Peggy Aoki

• Peggy loves butter so much that she spent time learning butter and cheese making at Jonathan White's Peekskill Dairy.
• She staged at the 150-year-old Le Pré aux Clercs restaurant in Dijon, France.
• Peggy can not resist buying books about food — cookbooks, food history, and any writing about food and the people who grow and prepare it.

Experience

Peggy has been a professional cook and cooking teacher for more than 25 years. She began cooking when she still needed a stepstool to reach the stove and after an attempt at a career in sales, gave in to her passion to work in restaurant kitchens. While heading the kitchen at Mountain View CA's Chez TJ, she was invited to teach a class at a local cooking school which launched her passion to share her love and understanding of food. After many years of teaching public cooking classes, catering, opening local restaurants, and working long hours, she accepted a position with a large food service company supporting other chefs. She continues to teach hands-on classes in person and through Zoom, and enjoys learning from other chefs around the world through on-line classes as well.

Education

Peggy has bachelor's degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a master of arts in teaching from the University of Southern California, as well as professional cooking and baking certificates from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, CA.