eNewMexican

Cooking Classes

VIRTUAL CLASSES. REAL NM FLAVOR.

BY PATRICIA WEST-BARKER

After 30 successful years running hands- on and demonstration cooking classes for visitors and locals, all in-person teaching at the Santa Fe School of Cooking ground to a halt when COVID-19 restrictions went into effect in mid-March. Surviving the shutdown would mean adapting, quickly, to an unfamiliar online environment.

“I am not a technologically savvy person,” says Nicole Ammerman, director of operations for the school and market, “and when my mom (SFSC founder Susan Curtis) told me that I would be dealing with setting up virtual classes, I broke into tears multiple times.”

She was so overwhelmed trying to figure out video production and Zoom that she didn’t return calls to an old friend from high school. “The friend, Ezra Migel, finally called my husband and asked him to have me call him, saying ‘I want to help her.’” Migel, a professional photographer/videographer working in Los Angeles, decided to move back home to Santa Fe where he could help her get the online programs going.

The result of their collaboration is a constantly expanding series of approximately hour-long virtual cooking classes that range from New Mexican classics, like carne asado, calabacitas, tacos, enchiladas and green chile stew, Spanish tapas, Bolivian comfort foods and Mexican fine dining taught by longtime cooking school staff and guest chefs, including Michelle Chavez, Noe Cano, Rocky Durham, Lois Ellen Frank and Cheryl Alters Jamison. New additions for the holiday season include a modern Southwestern Thanksgiving, a Southwestern Christmas, and a vegan Native American stew. Recipes and a shopping list are included with each video, as is a list of ingredients that can be purchased from the school’s market.

Ammerman experimented with virtual formats to see if there would be a higher demand for live Zoom classes versus the prerecorded classes. There was no more demand for the Zoom classes, so they decided to just go with the video format. “Since they live on forever, people can start and stop a class whenever they want. And once they buy it, it’s theirs forever.” Virtual cooking classes cost $20; detailed descriptions of the classes and a link to purchase each video are available on the school’s website (santafeschoolofcooking.com/Online- Classes).

Private live Zoom classes for groups of friends, family or co-workers can be arranged directly with Ammerman (800982-4688). Those classes start at $550 and include cooking kits with all the necessary ingredients.

Another new offering at the reimagined cooking school is prepared food to go. The family-style trays of enchiladas, tamales, carne adovada, pinto beans, calabacitas, tamales, posole, chile sauces, empanadas and bizcochitos make use of the empty kitchen and keep the school’s main chef, Noe Cano, busy. Orders must be placed 24 hours in advance and can be picked up curbside or inside the market.

The best way to keep up with the school’s offerings, Ammerman says, is to get on its weekly email blast that talks about new classes, new shipments to the store, and new togo choices. Look for the “Receive Tidbits” link at the bottom of the school’s homepage to sign up.

“People seem very happy with the virtual classes,” she says. “They are very well priced, they are very well done, and people have said that it’s so nice to see their favorite chefs cooking. It’s hard to recreate yourself; it’s stressful. But we’re doing a pretty good job I think.”

John Vollertson (aka Johnny Vee), who has been teaching cooking classes at Las Cosas Cooking School for 21 years, also had to pivot quickly into online teaching when in-person classes were no longer possible. Like Ammerman at the Santa Fe School of Cooking, he has had to climb a steep learning curve to master new-to-him technology; unlike Ammerman, he has chosen to pursue the live Zoom format.

Vollertson conducted his last hands- on class the day before the DeVargas mall closed. “We had heard about the social distancing, but nothing about masks at that stage. I put out gloves. Two of the people in the class thought it was nothing and would probably blow over; another, older man was pretty cautious. The next day the edict came down.”

A few months after the school closed, a regular student asked Vollertson if he would do a Zoom class for her book club. Before then, he says, he had only done Zoom meetings with his family. “She asked for a paella I had done in my live classes. It was a private gig, they knew me, and they realized this would be my first Zoom class” so it wasn’t too intimidating. The group liked the May class so much they asked for another in June. “At that stage,” Vollertson says, “I realized we were not going live anytime soon, so I started to plan a summer Zoom schedule.”

The first online class was on high-altitude altitude baking. He offered samples of everything he made dd during the class to the students and 38 people flooded into the shop to pick them up. Baking everything twice was a lot of extra work, he says, and drew too many people into the store at the same time. “That was another good learning lesson,” he says. “Then it started to get a little easier.”

The four Saucy Saturday classes, advertised only through the kitchen shop, were well attended. “We were so lucky that we had so many people asking when we were going to do classes again, and they were thrilled that we weren’t going to try to get them into the store to cook. I was getting lovely emails saying it was so nice to feel like I was in your kitchen and we don’t even have to leave the house!”

Among the other things Vollertson has learned about teaching on Zoom versus teaching in person: “I realized that a two-hour class is too long for people to focus on in that format, so I cut back on the number of recipes covered so the class could be completed in about an hour. If you forget an ingredient or tool you’re dead: you can’t leave the camera for even a minute. And if you drop something, you can’t pick it up.” He also sped up the prep time, doing things like chopping onions before the start of the class. Known for his gift of gab and high- energy humor,

Vollertson quickly discovered that jokes that get a great response in a live class can fall flat on Zoom, where many people don’t turn on either their video cameras or their microphones.

Feeling confident that he has mastered the medium, Vollertson has added some holiday-themed classes to his roster. “Here Today, Gone Tamale,” the cooking school’s annual tamale roll, goes live on Zoom on Dec.11; High Altitude Baking For The Holidays is scheduled for Dec. 12. All Zoom classes cost $30; see the Las Cosas Cooking School website (lascosascooking.com) for more details and a link to register. To keep up with all of the Las Cosas Cooking School online offerings, including programs scheduled for January, call the shop at 505-988-3394 and ask to be put on the mailing list.

A high-school friend who had written and was promoting a vegan cookbook suggested Vollertson check out a new teaching platform created by General Electric Appliances. Chibo is a live, interactive, turnkey social cooking site that includes scheduling, ticketing and online video streaming — everything a chef would need to offer online cooking classes. Vollertson will take the new format for a spin with “New Mexico Christmas — Red Or Green,” another formerly hands

on favorite on Dec. 13. Home cooks can book this class, also $30, directly through the Chibo Online Cooking School website (cookwithchibo.com).

The teacher may be more comfortable with live online cooking classes now — but what do students think?

Santa Fe resident Eva Schmatz, a veteran of many of Vollertson’s traditional hands- on programs, has also participated in all of his newer Zoom classes. “I actually enjoy both types of classes,” she says. While she misses the social side of an in-person evening out at a cooking school — and the meal that follows when the work is done — she thinks Las Cosas’s Zoom classes also are worth taking. “Johnny is tremendously knowledgeable,” she says. “He makes everything fun. And he has that performance background: he understands what it takes to hold the audience’s attention.”

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2020-11-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

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Santa Fe New Mexican