Family Time in Door County, Wisconsin

Several restaurants, resorts and specialty food retailers thrive in Door County, Wisconsin, but nothing taps into the region’s abundance of produce and raw materials quite like The Savory Spoon Cooking School in Ellison Bay on the Door County peninsula. It is apt the school, which operates mid-June to the end of October, occupies a former village schoolhouse, built in 1879 and restored in 2005. The old “Classroom 2” is currently equipped with state-of-the-art appliances, tools and fixtures, including cooking and refrigeration equipment from SubZero/Wolf and top-name small appliances.

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Savory Spoon Dessert. Photo: Elyse Glickman

Chef Janice Thomas, who owns and operates the school, is a member of International Association of Culinary Professionals and Women Chefs of America. Even with those credentials, her approach is part Mary Poppins and part Julia Child, with a dash of Auntie Mame. She talks to even her youngest students with enthusiasm, respect and easy-to-follow guidance. Another thing that makes her a compelling teacher is she herself continues to be a student of the culinary arts, sharpening her skills at the renowned Cordon Bleu in Paris and with well-respected chefs in France, Italy and China and applying her widening base of knowledge to using Door County ingredients — down to her backyard herb garden — to the fullest effect.

As Thomas also has had experience teaching cooking classes for many years in Arizona, Oregon and Wisconsin and running a catering company, she is also a fan of food fusion cuisine, which crosses both state and international borders and informs the various themes of her cooking classes. Thomas’s family-focused and kids classes successfully blend a useful array of cooking techniques, global flavors and the worldly chef’s adept storytelling style relaying any pertinent globe-trotting experience related to the class theme.

A special guest from a local business bringing in baked goods or samples ties “local flavor” back in regardless of the  focus. The final result is a day that makes older participants feel like they’ve been zapped into a Food Network or PBS culinary show. Kids and teens, meanwhile, not only learn correct methods for essential cooking basics and kitchen safety, but master them via a process involving teamwork.

Savory Spoon Herb Garden. Photo: Elyse Glickman

During the final month of the 2018 season, class offerings will include a Soup Swap, Global Chicken and Local Flavors, concentrating on the last harvest of Door County’s growing season. During the off-season, Thomas organizes and leads international group food adventures in Mexico, Europe and, on occasion, China. Next year’s itineraries detailed on the website include Villa Bonita, Mexico (Feb. 3–10); Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca (TBD); Sicily, Italy (TBD); and France and Spain’s Basque regions (May 2019). Check the website regularly for updates to the trips’ departure dates and information on how to enroll, as well as classes offered in Door County in the 2019 regular season.