About On the Ridge Cooking School

On the Ridge Cooking School opened in early 2007 and so fulfilled my life long dream of teaching cooking and owning a cooking school.  Years before, when I purchased my home at Kureelpa, I saw it was just the perfect location and set-up for a cooking school and so my planning began.

For a start, I was a librarian, information manager and trainer and had worked in that field for the past 30 years.  All through these years I had attended cooking classes and cooking schools, here and overseas, but I felt that as a trainer who espoused the need for training in your field, I needed to ‘walk the talk’ and officially undertake my cookery training.

My year at Commercial Cookery school in Melbourne was fantastic, one of the best years ever…..I loved every minute.  It was seriously hard work and long hours from early morning 8 o’clock starts until late at night when I finished in restaurant kitchen often around 10pm.  There were regular exams, both written and practical and I relished it all; I was simply so eager to learn everything I could, I just absorbed all the information the chefs could give.  And we had some wonderful chefs training us.  They had some amazing experiences working with distinguished chefs and had many good stories, cooking secrets, hints, techniques and methods to impart to us students.

With my commercial cookery qualification in hand, I then started on the business planning and marketing….eventually On the Ridge was created and my passion for food and cooking could be expressed through the cooking classes.

Petra Frieser, my good friend, website consultant, photographer, owner of Local Harvest – the Sunshine Coast Regional Food Directory and ‘Regional Foodie’ has helped me in many aspects of setting up On the Ridge.  Petra and her brother set-up and designed the website….which has been most successful in promoting the cookery school…..she has now encouraged me to add a ‘blog’ to the website….and write my musings on a more regular and informal basis.  So here it is and I do hope you enjoy reading and contributing to it from time to time…..

There have been many good friends, plus my wonderful family who helped and influenced me in the establishment of the cooking school.  In particular, my daughter Yolanda; she was very encouraging and instrumental in helping me to get it up and going.  She listened patiently to my daily up-dates and to all the planning details, until said simply had to say – just do it – start the classes – well, I thought that is a good idea! We decided to have a practice class with some of her friends and some of mine.  It was a perfect sunny March day, everyone cooked, Petra came and took some great photos – many of which we still use, and we all enjoyed a great lunch to celebrate…we were off and running.

Since then, classes have been operating on Saturdays and Sundays with private and corporate groups booking in midweek as well.  Many happy participants have passed through the doors of On the Ridge and some good friendships forged.  I frequently receive emails after the classes from happy clients and I thought here might be a good place to share some of those from recent classes.