Hi, I’m Jen, and I teach people to cook. Here at Jen’s Next Course, I’ll share recipes and food adventures with you – from what I’m cooking for dinner to what I’m teaching in kitchen classrooms around beautiful San Francisco.

Since leaping from a technology career in 2006, I’ve been a culinary student (twice!), chef, bakery owner, recipe-writer and consultant for businesses ranging from food trucks to a Michelin-starred restaurant. I’ve loved it all. And yet…each pursuit felt temporary, as if I were on a journey with an unknown destination. Then I started teaching, and everything fell into place.

Learning to cook is empowering; sharing food with family, friends and our communities feeds our souls. The simple truth is that cooking is easy and fun. It takes a measure of time, dashes of knowledge, and healthy servings of practice and failures.

Teaching cooking is a serious job, and an unpredictable one, too, which suits me just fine. Mistakes are guaranteed, students drop very hot and messy things (once, an entire pot of just-made chicken stock, right at my feet; did I mention it was hot?), and invariably we laugh a lot, learn a bunch and make some fantastically delicious food. It’s a blast.

I don’t keep culinary secrets – I want to demystify cooking and baking for home cooks. I bundle up the things I’ve learned over many years in home and professional kitchens, and I share them.

So let’s cook.