October 7, 2014 – Food has always been a passion for Patricia Poritzky. “I wake up and I think about food,” she says, laughing. “I think about food all day long. I go to bed thinking about food.”
For years, her kitchen attracted hungry family and friends like moths to a flame, where they would watch her put the finishing touches on a fragrant meal.
“They’d always say, ‘Teach me how to cook, I really want to learn!’” she recalls. Some of the guests would lament that, while they’d like to return the favor by having her over for a meal, they felt too intimidated. Poritzky insisted that cooking is fun and accessible, if only one learns some basics. Eventually, this led her to an “a-ha” moment: Santa Cruz needed a recreational cooking school. The idea was an opportunity to roll her passions into one delicious endeavor: food (and organic food, specifically), keeping business local, and supporting local farms and chefs.
The result is Let’s Cook!, which she opened in early 2012. Based out of a commercial kitchen in Soquel, the cooking school offers a plethora of classes taught by local guest chefs. Ingredients, which are always seasonal, hail from local farms and farmers’ markets, New Leaf Community Markets, and local wineries, and are almost always organic. Sometimes the farmer or winemaker is on hand to share a bit about their operations, and scraps are composted or fed to Poritzky’s chickens.
But the eco-friendly aspect is not the focus. “I don’t preach,” Poritzky explains. 
“I plant the seeds.” The most important thing to Poritzky is that the pupils have fun. And they do—Poritzky says it’s not unusual for people who were complete strangers at the start of class to hug or exchange numbers at the end.
“If they have a great time and eat delicious food, it’s going to bring people back into their own kitchens, and [help] support their families with good nutrition,” she says. “If cooking is more accessible, maybe people can get to the dinner table more often.”
Classes are usually comprised of equal parts men and women, as well as students of all ages from Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, and all around the Bay Area. Let’s Cook! is a popular venue for private events and corporate team-building classes.
Second to having had a great time, Poritzky hopes the big takeaway for students is confidence in the kitchen.
Classes span fundamentals like knife skills and “Chicken 101” (how to section it, roast it, etc.) to offerings like “Advanced Chocolate Work: Molded Chocolates” coming up on October 25.
Each chef brings his or her own talents and flair to the events. For instance, David Graham, sushi chef at Geisha, brings his enthusiasm for sustainable seafood to the sushi class, while Eric Carter, the director of the Culinary Arts program at Cabrillo College, infuses his classes with his own zeal for chicken and sauces, says Poritzky. This fall, the soups and stews classes will be a highlight, although Poritzky says the current lineup of paleo cooking classes are a hit, and the knife skills classes almost always sell out.
Not only will students walk away with several tasty recipes, they also pick up handy techniques along the way, such as how to efficiently chop an onion, store fish, or clean a leek. “There are people in class who have never ever seen a leek, let alone know how to cook it,” says Poritzky.
With the school’s three-year anniversary on the horizon, Poritzky is happy to say that she has found a way to deliver the joy she’s always found in cooking to others.
“It’s such a great way to connect with your friends and family in the kitchen,” she says. “Food is that medium. We all need to eat. Let’s make it fun.”
Classes cost between $65 and $85. Learn more at letscooksantacruz.com.
About the author
Elizabeth Limbach is an award-winning journalist living in Santa Cruz, California. In this fruitful region and beyond, she finds the intersections of food, ag, health and the environment to be the most intriguing realms to write about. A bookworm and vegan foodie, the San Diego native has lived in Santa Cruz for a decade, relishing its redwood forests, fresh produce, delicious wines, and sparkling sea.
