116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Local cook brings others together through classes
Business owner uses cooking as social tool in a world spread too thin
Nov. 25, 2023 6:00 am, Updated: Nov. 29, 2023 10:13 am
MARION — When Kelley Cole wanted to learn how to cook, there was a waiting list.
Not for a prestigious cooking school, but for her grandmother’s kitchen when she was a child.
For years, the Chicago native watched and waited as the Italian woman commanded the six stations of making ravioli, slowly folding Cole’s many older cousins into the process.
“As a kid, you’re longing to be in the kitchen, because they tell you that you can’t,” said Cole, who has lived in Cedar Rapids for 16 years. “There was always this longing to be part of the ravioli making.”
Since 2021, her business, Gia’s Italian Kitchen, has transformed into a platform for cooking classes that doesn’t gatekeep cooking skills. Through several mediums, Cole has leveraged a basic life skill into more than making a bite to eat.
“There’s so many barriers to creating those bonds and connections. They’re important to me,” said Cole. “If I can help other people (bond), that makes me feel good — I’m impacting them and their lives.”
Want to get cooking?
To learn more about Kelley Cole’s cooking classes, private sessions or corporate offerings for team building, visit Gia’s Italian Kitchen at giasitaliankitchen.biz.
How it started
First started in 2019, the business opened when Cole quit her job in finance to provide chef services to families. But by late 2020, the business offerings pivoted as she found a better fit that combined her passions for both cooking and teaching.
Starting with virtual Zoom sessions and later offering more in-person classes like the one she holds every month at the Marion Public Library’s professional kitchen, Gia’s Italian Kitchen has slowly grown by word-of-mouth. In addition to public cooking classes, she offers private sessions for families and friends, and teambuilding exercises for corporations wanting to enhance employee relationships.
Each class, no matter the format, has a packet with a menu, ingredients and equipment. Students are involved in food prep through the entire hands-on process, which teaches them how to cook at least one thing in an hour.
“Some of her team-building stuff is fun to watch,” said Denise Houlahan from the back row of her cooking class in November. No matter the age or the type of person, Houlahan said Cole has a knack for orchestrating camaraderie that transcends barriers.
Cole’s passion for cooking may be apparent as she explains how she learned to love cooking in her grandmother’s kitchen. But her passion for teaching — married to cooking through this venture — came from teaching fitness classes years ago alongside instructors like Houlahan.
Like fitness, Cole realized that cooking is a basic part of life that can be intimidating to others.
“People would come up to me afterward and say I love how you explained this or that,” she said. “I know that I’m making a difference in someone’s life, I’m reaching someone on a new level.”
How she does it
“Is that for dessert?” one attendee asks her about the bowl of limoncello covered almonds the crowd marveled over.
“Sure,” Cole said — jokingly making a dessert shortcut to complement her set menu.
Through gentle instruction, encouraging remarks and playful heckling, Cole slowly coaxes a room of strangers into the kitchen mix to do things they may not have tried before — even if it’s as simple as slicing bread into croutons.
When it comes to cooking, showing the shortcuts is half the magic. Mincing pre-peeled garlic and keeping it in a jar with olive oil or chopping up vegetables to keep in a bag can mean all the difference between making cooking approachable or a hassle on a daily basis.
“Nobody is born a chef. It (comes) from playing around,” Cole said. “The more you do it, the more you can think outside the box.”
Each participant leaves her classes with a packet of the recipes they made that day. But over time, learning how to mimic tasks becomes an immersion in a new language where they become curious enough to discover new things, adapt flavor profiles and work on their own, without step-by-step instructions.
By having each person do something for themselves during the class, Cole has worked to cultivate the potential for a skill with multiple applications.
“I want people to feel like Italian cooking is easier and less intimidating than they thought. I want them to feel more confident in the kitchen, whether that’s using a big butcher knife or cooking pieces of meat and not being overdone,” Cole said.
How it brings others together
Cole isn’t setting out to just show others how to make dinner. She uses cooking as a tool to bring together a world that is often spread too thin.
“When you talk to friends, they’re always running around. Their kids have got 10 million things to do. Families don’t live in the same communities anymore,” Cole said. “Bringing them back together to reconnect over food and tell stories is just very invigorating. I’ve always been that connector, so it feels natural to do it over food.”
And like physical exercise, making food together releases endorphins that make a meal out of small moments.
“It makes you happier in that moment,” she said. “People want to feel part of something, they want to feel connected. It’s just human nature.”
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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