Fennel Cooking Studio chef and founder Jackie Price can’t help but chuckle when she talks about how she took it upon herself to handle her family’s meal planning when she was just a teenager. “At first, I started helping with menu planning for dinner parties my parents would throw, but then I wanted to get even more involved with family meal-planning and eventually just took it over,” says Price. “They were very encouraging about all creative pursuits, but when it came to me making dinner, they were thrilled.”
Price looks back on those experiences as leading her to her work at Midtown’s Fennel Cooking Studio, the wildly popular, hands-on cooking classes that she launched last year. Some of the hottest tickets in town, Fennel’s classes distinguish themselves by being hands-on, skills-based, and community-focused. The goal, Price explains, is for anyone to come into her class, learn something, and be able to not only re-create that particular dish but also to apply the acquired skills to their larger cooking repertoire. Price shared about her journey to Fennel, as well as some insider tips for getting into one of her classes.
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You talk about being involved in the dinner parties your parents would regularly throw and how you began taking on meal prep for your family. Were there other foundational moments that led you into the culinary field? I really knew that I wanted to go into the culinary field early—like in middle school. I watched a lot of Food Network and cooking shows; my parents were big entertainers, so we were always having people over. I’d take what I’d learn from the shows and then apply it to the parties or meal-planning. But a big moment was when I was 14 years old. I was really into watching Top Chef, so for my birthday, my dad took me to the restaurant of one of the people competing on the show, Spike Mendelsohn. After dinner, I got to meet him; I walked right up to him and said, “Hi, I want to be a chef.” He said right back to me, “OK, come back tomorrow morning, and I will mentor you.” I actually did come back and ended up working for him all through high school, doing special events, catering, cooking demos, and all sorts of things. Basically, I was his assistant. He wrote me my recommendation for culinary school.
You attended culinary school at Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island, where you had a special emphasis on nutrition. But you say you don’t really identify with that side of the field. What do you mean by that? When I was at Johnson & Wales, [students] did two years of culinary school to get an associate degree in culinary arts. You could graduate with that, or you could continue on for another two years and get a bachelor’s degree with a concentration in a particular area. I did that and chose nutrition just because I was interested in it and liked science. I figured that maybe I would be a dietitian with a culinary lens. After I finished that, the thing to do was to go to graduate school and become a registered dietitian, so I did that to cover my bases. That’s how I ended up in St. Louis; I moved here for a master’s dietetic program at Saint Louis University, where I got my master’s in nutrition and became a registered dietician. Still, I always had a culinary focus. I have a lot of formal nutrition training, but it has always been through the lens of a chef and food, so I don’t really identify with being a registered dietician. I am a chef. I don’t want to be telling people what to eat; I want people to be inspired by food.
Is this why you took a turn toward restaurants after you completed the program? Yes. I didn’t end up doing anything in relation to dietetics—I didn’t work in a hospital or anything like that. Right after graduation, I became a pastry chef at Rise Coffee. This was when they moved from their tiny location to a newer location in The Grove. I opened that bakery and wrote all the recipes. I have to laugh that I got my master’s in nutrition and then immediately started baking cinnamon rolls.
It seems like you could have gone down the restaurant path, but you decided to do something different by opening Fennel Cooking Studio. How did that come about? All through undergrad and graduate school, I was doing recipe development for a dietician blogger. I was still doing it while I was at Rise and eventually realized that I didn’t love waking up at 3 a.m. to bake things, so I went full-time freelance and took on more dietician clients. I was doing a lot of food media, ghost writing, recipe development, some food photography, and social media management, but then I went back to SLU as an employee, running the food service department out of the nutrition program. I kept putting a bug in their ear that I wanted to teach and finally started out with one class, then two, then three and eventually built up to become a full-time culinary instructor. That is one of the things that sparked my confidence in opening Fennel, because I taught four three-hour cooking classes a week and had all of this transferable knowledge. I figured that I could do this for myself since I already have all the curriculum, know what kinds of questions people have and what kind of equipment we need. I kept having people ask me if they could sign up for classes, and I had to tell them they couldn’t unless they were a SLU undergrad student. That was one of the main things that made me think about it outside of an academic setting. I figured I could do this on my own in a way that doesn’t have as much red tape as academia, so I took the leap.
Fennel feels very different from other cooking classes. Why do you think that is? There are a couple of things that I think really set me apart. One of them is that the classes are really hands-on and skills-based. I want this to be a place where people can come in and really learn something, so they can walk away and say, “Oh, I understand I can repeat that.” That’s what culinary school did for me, and it’s also how I taught in culinary school. I didn’t just want it to be where people are just watching someone do something. I wanted every single person to walk away with a key skill and have an objective. That really stemmed from my training and time teaching classes at SLU. Every class has a lesson plan, and by the end of class, you will be able to apply what you learned. Over the past year, I’ve had to check myself a little because I know some people just want to come in and have date night, but I’m going to make sure their date night is hands-on and that they will learn something.
You also talk about Fennel having a community element to it. What do you mean by that? I really wanted this to be a community space where you could come on your own, meet other folks, and we would all sit down to dinner together. It gives me chills when people come in not knowing anyone and walk away exchanging numbers and then come into another class together. I think this is because it’s such an open and inviting space. Part of that is the physical space and branding, with bright colors and a welcoming environment, but a lot of it is the attitude that I and other instructors carry into Fennel. We want people to know that this is going to be so much fun, and we want you to learn something and be empowered. That intangible energy is key to Fennel. There are lots of cooking classes out there, but Fennel is a place where you can learn tangible skills and walk away feeling so jazzed about cooking.
Fennel’s classes sell out quickly, and I know people can be intimidated about trying to book them because of that. Any tips on how someone can get into a class? I am so grateful that people think of Fennel as part of their monthly plans and that we feel so cemented into the St. Louis community. One thing I learned over the first year is that demand kind of changes seasonally. I’ve seen it be a lot easier to get into classes over the summer and early fall than in January and February, when everyone has gift cards they want to use. So my big-picture recommendation is to consider that seasonal flow of classes. As for signing up, we release classes on a monthly basis, so if you get on our email list, you will get emails when new classes are available. We will always be planning a month in advance, so if you pay attention to that cycle and get on the email list and sign up when you get the notification, that is helpful.
And for those who don’t get in, is there another way to connect? This year, we started partnering with the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market, where we are doing monthly cooking demos; this season, we have September, October and November left. I really want these demos to be super-practical, seasonal, and simple, so what we do is show up with no idea of what we are going to make and then see what is in season, talk to farmers, gather things from the market that day, and put together something so people can do the same and make what we made for themselves when they get home. It’s so much fun coming in and not knowing what we are going to make. But it all comes together.
RECIPE: Jackie Price’s Savory Nut and Seed Granola
“This is one of my favorite recipes for fall and winter,” says Price. “We make it in Fennel’s Soup Season class as a savory topping for butternut squash soup, and I always keep a big container of it around to use as a topping on any kind of creamy fall soup: squash, parsnip, potato, etc. I love using it as a crunchy component for salads, especially a mixed green salad with apples and cheese in the fall. We also make it in our Edible Gifts class at Fennel; you can double or triple this recipe and make a big batch to give as gifts. It’s the most highly requested holiday gift from my friends.”
Some notes about the recipe that Price always shares in her classes:
- The nuts/seeds can be swapped out for any other nuts/seeds; shredded unsweetened coconut is also a good substitute for any of them.
- The egg white is an essential ingredient in this recipe; t helps hold everything together to create clusters and replaces the volume of maple syrup or honey you’d see in a classic granola recipe without adding too much sweetness.
- Any other savory spices can also be added to this recipe; good examples would be smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, ground cumin, etc.
- The savory granola is great on salads, hummus and soups, too. Save it in an airtight container for up to a month.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups old fashioned oats
- 1 cup pumpkin seeds
- 1 cup sunflower seeds
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- ¼ cup sesame seeds
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoon garam masala or curry powder
- 2 teaspoon fennel seeds
- ⅓ cup olive oil
- 1 egg white
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Spread mixture on a parchment-lined sheet pan.
- Bake for 20 minutes, until starting to turn golden brown.
