In a tiny, ramshackle classroom, seven of us students listened to our affable, heavily tattooed instructor, Charlie Mirisola, explain the differences between various types of knives, and the proper way to hold and sharpen them. We cut up onions, celery, potatoes, parsley. When the clam chowder we were meant to be making went south (the clams didn’t open, and the stove’s burner was recalcitrant), Mr. Mirisola handed us each a measuring cup and then poured us each a generous slug of white wine. Skol.

After class, another 3rd Ward student asked me how the class went, so I told her “Well” and then added, “I’m thinking about turning my spare guest room into an abattoir.” She looked impressed.

My last stop in Brooklyn was Molasses Books in Bushwick, a used bookstore where you can barter books for wine or beer or tea. To test the limits of the barter system, I presented the calm, bespectacled Molasses employee on duty with three books whose resale value could accurately be described as limited; a collection of Ronald Reagan’s speeches, a 1993 book about the health care crisis and “Hitler Laughing: Comedy in the Third Reich.”

Her eyes widening, the employee called the store’s owner on her cellphone and recited the titles to him. “We can offer you two dollars for the ‘Third Reich’ one,” she soon told me. “But these other two are ...” So I helped her out with, “Their resale potential is more muted.” I slowly put the books back in my bag, upturning my nose in the classic pose of the noble martyr. I asked for a cup of chamomile tea in lieu of cash; while waiting, I found a perfect spot on the Molasses shelves for my book: in between a pictorial history of Nazi Germany and the comedian Fred Allen’s correspondence. Upon exiting, I told the employee: “Thank God you took at least one of my books. That would’ve been awk.”

It’s been a month since my Brooklyn sojourn. It would be naïve to think that a mere long weekend spent in a certain environment would wreak lifelong changes. Yet it’s not far-fetched to catalog the things I’ve learned as a way of locating a potential seedbed. I now know to shave my neck up instead of down, and to admire other men’s foliage.

I now know how to sharpen a knife, hold a knife, and crosshatch an onion. I know now that if the economy sours further, I can trade in all my books for herbal diuretics. I know that I’m not an enthusiast of fixed-gear bikes, but that having my midsection squeezed by a tight-fitting vest energizes and propels me in the manner of a watermelon seed pinched by two fingers.