New York

Astor Center

Your college years were mostly wasted on ivory-tower intellectualism, like "Flemish Lit" and "Racquetball 401". Recoup your misspent youth at the college of gluttony: Astor Center, opening Monday.

O & O'd by Astor Wines, AC's a massive culinary academy offering grub/booze classes for everybody from accomplished critics to amateur gastronomes (gastro-gnomes can attend, but must use their own separate-but-tiny bathrooms). Taught by national luminaries like Dave Wondrich and F. Paul Pacult, (plus reps from local institutions like PDT and Gramercy Tavern), classes include "Sommelier's Secrets", "Tasting Scotch Like a Professional", and "Taste of the CIA" (Culinary Institute of America; sadly, you may never know the blame-shifting creaminess of George Tenet). Knowledge drops in three tech'd-up facilities: a 102-seat, A/V-equipped gallery, a professional kitchen with a recording/broadcasting rig, and a stadium-like classroom where each seat's equipped with light box (for judging wine/liquor hues) and spit sink -- for when repeated not-spitting overcomes you.

Besides classes, AC also hosts private events in its gallery -- which at 1700 sq ft is, to paraphrase Jan Theodoor van Rijswijck (1811-1849), "big enough to bust some ill advanced racquetball moves".

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