Cooking up chefs

HE IS

Teaching students the science behind the cooking

RELAYING HIS EXPERTISE

Through classes with 18 to 24 students, Costa Mesa resident

Jeffrey Riggs shows aspiring cooks how to cook seafood, use knives

and understand sauces, and explains a plethora of other

cooking-related topics.

Now working as the executive sous chef at the Pacific Club in

Newport Beach, Riggs has added three teaching jobs to his plate and

is still looking to expand into yet another market: personal cooking

classes at students’ homes.

Riggs began as a teaching assistant at the Pacific Club about

eight years ago and has since turned his assistant position into that

of a full-fledged teaching chef.

Teaching different types of classes at the club, Riggs also began

teaching classes at Sur La Table culinary school in Newport Beach

about three years ago and recently took an additional teaching

position at Can Do Chefs in Yorba Linda.

“After the first class at Sur La Table, I was so excited. It’s

hard to understand why,” he said. “I knew I loved to teach after that

first class.”

BELIEVING IN OTHERS

While some students are easier to teach than others, Riggs

believes that as long as they have the patience and willingness to

learn and understand the science of cooking, they can learn the

craft.

“I like to take the time not just to teach them what to do, but

why we do it,” he said. “I see a lot of people enlightened by it.”

People reach that sense of enlightenment, however, only after

getting rid of some of their hindering misconceptions.

The biggest misconception is the idea “that you can just follow a

recipe and you’re cooking,” Riggs said. “You have to know how to

blend and balance flavors, ... take a recipe and mold it.”

OTHER CHALLENGES

And while that’s one of the challenges Riggs faces when teaching,

it’s not the hardest one.

In fact, the hardest challenge that he faces when teaching doesn’t

have as much to do with the process of teaching people how to cook

but more with his love for it.

“I stray off so much because people ask me questions,” he said. “I

could babble on for hours about one butter sauce.”

WORKING HIS WAY UP

Riggs, who started his culinary education at Orange Coast College,

began his career at the Pacific Club 15 years ago as a roundsmen

training under chefs in various stations.

As a result, he developed a broad-based knowledge of cooking,

which has enabled him to expand his understanding and love of all

food.

“When people ask me what my specialty is, I tell them ‘food’

because I love food,” said Riggs, who remembers being drawn to

cooking since he was young and watched his mother cook. “I specialize

in food ... and I love teaching people that are really interested in

food.”

-- Story by Christine Carrillo; Photo by Don Leach