In-Person Cooking Class

Cookie Swap & Live! Salt+Spine podcast with La Cocina

Sun | Dec 15, 2019 | 12–3P PT

Guest Host Brian Hogan Stewart

Special Guest Maria Zizka

Special Guest Hetal Vasavada

Teacher Jackie Apple

Teacher Sasha Crehan

Co-Founder Jen Nurse

Don’t miss the annual Cookie Swap extravaganza we’re hosting with Salt+Spine —bigger and even better for 2019! Join us for a fun-packed event featuring a live podcast recording with stars of the La Cocina cookbook, plus cookie demos & sampling, and glasses of bubbly and warm apple cider.
Start off the afternoon by sitting down to enjoy a special live Salt + Spine podcast taping with stars of La Cocina’s celebrated 1st cookbook: La Cocina entrepreneurs Nafy Flatley & Nite Yun and directors Leticia Landa & Caleb Zigas.
Then gather in our kitchen to taste cookies by writers featured on Salt + Spine and learn baking tips from local cookbook authors Maria Zizka & Hetal Vasavada, Salt + Spine host Brian Hogan Stewart, and a bevy of Civic Kitchen teachers.
Throughout it all, we’ll swap cookies with new and old friends. Bring one dozen (or more!) homemade cookies and swap them for another mixed dozen to take home. No time to bake? You can still take home cookies for $10 per dozen.
We will also give away a set of baking books and a Salt + Spine t-shirt to celebrate Baking Week! Proceeds from the event benefit La Cocina, supporting low-income food entrepreneurs in the Bay Area.
If you love cookies, you will not want to miss this event!

Cookie Swap!

LIVE PODCAST
with guests from La Cocina

DEMOS & TASTING

COOKIES

More COOKIES

Oodles of COOKIES

Glasses of BUBBLES & Mugs of CIDER

Recipes

Minimalist Mulled CIDER
(non-alcoholic)

Guest Host

Brian Hogan Stewart

BRIAN HOGAN STEWART is the host and creator of Salt + Spine. He is a once-budding chef who passed on a culinary school degree to pursue journalism. He’s not a professional cook nor a cookbook author—but an avid home cook and an enthusiastic cookbook collector, with a collection now in the hundreds. (That may seem like a lot to some, but he envies Diana Henry’s 4,000-book library almost daily!)
Brian has worked extensively in journalism and new media, including leading a media company featuring a daily newspaper with circulation of 50,000+, a nightly newscast, and multiple digital properties. He has conducted hundreds (and hundreds…) of interviews throughout his career, including time spent covering food culture and personalities in the midwest.
Brian is a native of Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in journalism, English, and American studies.

Website


Special Guest

Maria Zizka

Maria Zizka is a cookbook writer and recipe developer who was named by Forbes as one of the most influential people under 30 in the world of food and drink. She has collaborated with leading chefs, including Elisabeth Prueitt, Jessica Koslow, and Suzanne Goin, and coauthored numerous award-winning cookbooks, most recently Tartine All Day, Everything I Want to Eat, and This Is Camino. She also Americanizes, edits, and develops recipes for cookbooks.
Her first solo book, The Newlywed Table, will be published by Artisan on April 2, 2019.
Maria earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Berkeley and a master’s degree in food culture and communications from L’Università degli Studi di Scienze Gastronomiche, where she will teach a spring 2019 course.
Maria is an avid home cook with a deep respect for restaurant cuisine. She lives and cooks in Berkeley, California, with her husband, Graham Bradley.
More about Maria

Special Guest

Hetal Vasavada

Hetal Vasavada is the founder of the blog Milk & Cardamom. She has just released her first cookbook, Milk & Cardamom: Spectacular Cakes, Custards and More, Inspired by the Flavors of India.
Hetal was a contestant on Season 6 of MasterChef, and her recipes have been featured in The New York Times, Huffington Post, TASTE and The Times of India. She also consults on recipe development and content creation for culinary businesses. She lives in San Francisco, California with her husband and her adorable daughter.
More about Hetal

About the teachers

Jackie Apple

As a youngster, JACKIE APPLE loved hanging out in the family kitchen, sitting on the counter watching her mother prepare classic Argentine food. Throughout her youth, Jackie traveled often to Europe and South America. Some of her most vivid memories are of the flavorful foods created by her relatives and host family: cherry clafouti in Vichy, France; pasta alla norcina in Perugia, Italy; beef empanadas in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In college and graduate school, Jackie cooked whenever possible. Friends always jumped when she offered to make a meal, and she even met her husband that way! Eventually, cooking on nights and weekends was not enough - Jackie enrolled at the Tante Marie Cooking School in San Francisco. There, despite stressing about every success and failure, Jackie had the time of her life. She knew then that the kitchen was THE place for her.
Jackie has been teaching cooking for more than 15 years, taking great pleasure in seeing students learn something new that they will share with others. Like many of her students, Jackie has a family to feed and a busy schedule. She understands the importance of creating recipes that can be made quickly and efficiently.
The most important message Jackie has for her students is “Just Cook!” You will be amazed at the dishes you can create for your family and friends.

Website


Sasha Crehan

SASHA CREHAN teaches The Civic Kitchen’s Learn to Bake series for home bakers. She believes that once her students understand the chemistry behind the magic of perfectly whipped egg whites, the multifaceted personality of sugar, and the glory of butter, they can fully immerse themselves in the joy of successful baking.
Sasha studied Pastry Arts at Tante Marie’s Cooking School. After years of working as a pastry chef at Bay Area restaurants and bakeries such as Bay Wolf, Garibaldi’s, Café Rouge and Sweet Adeline Bakeshop, she returned to her alma mater to teach the Professional Pastry Course and many recreational classes. Sasha has also worked as a freelance baker of specialty cakes and desserts for weddings and other celebrations.

Jen Nurse

JEN NURSE, co-founder of The Civic Kitchen, has a passion for helping home cooks develop the skills and confidence to create great meals and have fun in their own kitchens. She relishes seeing the joy on students’ faces as they realize they’re mastering something they once feared. Her mission is to foster competence and civility through the medium of shared food experiences.
Before founding The Civic Kitchen, Jen led cooking classes for kids and adults at Tante Marie’s Cooking School, 18 Reasons, and elementary, middle and high schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
After years as a prolific and curious home cook, Jen studied pastry arts at the Art Institute of Seattle. She eventually scuttled her 15-year telecommunications career to open an award-winning boutique bakery in Seattle. After relocating to San Francisco, she worked as a pastry chef and recipe developer before enrolling in Tante Marie’s professional culinary program to gain a deeper knowledge of the kitchen’s savory side. Soon thereafter, she found her deepest love of cooking when she began to teach.
Jen credits her mother’s exceptional home cooking (crêpes with Mornay sauce? Go, Mom!), her beloved Aunt Josy’s flaky-crust empanadas, and a transformative teenage year in Brescia, Italy with sparking her culinary curiosity. An insatiable bookworm, she blissfully shares her cookbook library with guests of The Civic Kitchen.

Other Classes taught by Jen

Feasting with Friends
Part of the Learn to Cook More Series
Thu | Mar 28, 2024 | 6P

Dough: Cookies and Crusts
Part of the Learn to Bake (Saturdays)—Spring 2024 Series
Sat | Apr 06, 2024 | 11A

Knife Skills Basics
Tue | Apr 09, 2024 | 6P

Creams: Custards, Curds, and Ganache
Part of the Learn to Bake (Saturdays)—Spring 2024 Series
Sat | Apr 13, 2024 | 11A

Air: Meringues, Cream Puffs, and Soufflés
Part of the Learn to Bake (Saturdays)—Spring 2024 Series
Sat | Apr 20, 2024 | 11A

Layer Cakes
Part of the Learn to Bake (Saturdays)—Spring 2024 Series
Sat | Apr 27, 2024 | 11A