Kathryn Herod and Celeste Terrell started teaching cooking classes in a tiny 2 bedroom apartment in the Greenway area of Houston in June of 2009. Our first cooking class was earlier in the year when we conducted a private in-home class for the Hampton Garden Club near Spring, TX. We walked into the home of one of the hostesses at around 8:30 am, unloaded our equipment and food, and was greeted with the offer of chocolate martinis! Kathryn said, "never mind teaching kids, we need to do this" and so the idea soon became a reality.

Celeste was working for Perry's Restaurant's catering department and Kathryn was teaching English at Houston Community College when they thought it was time to pursue a business during one of the worst recessions in history. Thankfully, the Houston area was not hit as hard as some areas of the country and people were looking to learn more about cooking so they could save money by eating at home. Our first class had six persons, some of whom drove in all the way from Friendswood, TX (some 25 miles away from our apartment) because they had dietary restrictions that required them to learn more about how to prepare healthy foods. We offered a warm, welcoming environment and many people felt what they learned was more realistic because they could replicate our recipes at home since they learned to make them in a home kitchen.

Kathryn designed a great web site in which people found us and booked a class with us. They would make the long trek down the hall way of our apartment building to get to us. Then knocked on a mysterious door number 368 and were greeted with a make shift kitchen set up in a dinging area. They settled in with their wine and beer and got over the fear of us possibly being serial killers. They had so much fun that they told others about us and the word just spread.