Cooking News

Fun new hands-on cooking school opens in Fort Worth's Near Southside

The school's curriculum includes a class on making pasta.

Photo courtesy of The Cookery

A new cooking school and culinary experience is coming to Fort Worth. Called The Cookery, it will open at 710 S. Main St., #130, in the Near Southside, right by Rahr Brewing and Locust Cider.

Opening is scheduled for mid-July.

This is a spinoff of the first Cookery that was opened by founder Kelly Huddleston in Dallas in 2016. It's not a chef-training academy like The Culinary School of Fort Worth but is more the kind of school where you learn to cook with your pals while sipping a glass of wine.

This is not to say you will not learn how to make a great meal. Huddleston, who moved to Texas from the West Coast, limits her classes to 14 students to guarantee a hands-on cooking experience. Classes are available by reservation only; private group classes can also be scheduled.

Classes run three hours and feature three courses, along with beverage pairings related to the theme.

She accepts novice and expert cooks alike, for uniquely themed classes ranging from "Gourmet Everyday," with chicken cacciatore and crème brûlée, to "Bahn Thai," with dishes such as pad Thai, traditional soups, and sticky rice with mango and coconut cream.

Seasonal classes showcase flavors of the moment such as "Farm to Table: Summer," featuring heirloom tomato gazpacho and chipotle spiced pork tenderloin with seasonal fruit salsa.

Some of her classes get into skills such as sushi and pasta making, while an "Evening in Paris" is designed for a date night.

The Fort Worth location is a 1,300-square-foot space with an urban farmhouse vibe that includes rustic wood-paneled walls, a granite cooking counter with steel siding, and exposed ceilings.

When cooking is finished, students enjoy their dishes family-style at a custom-built farm table. The space also has a retail section with ingredients and utensils used in the classes.

Huddleston says in a statement that she's already accepting reservations.

"I believe that the most meaningful connections are made over great food," she says. "I'm very excited to open our unique space in the Near Southside neighborhood. Together, we’ll create, converse, and connect over wonderful meals."

openings

Chef News

Fort Worth's Will Rogers Memorial Center welcomes bright new chef

FortWorthtx.gov

Will Rogers Memorial Center

There's a new chef in town: Waylon Cornelius, named executive chef of catering and concessions for Craft Culinary Concepts, the food and beverage provider at Will Rogers Memorial Center.

Will Rogers Memorial Center is the 120-acre entertainment complex anchoring Fort Worth’s Cultural District, owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth. Cornelius will oversee menus for trade shows and other events at the center which bring in more than 2 million visitors a year.

Craft Culinary Concepts is headquartered in Glendale, Arizona, and manages food and beverage programs for entertainment, sports and cultural facilities.

Chef Waylon Corneliusfortworthtx.gov

According to a release, Cornelius joined the team this summer and is already shifting the expectations of guests from a typical “BBQ and beans” menu to a bill of fare satisfying every kind of palate.

“We always have fajitas ready to go, but we also make a beautiful Beef Wellington or baked salmon with a pink salt crust,” Cornelius says in a statement.

For consumer trade shows, Craft and its partners Caribou and Taco Heads offer more choices for the thousands of guests who attend events at WRMC annually.

“Some of our equestrian guests are away from home and here for several days, and they need more than popcorn and hot dogs,” Cornelius says. “Our concessions offer biscuits and gravy, burritos made in-house, strawberry salad, fruit and yogurt cups.”

A native of Mansfield, Cornelius grew up helping in a farm-to-table kitchen. He was raised on a farm with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather -- a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed vegetable gardens and raising hogs and chickens. He studied computer science after high school and holds an associate's degree in Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis from Tarrant County College.

He's a 2003 graduate of AIMS Academy of Culinary Arts in Dallas where he was mentored by a number of great chefs. While training as assistant executive sous chef at the AAA four-diamond Grand Hyatt DFW, he worked with Executive Chef Sutti Sripolpa, chef Eric Dreyer (who went on to be Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef), and Chef Jean-Claude Plihon, under whom he honed his French cooking skills.

As executive sous chef at the opening of Perry’s Steakhouse and Grille in Southlake, Cornelius gained expertise with volume. While at HG Sply Co., he learned about gluten-free items and other food allergies.

HG Sply is also where he crossed paths with Chef James R. Schell III, Craft’s general manager at WRMC, who recruited Cornelius to the complex.

"James said he needed someone who can hit moving targets, push the culinary team to be more avant-garde and use locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, so here I am," Cornelius says. "Culinary is a small world."

“I want people to say, ‘When we were in Fort Worth, you won’t believe what we got at Will Rogers!’” Schell says. “Even the celebrities who perform [in the auditorium] are surprised. When Chicago played here recently and we served dinner backstage, they said they felt treated like the Rolling Stones.”

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