Shelley has been teaching people to cook since she opened The Chopping Block in 1997. She spent 17 years as a professional chef, working in busy restaurants and private homes but realized her calling was to get other people to cook. Shelley’s unique concept of a recreational cooking school, gourmet kitchen store and private event business provides Chicago with over 300 cooking classes and private events each month. Shelley loves to garden and entertain for family and friends in her Lincoln Square home.
Recent Posts
Salt 101
How on earth did salt get so complicated? I’m sure some of you have got to be thinking that! Growing up in my hometown in Iowa, there were two kinds of salt: table salt and salt for the deer… oh, and ...
I love chorizo, and I am honestly baffled when I meet someone who doesn’t. When I ask people what they don’t like about chorizo, they often say it is because it is greasy. I’ll admit it can be greasy ...
What’s the Difference between Stock, Broth and Bone Broth?
One of the questions that seems to perplex both culinary professionals, avid and novice cooks alike is: “What’s the difference between broth and bone broth?” For most of the 22 years The Chopping ...
Just in Time for the Holidays: Mother Recipe for Cocktails
I don’t know about you, but I am so very thrilled at the comeback of handcrafted cocktails. There is something romantic and celebratory about a well-made cocktail, it adds an extra special something ...
My friend and colleague Liz Songer recently brought me the most beautiful gift of two giant bags of fresh cranberries from her annual trip to Hayward, Wisconsin. She usually takes her trip to Hayward ...
I'm in mushroom ecstasy as this is a banner year on my property in Michigan for wild mushrooms! My Hen of the Woods mushrooms have returned in abundance so I have been busy cooking and preserving ...
I am a somewhat recent convert to brining, considering my almost 40 years of professional cooking. I think it was about 10 years ago, brining started getting popular with home cooks as a technique to ...
First things first... no, we are not talking poison sumac! Secondly, it is extremely easy to tell the difference between poison sumac and Staghorn Sumac, Staghorn Sumac being the edible version. We ...
I have been growing a tremendous number of herbs in Michigan and experimenting with different preservation methods for them. It's been revelatory for me! Before I started drying my own herbs, I had ...
I love the pungency of horseradish but have found that here in America, we limit ourselves in our culinary uses of it. I think some of these limits stem from the fact that we haven’t had a lot of ...
