Placed right on the corner of Rosemary and N Graham St is “Midway Community Kitchen,” a place that offers an array of services including cooking classes, pop-up dinners, charity events and more.
“My mission is to get more people to cook, to be less intimidated by food and cooking,” said Kathy Ellis Gunn, the owner of Midway Community Kitchen. “I think there’s sort of a mystique around cooking that’s not good. People think that every meal has to be some gourmet thing that you have to put all this time into, and I want to take that mystique away and make people not afraid to be in the kitchen.”
Raised on a farm in Durham, Gunn has always had an intimate relationship with food. She began her cooking career at Magnolia Grill, where she started out in an entry-level position plating desserts.
“I was there for 10 years, and I went from plating desserts and checking in produce, to working every station on the line, to eventually kitchen manager,” said Gunn.
Instead of continuing her restaurant career, Gunn decided to open Midway in order to make a difference in the community by teaching residents the importance of eating nutritious meals and the skills they need in order to prepare them.
Her cooking classes are highly participatory, so don’t expect to sit on your hands and watch someone cook. Students should always prepared to roll up their sleeves and get in the kitchen.
“There are some classes that you just observe, but the ones that are the most fun are the ones that are hands-on,” said Scottie, an attendee of the “Tour of Italy” class at Midway. “I’ve met quite a few guys who come here and want to learn how to cook, which is terrific! Because if you’re single and you want to impress a date, what better way than knowing how to cook?” said Scottie.
The Tour of Italy class begun with students drinking wine and making small talk before class began. Everyone gathered around a large table with pre-measured ingredients, sheets of parchment paper sprinkled with flour and other accoutrements of an evening spent preparing Italian food.
“Tonight we’re going to be making handmade gnocchi with a sugo amatriciana, followed by amaretti di guarcino,” said Brian Adornetto, a veteran professional chef, published food writer and culinary instructor.
The students, following Chef Brian’s instructions, made their own gnocchi from scratch with a sugo amatriciana, which is a tomato-based sauce with pancetta, and a batch of almond macaroons called amaretti di guaricino for dessert. The class ended with everyone enjoying the fruits of their labor with a glass of wine and shared laughter at the table.
“If I can get one person hooked on cooking, I’m cool,” said Gunn. “If it’s just one person the whole time I’m here, because I know that they’ll pass it along to somebody else, and somebody else.”
I could sure use some cooking classes!