, which vary depending on the Boot Camp.

They aren’t called Boot Camps for nothing ~ the work is challenging. Schedules are distributed and adhered to. An enormous amount is accomplished in a relatively short period of time. In the Boot Camp I sampled ~ Hearth Breads ~ we baked 8 different products in under 7 hours. Truthfully, I was exhausted by the end of the day, and completely, wonderfully satisfied. I left with bags of still-warm bread in my arms.

Plus, this being the Culinary Institute of America, participants are well-fortified with restaurant-quality meals and snacks, which include the fruits of their labor. In the 1-day Boot Camp, we had a buffet breakfast, a sit-down lunch, and a substantial morning snack. Nice!

Regardless of whether your special foodie is a newbie or an old hand in the kitchen, he or she will likely be delighted by the experience the Boot Camps offer. The chefs and kitchen assistants are friendly and accessible, and the facilities are incomparable. The classes are appropriately small, so attendees receive all the individual attention they require.

Boot Camps and other enthusiast sessions are offered at the Hyde Park, New York; Astor Center, NYC; San Antonio, Texas; and St. Helena, California, locations. Programs vary by location, so be sure to check out the CIA Web site for details and information. Gift certificates are available online.

I came away from my Boot Camp session with a few new techniques in my repertoire, a couple of new friends in my contact list, and a set of new hearth bread recipes that I was able to replicate at home with no trouble, thanks to what I learned in class. Fresh-baked artisanal bread whenever we want it? I’d say that’s a pretty good return on the investment ~ something to keep in mind when choosing a gift for your favorite foodie.

Want to read more about my day at Boot Camp? Check out my post here.

Billed as “professional cooking training in the comfort of your own home,” Rouxbe’s lessons are presented in a progressive series of videos, which are accessed from the Rouxbe site. The cooking school lessons are premium content, and are therefore subject to a membership fee. There are two options for membership, yearly and lifetime, and both are reasonable. Rouxbe donates 15% of all membership fees toward feeding impoverished children through the United Nation’s World Food Program. (Rouxbe’s Web site says that one annual Premium Membership will help feed 60 children!)

So what does Rouxbe teach you? Quite a bit. Well-constructed videos present lessons on everything from knife skills to making stock to preparing sauces, pasta, and salads to an exploration of various cooking methods. Each video lesson is accompanied by goals for that lesson, “edible exercises” and supporting recipes to help you practice what you’re learning, and a quiz to test that knowledge. Your quiz scores are recorded on a “Report Card” so you can track your progress through the lessons.

In addition to the Cooking School, you’ll also have access to a database of video and text recipes; “Drill-downs” providing tips, tricks, techniques, and culinary definitions; a community of Rouxbe forums; and an online store where you can buy equipment and tools used in the Rouxbe kitchens. Much of the ancillary content on the Rouxbe site is free; the Cooking School falls under a subscription-based Premium Membership, and Rouxbe offers a free 30-day trial period.

I found the lessons to be clear, professionally produced, and instructive. The production values behind these are top-notch, so your focus remains on the material in the lesson, not the graininess of the film or a wonky camera angle, as it might in an inferior recording. Want to see for yourself? Click here for a sample Drill-down video on the rolling knife technique. Here is a sample lesson on wheat and gluten to check out.

The drawbacks of learning to cook this way - and distance learning in general - are that you’re essentially working in isolation. You can’t turn to the person next to you and say, “Help, my veloute is clumping!” Rouxbe’s answer is their Community Forums, where the Cooking School has it’s own channel and students can ask questions, discuss recipe ideas, and hopefully work through difficulties they’re experiencing in their home kitchens.

For the money, Rouxbe cooking school strikes me as an incredible bargain. This is real cooking school, brought to you in your own home. True, you do have to bring the motivation and follow through on all the exercises and supporting recipes to gain the full benefits of each lesson, but if you’re willing to do that, you can really learn something here. I was impressed with the quality of Rouxbe’s efforts, and I’m looking forward to staying tuned as their upcoming lessons unfold.