Essentially, I was educated to be a secretary—in the days when girls were expected to get married and keep a household. I also spent a year in Geneva learning French. So, after eight years of working behind a typewriter in investment firms in New York, Toronto, and San Francisco, and not being successful at finding a husband, I started teaching cooking in my Leavenworth Street flat.
The year was 1973. I would handwrite the recipes and a friend at a bank would photocopy them for me. And, I would get everyone to cook together. After about five years, I used my investment background to put together a limited partnership to start Tante Marie’s Cooking School in North Beach in April of 1979. We continued to offer afternoon demonstrations and evening classes once a week, along with weekend and one-week workshops, a full-time culinary course, and a part-time pastry course. And, over the years, there were many many cooking parties where everybody would drink wine before starting to cook. It was a lot of hard work and a lot of fun! In 2015, I closed Tante Marie’s; and in 2018, I stopped giving private classes in my home. I am very proud that there are now four cooking schools in the San Francisco Bay Area run by people I taught to be cooking teachers. I am deeply grateful for all the wonderful teachers we have had over the years at Tante Marie’s and for all the wonderful students. Thank you each and everyone of you for a fantastic career in cooking!
