The Santa Fe School of Cooking is a must-go destination for culinary inspiration for locals and visitors alike, all eager to learn more about New Mexican cooking. Julia Platt Leonard and Gabriella Marks dropped by to celebrate the school’s 35th anniversary.
Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Santa Fe School of Cooking
It’s all down to a cooking class Susan Curtis took at the New Orleans School of Cooking in 1989. She was there with her husband, David, who was on a business trip. “And I said, ‘You have to skip a meeting and come to this. It’s so much fun.’” The idea stuck and Curtis decided to open her own cooking school. The result is the Santa Fe School of Cooking which is celebrating its 35th anniversary.
“I never imagined and I don’t know that she (Curtis) ever imagined it would take on the life that it’s taken. It’s phenomenal,” says Nicole Curtis Ammerman, Susan’s daughter and Director of Operations at the school. SFSC is truly a family affair with Nicole’s sister, Kristen Krell, running the wildly popular Dave’s Jazz Bistro – named after Susan’s late husband, David Ballantyne Curtis – whose twin loves were jazz and fine dining.
More Than Just Cooking
Family extends to the chef instructors who work at the school and who gathered to raise a toast to SFSC’s anniversary. Many, like Noe Cano, have worked with the school for years (he’s been there for over 25 years and Ammerman calls him “our rock”). “He is the most hardworking, loyal person you’ve ever met. And he is a perfectionist,” Ammerman says of Cano.
And while the chef instructors make teaching look easy, it’s a tightrope that demands culinary acumen, a strong knowledge of Southwestern food, and the gregarious, chatty ways of tour guides and beloved teachers. “That was a test for me, to learn how to talk and cook at the same time, because it’s not easy,” Cano says. Hands-on classes – like deep dives into tamale-making or their popular red chile workshop – mean that instructors have to keep an eye on students whose cooking expertise varies from confident to fledgling beginner. “Hands-on are a lot of fun. It’s like herding cats. Culinary cats,” Chef Peter O’Brien, a SFSC veteran says with a laugh.
Curtis and Ammerman learned early on that there was a desire from both locals and visitors to learn about authentic New Mexican cuisine. Long-time chef instructor Allen Smith says it’s not uncommon for students to take the same class again and again. “Whenever they visit New Mexico, they come to the school, they see what’s being taught, and even if they’ve taken it before, they take it again, because each of the instructors offers something different.” They’re more than cooking classes, he says, “Because cuisine is really the gateway to culture.”
Making the Changes the People Want
Along the way, Curtis and Ammerman learned on the hoof, saying ‘yes’ and then figuring out how to do it. Their first catalogue was pink and blue because those were the colors of chairs Susan snapped up at a restaurant sale. “She found chairs for $5 and they were turquoise and pink and so those were the colors,” Nicole laughs.
When customers asked if they did mail order of the New Mexican products they sell at the school, they said yes, but didn’t. Those inquiries led to what has now become a successful mail order business. Everyone helped, including David Curtis. “He was support staff,” says Nicole. “Back in the old days, we printed our own labels for the bags of blue corn meal, so he printed the labels and he fixed things around here. But it was always support for Mom’s vision.”
And that vision continues. Curtis still wakes up in the middle of the night with an idea about how to make the school better. “I got up and started writing and writing about ideas that we should implement. I woke up in the morning and thought, ‘Well, I wonder what the hell I wrote in the middle of the night?’ And you know what? It was very good.”
Story by Julia Platt Leonard
Photography by Gabriella Marks
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