Spotlight On: Min Verquist, CCAE Cooking Instructor
November 5, 2019
![Min Verquist Blog Cambridge Cooking Class](https://ccae.imgix.net/images/stories/min-verquist-blog-cambridge-cooking-class.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=214&w=300&s=f21ce3f18ef679d12dc5e88c51b4404a 171w, https://ccae.imgix.net/images/stories/min-verquist-blog-cambridge-cooking-class.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=429&w=600&s=b1b622058178e3c27eff744df377798c 343w, https://ccae.imgix.net/images/stories/min-verquist-blog-cambridge-cooking-class.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=643&w=900&s=7be98bc25ffca99f90c0a63a8447bced 514w, https://ccae.imgix.net/images/stories/min-verquist-blog-cambridge-cooking-class.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=857&w=1200&s=aade876d323347d12c39c599a4d86f19 686w, https://ccae.imgix.net/images/stories/min-verquist-blog-cambridge-cooking-class.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1071&w=1500&s=99d2dde968ec3f0bc05d7bb4c9a4fd11 857w, https://ccae.imgix.net/images/stories/min-verquist-blog-cambridge-cooking-class.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1286&w=1800&s=196d4bf975c071178da8975fe4745ca9 1029w, https://ccae.imgix.net/images/stories/min-verquist-blog-cambridge-cooking-class.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1500&w=2100&s=a63f3c1b59c2ba235e3a05e4000fa7bf 1200w, https://ccae.imgix.net/images/stories/min-verquist-blog-cambridge-cooking-class.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1714&w=2400&s=0ac3bc2da6c7cfec101d50f818e2c6f9 1371w, https://ccae.imgix.net/images/stories/min-verquist-blog-cambridge-cooking-class.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&h=1929&w=2700&s=41776c1f8f70a714721a44289acd5ca4 1543w)
What do you love about Chinese cuisines? What is special about bao, dim sum, and dumplings?
There are eight major culinary traditions in China, ranging from tongue-numbing Szechuan, light and refreshing Cantonese, to rustic and bready northern style. Bao, dim sum and dumplings represent a variety of Chinese cuisines. It takes effort and skills to make them, therefore, most Chinese rely on restaurants, food vendors or freezers. Once you master bao, dim sum or dumplings, you earn bragging rights – you are better than hundreds of millions of Chinese in that regards!
What is your favorite class to teach?
Latte Art at Home. It is designed for home cooks who want to craft latte art at home with simple tools. Seeing students learn to create hearts, flowers, and animals with milk and coffee is satisfying. It’s like magic.
You have also taken some drawing and painting classes with us! What do you enjoy about painting?
Yes, the drawing and painting classes with CCAE unleashed the artist inside me! Painting is fun—it sets me free; it gives me energy; it brings me hope.
What do painting and cooking have in common in terms of artistic expression?
Painting is a visual art. In cooking, presentation matters. In that sense, cooking and painting share similar fundamentals of art: colors, contrast, textures and composition.
Find Min’s classes here!