The focaccia class was at Chef Monte’s beautiful home in Alameda. He was so nice and patient and answered every question we had. Chef Monte definitely has a passion for cooking and it shows in his enthusiasm to impart his knowledge. After learning about focaccia and buratta, we ate in his lovely garden. I felt like I was transported to the Mediterraneans. We brought home the dough we worked on and even some leftover focaccia. It was delicious.

Monte, your knowledge and background and your passion for cooking is engaging and inspiring and makes it very exciting to learn from you. Happy to share some pro tips for your teaching that will take your classes to the next level: Take time to ask and get to know who you are teaching and what they are bringing to the learning space. (Co-create it). Choose less to make or teach, and give us hands on experiences for everything. Be ready at end with to go containers for what we had a hand in making (cheese, dough etc). Since it’s a short time for instance, you could share a recipe for a focaccia at home but then have us work with making a few different types of our own with various toppings to get the feel of working the dough. I think students come for classes like these for experience and learning. Hope these ideas are helpful on your journey. It was nice meeting you.