Hi, I’m Lauren and I have been cooking all of my life. It is my passion. It gives me purpose. I might get offended when my toddlers refuse the meal I have lovingly prepared for them. The best antidote? Cook more. Teach others how to cook and follow my passion to put food on the table for my kids.

In high school, the senior class had to complete an intense year long project in order to graduate. We had to put in a minimum number of hours, some of which had to be spent with mentor who was a professional in the same field as our project. I chose culinary arts as my subject with a focus on creating recipes which were modified to eliminate dairy and beef, because my (then) recent appendectomy left me very sensitive to those two ingredients. I found a wonderful mentor who was an instructor at the Seattle Culinary Academy. She connected me with her colleague who was a dietitian so that I could learn more about the modification of recipes and thus the nutritional impact of the substitutions I made. She taught me a course in food safety which I then taught to about a dozen volunteers as we cooked several complex recipes for their church’s annual benefit dinner (150 adults). I had a blast. I was exhausted. I graduated, and didn’t look back on culinary arts for a while.

After graduation I moved back home, closer to my mentor and had a delightful reunion with her, and with culinary arts. I attended many classes that she taught and had the privilege of helping test recipes with her as she wrote and published her own cookbook (Sharing the Table by Linda Hierholzer). She continues to be a guiding light for me, and we collaborate frequently. To her, I owe a great debt of gratitude for her ongoing support and mentoring.

While I was dabbling in the ever growing world of culinary arts, I took on jobs in the corporate world for a total of about 10 years before the birth of our twins changed my path. After a 6 month return to work, my husband and I made the decision for me to stay home with the kids and I left the corporate world. I found myself drifting without an “outside” purpose, something which I could focus on and had little to do with the kids, something that gave me a sense of self. One day my good friends, who were patiently listening to me as I vented about this drifting feeling, complimented my cooking and suggested that I start teaching cooking classes. I asked if they would attend, and if they would pay to attend. They resoundingly said yes.

I thought about it a good long while and I took on a side job as a personal cook for an elderly woman in my neighborhood. I took on other work testing recipes for yet another cookbook in development as well as actively testing recipes for America’s Test Kitchen; all the while finding myself dreaming a bigger dream: my own business. The Open Book Cook was born.

The Open Book Cook sounds like something Dr. Seuss would write (probably largely because I live in the world of Seuss as I read book after book to our kiddos). It defines what this business is all about. It is about the transparency of the journey of culinary arts. Sometimes I learn better ways to do something, sometimes a misconception is corrected, sometimes new information emerges about ingredients and when I learn of these new things I will pass them on to you. I’m not afraid to say “I don’t know”, but I will look it up if I don’t, and I will follow up on that information for you.

I invite you to check out the recipes on my page for inspiration for your own table, and I invite you to join me at mine for a cooking class. If you don’t see a class on what you want to learn, drop me a note with your suggestions! I’m an open book.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading, I know your time is valuable!