In The Kitchen in The Union!
By Liz Kellar
The storm outside makes the eponymous heart of In The Kitchen, a new Nevada City business, even more welcoming.
Around a rustic-modern wood-and-metal prep table, six young children attired in aprons are perched on stools for a lesson in confectionery.
Wendy Van Wagner shows off a bowl of melted chocolate to a chorus of “ooohs” before taking her students through the steps of stirring in fragrant peppermint oil and pouring the mixture onto parchment paper.
Like a growing number of young Nevada County natives, Van Wagner has come home after starting her career somewhere else.
While In The Kitchen is brand-new to its Zion Street location, she has been teaching cooking classes for three years.
“You have to be able to feed yourself and learning to cook is one of those basic skills that have gotten lost along the way,” Van Wagner said.
Her classes for children are extremely popular, but adults enjoy the lessons, too, she said. She has had a fair number of men sign up, perhaps not so surprising given the growing acceptability of cooking as a hobby.
Her students range from complete novices to semi-professionals.
“In every class I’ve had, there’s one on each end of the scale and most are in between,” she said.
One of Van Wagner’s more unusual offerings is a knife skills class, a basic skill to have if you are going to do any real cooking.
“When I started focusing on my personal (knife) skills, my efficiency and confidence skyrocketed,” she said.
She teaches basic methods such as dicing, mincing and chopping, as well as more advanced techniques such as julienne and chiffonade.
Despite an academic detour, she has always been passionate about food, Van Wagner said.
“When I was a little girl, I had a kid’s cookbook,” she said. What really intrigued her, she added, was the presentation.
“Just taking raw ingredients and turning it into something amazing and delicious,” she said.
She studied cultural anthropology at Pitzer College and said at the time, a culinary career was not in her frame of reference. But food began to weave its way back into her life — it’s is a big part of people’s cultures, after all.
“A lot happens around a meal,” she said.
She started cooking again, running a “very under-the-table” business as a personal chef in Southern California. Many of her clients were interested in healthy eating, spurring her own interest.
She moved to Berkeley to attend Bauman College, where she earned a certificate in nutrition education.
“They have a really holistic approach with the emphasis on food rather than on supplements,” she explained.
Her craft blossomed in Berkeley, a mecca for serious food.
“I had the opportunity to work with some amazing women chefs,” Van Wagner said. “I was drawn to them because they were coming from a place of nurture and healing, not flashy chef action — a more humble cuisine.”
While in Berkeley, Van Wagner volunteered at the Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, which she called the “poster child for seed-to-table school programs.”
In 2006, Van Wagner started an organic lunch program at the Oakland Community Charter School.
“Everything was cooked on site, from scratch, every day,” she said.
A year later, she moved to San Francisco, where In The Kitchen was born in her Victorian apartment. Soon, she was running three classes a week.
But when she decided to return to Nevada City a year and a half ago, she said, “I didn’t know what I wanted to do.”
One thing she did know for sure — she didn’t want a home-based business.
When the little bungalow on Zion, just up the street from SPD Market, came up for sale, it seemed she received her answer.
“One of the things that made this so perfect is the location — and it had a huge kitchen for being such a small house,” she said.
With “a lot of help” from her family, the house was purchased and remodeled. The space has been open for business for three weeks.
During the lengthy construction process, Van Wagner has been catering, running workshops and a culinary camp for children this summer at her parents’ house.
Van Wagner, who said her life “is surrounded by food,” also has become active in several organizations such as the local chapter of Slow Food.
“To me, it’s a mindset,” she said. “Being able to sit down and enjoy food with your family. Just being appreciative — being mindful.”
To contact Staff Writer Liz Kellar, e-mail lkellar@theunion.com or call 477-4229.
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