COOKING AT SEA

This summer Celebrity Chef Cat Cora will demonstrate how to whip up her favourite dishes as part of Holland America Line’s (HAL) Culinary Arts Center, presented by Food & Wine magazine. Cora, who has restaurants at Macy’s South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif., at San Francisco’s and Houston’s airports, as well as at Walt Disney World, is scheduled to sail on Nieuw Amsterdam’s 12-day Mediterranean Empires cruise departing July 2. In addition to Cora, the lineup for the Culinary Arts Center fleet-wide enrichment program includes other celebrated chefs, cookbook authors and television personalities from the culinary world who sail throughout the year. Also sailing this year are the Food Network’s “Next Food Network Star”finalist Michele Ragussis and Danny Grant, executive chef at the Waldorf Astoria Chicago, who was named one of Food & Wine magazine’s “Best New Chefs of 2012.”The culinary program enables cruisers aboard the line’s 15 ships to experience cooking shows, wine tastings and question-and-answer sessions in a full show kitchen. Also offered are hands-on classes conducted by top chefs, wine experts, noted culinary specialists and leading cookbook authors. (http://www.hollandamerica.com)