Get Cooking is a culinary school located in Edmonton, AB, whose tagline says it all – “Think Local. Cook Global.”

Kathryn Joel, graduate of Le Cordon Bleu London, moved to Alberta from England in 2009 and founded Get Cooking in 2011 by teaching cooking classes in her own kitchen. She is now located in MacEwan University’s downtown campus.

“My inspiration is to teach home cooks to use local ingredients to bring flavours from around the world into their kitchens,” says Joel. “I wanted to get people cooking by demystifying the whole process of cooking and help them understand that cooking is very very easy – all you need is a few simple skills and you can put beautiful, restaurant-quality food on your table – using good ingredients helps too!”

Joel will be hosting three “From-the-Farm Cooking Classes” at Tam Anderson’s Prairie Gardens & Adventure Farm this year – a monthly series to teach people how to cook from local ingredients. “It’s really gratifying to see these local classes start selling out,” says Joel.

Get Cooking uses local products as much as they can. “Reclaim Urban Farm drops off microgreens every week, we source all of our protein from local Alberta butchers like ACME Meat Market and Real Deal Meats and our seafood from local small businesses like Ocean Odyssey Inland,” says Joel.

The culinary school also pairs wine and beer with their food from local spots like Ale Architect, and use Greenwood Distillers’ gin – the owner, Owen, even teaches her sourdough bread classes!