Home Cooking New York

Founded in 2002, Home Cooking New York provides intimate and hands-on cooking classes at their cooking school in downtown New York City. Their students range from absolute beginners to amateur home cooks who want to expand their culinary education.

HCNY’s classes cover basic cooking techniques (Culinary Boot Camp, Six Basic Cooking Techniques, How to Cook Fish, How to Cook Vegetables, Pork Lovers Workshop) to cuisine-focused favorites (Indian, Thai, Korean, French Bistro, Middle Eastern, Northern Italian). Each 2 ½ hour class includes a recipe packet and has a maximum of 10 students. The class is centered around the preparation of a complete menu and culminates in a sit-down meal with your fellow students.

Meet Our Chef-Instructors:

Jennifer Clair is the founder of Home Cooking New York. Before launching the school in 2002, she was a Recipe Editor for The Wall Street Journal and a Food Editor at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO), where she developed cookbooks and managed the Cooking & Entertaining department of marthastewart.com. Prior to MSLO, she worked in the cookbook division of William Morrow & Company and at Saveur magazine. She graduated from Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School in 1998 after receiving a full James Beard Foundation scholarship. Jennifer is the author of Six Basic Cooking Techniques: Culinary Essentials for the Home Cook (https://tinyurl.com/ycthk85s) based on the school’s most popular cooking class, and the host of the cooking podcast, Kitchen Radio.

John Scoff joined Home Cooking New York in 2006. After 15 years of restaurant work, culminating most recently as Executive Chef of a low country bistro in South Carolina, John found his true calling when he accepted a position of Executive Chef-Instructor at a recreational cooking school in downtown Charleston. That was 2004, and he has never looked back. As a teacher there, he discovered how much he enjoys sharing his passion for and knowledge of cuisine.

Erica Wides joined Home Cooking New York in 2014 after 15 years of teaching at the Institute of Culinary Education where she oversaw the culinary education of both professional and recreational students. She is brimming with knowledge of all things food and is one of the go-to chefs when the media needs an expert to demystify what “real food” really means. She has graced the sets of Chopped, Dr. Oz, and TedX. She is creator and host of the YouTube series, Funny People Making Food (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGO9VaVPhGk).

Susan Streit Sherman joined Home Cooking New York in 2010. Originally from Michigan, Susan moved to New York to attend the French Culinary Institute. She began her career working as a private chef in both Manhattan and the Hamptons. For five years she managed the School of Recreational Cooking at the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE), and previously worked in the test kitchens at Good Housekeeping, Martha Stewart Living, and Real Simple magazines. Susan returned to work as a private chef following the birth of her daughter, Leia, in 2016. She specializes in developing seasonal recipes for allergy-friendly meals, which you can find on her site Crate Cooking (https://www.cratecooking.com/).