Meet the chef
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Meet the chef
A chef profile page for cooking schools, private chefs, bakers and food creators who are the face of their business. It pairs a portrait hero with a personal story told in the chef's own voice, a short career timeline, the principles behind how they teach, a small gallery of signature dishes and a student quote, then invites visitors to a class or the online club. The sample introduces the head chef of a Portland cooking school. Rewrite the story in your own words and swap in your own portrait and dishes.
Head chef and founder of Copper Pot Cooking School
Meet Chef Elena Marquez
Twenty-five years in restaurant kitchens taught Elena how to cook. Ten years of teaching taught her that anyone can.
In her own words
I grew up in my grandmother's kitchen in San Antonio, where dinner for twelve was a normal Tuesday. Nobody measured anything. You learned by watching, tasting and getting it wrong until you got it right.
I spent the next two decades on the line: prep cook in Chicago, sous chef in San Francisco, and finally chef de cuisine at a farm-to-table restaurant here in Portland. I loved it, but the best part of every shift was teaching a new cook how to break down a chicken or fix a broken sauce.
So in 2016 I opened a kitchen with a long table instead of a dining room. My goal has never been to turn people into chefs. It is to make cooking feel like the most relaxing part of your day, not the most stressful.
If you can taste, you can cook. Everything else is just practice.
Career
The road to the teaching kitchen
1999: Culinary degree, then prep cook at a busy Chicago brasserie
2005: Sous chef in San Francisco, running a team of fourteen
2011: Chef de cuisine at a farm-to-table restaurant in Portland
2016: Opens Copper Pot Cooking School with two classes a week
2021: Launches The Copper Pot Kitchen Club online
Today: Teaches four classes a week and leads the live cook-alongs
In the kitchen
How Elena teaches
Three ideas behind every class at Copper Pot Cooking School.
Why before how
Every step comes with a reason. Know why you rest meat or salt pasta water, and you will never need the recipe again.
Taste as you go
Students taste at every stage, so they learn what under-seasoned, balanced and finished really mean.
Mistakes are welcome
A split sauce or a flat cake is the best lesson of the night. Elena shows you how to rescue it on the spot.
What students ask for most
Signature dishes
Each one is taught in person and on video in the Kitchen Club.
Elena has a way of making you feel like you have been cooking for years. I came for one pasta class and have now taken eleven. She remembers everyone's name and what they burned last time.
Cook with Elena
Join one of her Thursday or Saturday classes in Portland, or cook along with her online from anywhere.
Use this page
Make it yours in a few minutes
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