Make It Do What It Do

Most of us do not need another crowded spice cabinet or another recipe that requires ten new ingredients. We need more confidence, more imagination, and more range from the food already within reach.

Maybe your cabinet is full of spices, but you keep reaching for the same few. Maybe you have beans, rice, greens, mushrooms, root vegetables, and pantry staples, but everything is beginning to taste familiar. Maybe rising food costs have made experimentation feel expensive—and wasting ingredients is no longer an option.

Make It Do What It Do was created for that kitchen reality.

Led by Chef Phil Jones, this three-part hands-on culinary learning series will help you understand how flavor actually works. Across three Thursday evenings, you will learn how to season with intention, transform familiar pantry ingredients, and build depth through thoughtful layers of flavor and texture.

This is not about memorizing one rigid recipe. It is about learning how spice, salt, fat, acid, sweetness, heat, aromatics, texture, timing, and cooking method work together—so you can make better decisions in your own kitchen long after the class ends.

You will cook, taste, compare, adjust, eat, and leave with practical tools you can use again.

The series moves through three connected skills:

SEASON IT. TRANSFORM IT. BUILD IT.

Each class stands on its own, but together they create a complete journey from seasoning confidence to full-meal composition.

Thursday, October 22, 2026
6:30–8:45 PM

What does a seasoning actually contribute—and how do you know when food needs more spice, more salt, more acid, more heat, or something else entirely?

In Respect, you will explore how three distinct jonesHOMEMADE seasonings behave in different cooking applications. You will create and use your own personal salt-free spice blend, taste the results, and learn how to make deliberate adjustments instead of simply adding more seasoning and hoping for the best.

The supper includes tomato-braised curry chickpeas over lemon-herb fonio, Berbere-finished sweet potatoes, Austin’s Jerk roasted mushrooms, and a citrus-herb slaw seasoned with your personal blend. A small chef-prepared jerk chicken tasting is offered separately.

You will leave with a four-seasoning Respect Flavor Kit and a printed and digital field guide filled with recipes, seasoning functions, substitutions, nutrition context, and food stories.

Thursday, October 29, 2026
6:30–8:45 PM

How do you take familiar ingredients and make them feel entirely new without buying a longer, more expensive grocery list?

Grandma’s Hands is about transformation. You will work with black-eyed peas, rice, cornmeal, greens, aromatics, seasoning, gravy, and acid—ingredients many of us already know—and learn how texture, moisture, binding, shaping, and finishing can turn them into a completely different meal.

You will make and shape black-eyed pea-and-rice cakes, learn how to finish a curry-onion gravy, build a sharp pepper-vinegar relish, and enjoy the finished supper with garlicky braised collards. A small chef-prepared smoked turkey tasting is served separately.

You will leave with a Pantry Supper Kit and a printed and digital guide covering the complete supper, substitutions, shortcuts, budgeting, nutrition context, foodways, and additional ways to use the same core ingredients at home.

Thursday, November 5, 2026
6:30–8:45 PM

What makes an ordinary dish become something memorable? Often, it is not a rare ingredient. It is the order in which ingredients are introduced, the textures allowed to remain distinct, and the way each layer supports the next.

Love and Happiness is the series finale and the lesson in deliberate construction. You will taste what happens when the same basic ingredients are cooked in two different sequences, then use that understanding to build a composed supper with depth, contrast, and nuance.

You will assemble a hearty Berbere mushroom-and-root-vegetable cobbler, make an olive-oil scallion biscuit topping, and finish blistered green beans with lemon and herbs. A small chef-prepared Berbere chicken tasting is offered separately.

You will leave with a Layer Builder Kit and a printed and digital guide featuring recipes, substitutions, budget-minded adaptations, nutrition context, food stories, and a practical framework for building layered savory dishes at home.

Every class includes:

• Guided, hands-on cooking in a small-group setting
• A substantial plant-forward meal that stands on its own
• A separate optional chef-prepared animal-protein tasting
• Three thoughtfully paired zero-proof sips
• Cultural storytelling connecting technique, ingredients, memory, and foodways
• A distinct take-home seasoning or pantry kit
• Printed and digital recipes, nutrition information, substitutions, budgeting guidance, and food stories
• Practical methods you can carry into other meals—not just one recipe

This experience is designed for:

• Home cooks who want to stop guessing and understand how flavor works
• People with spices in the cabinet who are unsure how—or when—to use them
• Anyone trying to get more meals, more variety, and more value from pantry staples
• Cooks who want plant-forward food to feel complete, satisfying, and exciting
• Beginners looking for a welcoming place to build confidence
• Experienced home cooks ready to become more intentional about seasoning, texture, sequence, and balance

No professional cooking experience is required. Bring your curiosity, your appetite, and a willingness to taste thoughtfully.

Individual class: $100 plus Eventbrite fees
Complete three-class Series Pass: $250 plus Eventbrite fees — a $50 savings

Enrollment is limited to 16 participants per class.

To purchase admission to all three classes, select October 22 at 6:30 PM from the date menu and choose Full Series Pass — All Three Classes. One Series Pass reserves one participant’s seat for October 22, October 29, and November 5. You do not need to purchase additional individual-class tickets.

To attend one class, select that class’s date and purchase its individual ticket.

Registration closes 48 hours before each class or sooner if the class sells out.

Location: Kujichagulia Kitchens, 8324 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan

Food costs more. Waste costs more. Kitchen confidence has real value.

The goal is not to convince you that you need more things. The goal is to help you recognize more possibility in what you already have—and learn how to make it do what it do.

Info: Arrive, get settled at your cooking station, meet your group, and begin with the evening’s first zero-proof sip.

Info: Chef Phil introduces the class question, core techniques, featured ingredients, and the cultural stories that give the lesson context.

Info: Season, mix, shape, assemble, taste, compare, and adjust while Chef Phil guides the room and the support team manages centralized heat and oven work.

Info: Sit down to the completed plant-forward supper, enjoy the optional chef-prepared protein tasting, and discuss how seasoning, texture, and technique changed the food.

Info: Walk through the class-specific take-home kit and field guide, enjoy the final zero-proof sip, and leave with practical ways to use the lesson at home.

Event venue & nearby stays

Detroit People's Food Co-op, 8324 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.

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