By Katie Hurley
Not everyone looks forward to learning to cook, but when you have inspiring instructors who love food and want to pass on that love to their students, learning to cook can be a downright joy. This is the case at the Bayview School of Cooking. A talented set of instructors are on hand to introduce students to new ingredients and ethnic cuisine as well as basic culinary skills.
Instructor Barb Agee has been assisting and teaching at Bayview School of Cooking for over 6 years. While working in banking and finance and teaching budget management classes to low-income families, Barb started taking cooking classes at Bayview. As she neared retirement, she began working as an assistant in the Cooking School, where her passion for food and talent for sharing that love became apparent. She agreed to teach one class, which led to more classes, and now she is one of two instructors of the “In the Kitchen” classes that are held at Bayview School of Cooking on the first Thursday of each month.
While Agee has not had formal culinary training, she learned early on that she wanted to share her love of food and encourage people to step out of their food comfort zones. “I teach people how to cook the way I cook at home,” says Agee. “Simple food doesn’t have to be ordinary. I show people how to layer flavors to enhance a dish.” She was inspired to learn to cook by her mother, who was an excellent baker and was good at cooking ordinary food. Agee likes to use citrus, herbs and spices to take a dish from ordinary to sublime.
Bayview Cooking School instructors regularly focus on what is available locally and is currently in season. Agee is no exception. She works with Bayvew Thriftway’s Produce Manager Trevor DeWispelaere to feature the best and freshest local produce of the season in each of her classes. In her October “In the Kitchen” class about baking scones, she’ll be serving Ila’s local jams along with the scones.
Instructor Lee Ann Ufford enjoys teaching classes that feature a whole dinner party menu or classes focused on baking scrumptious desserts. Ufford developed her interest in food and learned most of her cooking skills while moving around the world as a military wife and taking cooking classes in some of the places they lived. “I like the history of the food, not just the food itself,” says Ufford. “I like to introduce people to things that are different.”
Ufford has been teaching classes for 3 years. She decided it was time to do something in the culinary field when she realized that baking 500 gourmet cookies for her daughter’s wedding, baking a wedding cake in a kitchen 6 hours away from her home, and regularly traveling to the East Coast with a suitcase full of frozen baked goods indicated that she might be more interested in food than the average person.
Because of the experiences she has had traveling the world, she enjoys teaching ethnic cuisines, especially Mediterranean and Middle Eastern. When Bayview needed someone to teach an Irish Dinner class, Lee Ann did the research and experimented to find the perfect recipe and technique for corned beef and side dishes.
The range of training and talents of the instructors at Bayview is quite varied. Many of the other instructors have come by their experience and knowledge in the same way as Agee and Ufford… by traveling, dining, doing research and experimenting. Others have had years of formal culinary training or on-the-job training in restaurants. The common thread among the instructors is the love of food and the desire to share it with those around them. Few of them look at teaching cooking classes as a job… it is more about indulging a passion to do interesting and delicious things with food and helping others to discover that passion themselves.
You can experience “A Taste of Autumn” with Lee Ann Ufford at Bayview School of Cooking on September 27 at 6:00 pm. Barb Agee will be teaching on September 28 at the cooking school’s Brewmaster’s Dinner featuring a 5-course dinner prepared with Deschutes Brewery’s beers and accompanied by Deschutes beer pairings. For more information go to www.bayviewschoolofcooking.com or call 360-754-1448.
Bayview School of Cooking is a local, family-owned owned business, located inside Bayview Thriftway.
516 4th Avenue West
Olympia, WA 98502
360.754.1448
