By Aaron Retherford
Taste of Home is known as the largest food and entertainment magazine in the world. It also puts on approximately 250 cooking school events a year, inspiring more than 150,000 home chefs across the United States.
Central Vermonters will get a chance to see what the shows are all about. On Tuesday, April 28, Taste of Home will put on a show at the Barre Opera House.
Starting at 5 p.m., attendees can check out local vendors at the vendor show. Then at 7 p.m., they will be admitted into the main auditorium for a chance to watch a cooking show, which features 10 different and satisfying recipes submitted by home cooks from around the country.
Chef Amanda Wilson will be leading the show. Wilson, based out of southern New Jersey, is in her second season of hosting cooking shows for Taste of Home in the Northeast. She received culinary arts training at The Academy of Culinary Arts in Mays Landing, New Jersey and The Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City. She also works as a certified health coach, helping people reach their health goals.
During the show, attendees will witness two hours of exciting step-by-step recipe demonstrations, using ingredients found at the local grocery store.
Wilson said she will offer tips and useful knowledge about the recipes and cooking in general. There will be door prizes and goodie bags for those in attendance.
“They’ll be entertained for sure. They’ll have fun, and they’ll definitely learn something,” Wilson, who likes to make the crowd laugh, said. “I’m very technique-based when it comes to cooking. I give a lot of the why to get people to think about cooking and not just reading the recipe…My goal is to get them to learn one or two things that they didn’t know before coming in.”
General admission tickets are $15, while VIP tickets cost $35. VIP ticketholders are able to meet Wilson, enjoy premium seating, refreshments and appetizers, and take home a copy of Taste of Home’s Easy Weeknight Dinners Cookbook.