Joanna McKeown shows her cooking class at Quality Street in Leonardtown how to fold whipped cream. – Photo by Jay Friess

Joanna McKeown can make brussel sprouts taste delicious.

The trick, McKeown intimated to her “For Beginners Only” cooking class Thursday night at her Quality Street Cooking and Catering shop in Leonardtown, is to slice the bitter little balls thinly and then pan fry them with onions, pecans and a quarter cup of butter.

Impressive as this solution is, it was only one dish on a menu that also included a spinach salad with bacon and a warm shallot dressing; a seared and baked pork tenderloin with a curried apple chutney, potatoes au gratin flavored with parmesan cheese and country ham; and an angel food cake slathered a key lime whipped topping.

Each dish was selected to teach a handful of basic gourmet cooking skills to an intimate group of 11 women who have signed up to watch McKeown cook, sip wine and ask questions.

McKeown said she likes to keep classes sizes small, never more than 13 students, because it fosters a very informal atmosphere.

“You can talk to everybody,” McKeown said. “[The students] end up becoming social as well.”

McKeown said that, by the end of one of her classes, students were inviting each other to dinner.

“All right, ladies!” McKeown exclaimed, announcing the start of her class at 6:30 p.m. “We have an aggressive menu, and I don’t want to keep you here till 10 o’clock.”

McKeown, 48, of Hollywood broke the ice immediately, announcing through her wireless headset over backdrop of soothing acoustic guitar music that, “We’re going to keep this very informal.”

She then revealed that Quality Street, which opened in September 2006, is the realization of a dream she has had for nearly three decades.

“I am the lucky, fortunate one who gets to teach this class,” McKeown said, explaining that she began working for the Department of Defense on the Patuxent River Naval Air Station 27 years ago, because she had to make a living. “And about 27 years ago, I decided I hated it.”

During her class, McKeown humbly described herself as a self-taught, cooking show enthusiast, but she later admitted that she did take occasional courses at the L’Acedemie de Cuisine cooking schools in Bethesda and Gaithersburg. Though, they were never enough to satisfy her cooking curiosity.

“I have always liked to cook,” McKeown said, adding that s