by KYW's Lauren Lipton

Is there something you've always wanted to learn but didn't quite know where to start?  Well, summer non-credit courses are being offered at area schools, including Temple University's center city campus (TUCC).  

Kevin Wood, director of non-credit programs at TUCC, describes some of the offerings:

"Cheese-making class, pairing wine and food, sushi classes taught by Madame Saito's. We always offer cooking with the great chefs of Philadelphia."

One of those chefs is Anna Maria Florio:

"One of the classes that La Cucina at the Reading Terminal Market is offering with Temple University is a 'Gnocchi, Gnocchi, Gnocchi' class.  First thing we try to teach them is that the correct pronunciation is nyok-kee rather than guh-nocki or some other such thing."

And what exactly does that word mean?

"Gnocchi in Italian just generally means 'a lump.'  And it's in a dialect.  You wouldn't find gnocchi meaning a lump in the dictionary."

There's a lot more going on this summer at TUCC that has nothing to do with food:

(Wood:)  "Kickboxing, yoga, dance classes, do-it-yourself home repair, Chinese, Arabic, Russian."

The full rundown can be found by going to www.temple.edu.  
  
As for me, I will be throwing a big dinner party after the classes.  I will serve five different kinds of gnocchi, paired with perfect wine, make my own cheese. Then I will dance the rhumba as I wish my guests goodnight in Russian.  

But for now, in English, that's Positively Philadelphia!