Pickwick & Cherry On Location

Bring the Pickwick & Cherry kitchen to you with our portable cooking classes, tastings, and culinary workshops. Whether you’re planning a corporate team-building event, a client appreciation experience, or a private celebration with family and friends, we make it easy to host something truly unforgettable.

For years, people have been asking us to take our famous hands-on cooking classes on the road… and now we’re finally doing it! We’ll bring the gear, the ingredients, and the fun straight to you, whether that’s your home, office, or another gathering space. From rolling tamales and pressing tortillas to tossing mezze and torching crème brûlée, you’ll cook, taste, and share authentic dishes from around the world. Each class is interactive, festive, and designed to create both delicious food and lasting memories. All you need is your group — we’ll handle the rest. 

Our full-meal cooking classes let groups roll up their sleeves and prepare a complete menu together, while our interactive workshops dive deep into skills like cheesemaking, pasta, cookie decorating, or chocolate artistry. For a lighter but equally engaging option, our guided tastings of chocolate, cheese, balsamic vinegar, honey, coffee, or tea open up whole new worlds of flavor and conversation.

We provide all the ingredients, gear, and expert instruction—you just bring the people. No cooking experience is required, and each event is tailored to your group’s needs, schedule, and venue. Perfect for businesses, schools, churches, offices, or in-home gatherings, our portable culinary experiences are hands-on, fun, and delicious.

Let Pickwick & Cherry turn your next meeting, party, or special occasion into a one-of-a-kind food adventure.

The offerings on this page are available year-round. If you’re interested in booking one of our unique Holiday events for the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas window, you can find those fun and festive offerings here.

Have more questions? Check out our FAQ at the bottom of this page or send us a message!

Full Meals

Join us for a joyful tamalada as we gather to fill and wrap masa with three delicious kinds of fillings, savor gooey queso fundido, toss a fresh nopales salad, and end with creamy arroz con leche. This lively, hands-on Mexican tradition is equal parts culinary adventure and community celebration.

Travel to the Aegean without leaving town! We’ll grill savory souvlaki, tuck it into freshly made pitas with cool tzatziki, toss a crisp horiatiki village salad, and learn the art of nutty, flaky baklava. A vibrant, interactive menu that brings the flavors of Greece straight to your table.

Raise a stein with a hearty Bavarian celebration! Together we’ll braise brats with beer and sauerkraut, spread creamy obatzda on fresh-baked pretzels, toss authentic Bavarian potato salad, and finish with a decadent Black Forest cake. This hands-on feast is festive, filling, and full of German comfort food charm.

Bring the sunshine to your table with a bright, modern California menu. Together we’ll build a colorful Cobb salad, sear ahi tuna, serve lemon-herb quinoa, top avocado toast with crab and brie, and finish with a strawberry cake. A feast of fresh, vibrant flavors from the Golden State.

Join us for a joyful tamalada (that’s Spanish for a tamale-making party!) as we gather to fill and wrap masa with three delicious kinds of fillings, savor gooey queso fundido, toss a fresh nopales salad, and end with creamy arroz con leche. This lively, hands-on Mexican tradition is equal parts culinary adventure and community celebration.

Travel to the Aegean without leaving town! We’ll grill savory souvlaki, tuck it into freshly made pitas with cool tzatziki, toss a crisp horiatiki village salad, and learn the art of nutty, flaky baklava. A vibrant, interactive menu that brings the flavors of Greece straight to your table.

Enjoy a journey through the Mediterranean table with a fresh, flavorful spread of small plates. We’ll whip up creamy hummus, char smoky eggplant for baba ghanoush, toss bright tabbouleh, roll delicate dolmas, and finish with honey-yogurt topped with pistachios. Perfect for grazing, sharing, and savoring together.

Step into a cozy Parisian bistro for an elegant evening of classic French fare. You’ll simmer velvety tomato soup, toast melty croque monsieur sandwiches, toss a crisp bistro salad, and learn to torch your own crème brûlée. Simple, timeless, and romantic — the perfect French cooking experience.

Workshops

Discover the magic of home cheesemaking in this deliciously cheesy hands-on class! You’ll learn how to make your own ricotta, burrata, fromage blanc, labneh, and mozzarella, while mastering the techniques that give fresh, handcrafted cheeses their unique character and flavor.

Roll, shape, cut, and fill! In this interactive workshop you’ll learn the art of fresh pasta in every color, flavor, and form. From silky sheets of tagliatelle to stuffed ravioli and beyond, you’ll discover how simple ingredients can become spectacularly delicious homemade creations.

Turn sugar cookies into edible art in this fun and creative class. You’ll use seasonal or custom shapes and practice royal icing techniques to flood, pipe, and embellish like a pro. By the end, you’ll have beautiful (and delicious) cookies to take home, share and enjoy!

Indulge your sweet tooth while learning the art of chocolate. Create hand-painted truffles, chocolate bars, and chocolate-dipped marshmallows, pretzels, and fruit. Along the way, discover tempering and decorating techniques that make chocolate as beautiful as it is delicious.

Tastings

Discover a world of rare and unusual balsamic vinegars and kindred elixirs, from true Modenese classics to inventive bottles gathered in Austria, Germany, South Africa, and beyond.

Guided by a passionate (okay, frankly obsessed) collector whose pantry is full of stories as well as bottles, you’ll learn how factors barrel-aging, infused herbs and fruits, and regional traditions create flavors that range from bright and fruity to deep, syrupy, and complex.

You’ll taste the striking contrast between cheap supermarket vinegars and the luxurious long-aged elixirs that shine on cheese, fruit, or even in cocktails. This exploration opens your palate to the surprising diversity of balsamic and sparks new ideas for using it in savory dishes, desserts, beverages, and beyond.

Savor an array of artisan cheeses that span from creamy to bold, from delicate bloomy rinds to powerful blues. In this guided tasting led by an expert cheesemaker who once cheesemade his way across Europe & Australia, you’ll explore not only the flavors, but also the stories behind the wheels—how terroir, milk type, and cheesemaking technique create such extraordinary diversity.

You’ll compare the grassy brightness of a fresh chèvre with the nutty depth of an alpine-style, and see why aging transforms texture and taste so dramatically. Along the way, you’ll learn pairing strategies that bring out the best in cheese, from fruit and honey to wine and beer. By the end, you’ll have the tools to approach any cheese counter with confidence and curiosity.

Experience the world of chocolate through bars, truffles, and stories that reveal just how surprising this craft can be.

Beyond sweet and creamy, chocolate takes on many forms—dark and intense, light and milky, spiced, fruity, floral, nutty, or even in unexpected shades like ruby or golden. Guided by our head chocolate maker (and eater), you’ll learn about techniques for working with chocolate and best practices from baking with chocolate to storing it and enjoying it. 

You’ll taste how fermentation, roasting, and tempering shape texture and flavor, and how regional styles carry their own traditions and surprises. Along the way, you’ll encounter notes you never imagined in chocolate and leave with a new appreciation for cacao as both indulgence and art.

Awaken your senses with coffees from diverse regions and traditions, from the bright, citrusy beans of East Africa to the rich, chocolatey profiles of Latin America.

You’ll learn how roast levels, brewing methods, and grind size affect everything in the cup—from acidity to body—and why the same bean can taste completely different as an espresso, pour-over, or cold brew, not to mention when combined with milk, sweetners, flavors and more. 

Guided by a storyteller with deep roots in coffee culture, this tasting is as much about rhythm and resonance as it is about aroma and flavor. Expect a journey of sound and sip, where music and narrative elevate the experience into something unforgettable.

Explore an ever-changing collection of monofloral honeys from around the world, each one a reflection of the blossoms and landscapes where bees have foraged.

You’ll taste familiar clover and orange blossom alongside rarities like alpine rose or African buffalo thorn, with flavors that can be sweet, tart, fruity, spicy, chocolaty, caramelly—or even bitter. The aromas are just as varied, ranging from floral and delicate to barnyardy or sharply chemical, like soap.

Learn why some honeys crystallize while others stay liquid, and how “forest” honeys can come not from flowers at all but from tree sap, passed through aphids and leaf-sucking ants before bees turn it into honey. Led by a guide on a mission to taste every monofloral honey she can find, this experience will forever change how you think about nature’s sweetest gift.

Travel the globe one cup at a time as we explore a dazzling range of teas—white, green, jasmine, oolong, milk oolong, Darjeeling, Assam, pu-erh, rooibos, and an array of Chinese black teas (our guide has a special fondness for rare and expensive varieties with the word “monkey” in the name.”).

You’ll learn why an Assam is bold and malty while a Darjeeling is delicate and floral, and how a smoky lapsang or toasty hojicha can taste worlds apart from a grassy sencha or a nutty genmaicha.

Along the way, discover how temperature and steeping time can turn the same leaf bitter or blissful, and how to get the most out of just one bag of tea. This tasting blends tradition, curiosity, and a touch of obsession (okay, fine, way more than a touch), making it perfect for anyone ready to dive deep into the endlessly surprising world of fine, exotic and luxury teas.

Frequently Asked Questions

For groups of 10 or more in Springfield, hands-on holiday classes usually fall in the $40–$75/person range, while parties are generally $25–$35/person. Smaller groups are welcome too, but fair warning—physics, math, and economics team up to make the per-person cost a bit higher.

 

For our hands-on cooking experiences, we recommend groups of 6–16 people, though we can sometimes stretch to 20-ish with a little creativity. We don’t really believe in hard limits so much as we believe in logistics—there’s usually a way to make it work, like splitting a big group into two shifts or seatings.

For holiday parties, we can go much bigger since not everyone needs a cutting board at the same time. Whatever size your group, give us a shout and we’ll figure out the best way to create a fun, memorable experience for your crew.

 

Yes! We love a good road trip. Travel fees apply for locations outside Springfield proper, because gas, truck maintenance and time travel (sadly) aren’t free...

Holiday dates are an extremely limited resource and they tend to vanish faster than the last cookie on the plate. We recommend booking as early as possible to snag your preferred date and time.

Probably! We are happy to tailor our menus to fit your group, whether that means accommodating dietary restrictions, adding extra courses, or creating a custom holiday theme just for you. That said, we are still bound by the limits of space-time, physics, gravity, and a variety of other practical and/or esoteric concerns. We’ll always do our best to make it work though!

No problem! The names help set the vibe, but the food doesn’t mind what time it’s served. If your group wants to flip gingerbread waffles at 3 p.m. or enjoy roast beef sliders at 7pm, we’re all for it. Think of “brunch,” “lunch,” and “dinner” as suggestions, not rules—because the holidays are about joy, not strict meal labels.

For our meal-oriented hands-on cooking classes, plan on about 60–75 minutes of cooking followed by 30–45 minutes of eating. Depending on the menu, the venue, and how chatty your group is (we’re looking at you, talkative teams), things can run a little longer or shorter.

For holiday parties, you set the pace—they last as long as you want! We suggest 1–2 hours as a sweet spot. If you’d like us to stick around longer than two hours, we’re happy to… though fair warning, there may be an additional charge (because time is money and our elves need sleep too).

Sure! You’re welcome to supply your own beer, wine, or cocktails to enjoy with your meal. We’re happy to suggest pairings if you’d like. We just ask that you observe our No Wine Before Knives rule for the cooking classes (but we always start with the knives because we know how you are.)

Not much! We bring all the cooking gear and ingredients. You just provide tables, chairs, and hungry participants. We do need some table or counter space to work, plus access to electricity and running water. We’ll bring along extension cords and power strips, but as with most things in life: the better the access to power, the better the experience.

Absolutely—these experiences are made for great photos! Just be aware we may also take a few snapshots for our own promotional use.

Often, yes. Just let us know in advance so we can adjust menus as best we can.”

Holy garbanzo beans, YES! These experiences are perfect for workplace holiday parties, client entertaining, or team-building activities. Food brings people together like nothing else. Not much! We bring all the cooking gear and ingredients. You just provide tables, chairs, and hungry participants. We do need some table or counter space to work, plus access to electricity and running water. We’ll bring along extension cords and power strips, but as with most things in life: the better the access to power, the better the experience.

Yes! While these menus are designed with holiday cheer in mind, our portable classes and parties don’t disappear when the tinsel comes down. We’ll have a fresh lineup of traveling menus available starting in January, so you can keep the celebrations going into the new year (and beyond).