"Each villa had a chef, a server and a driver and I would cook for a different family every single week," says Blagdon. In 2016, she spent a ski season in the French Alps as a private chef at the Morgan Jupe chalets. John's under the Oui Chef business name, in addition to leading foraging tours with her cousin Lori McCarthy at Cod Sounds. The subsequent years were filled with hops back and forth across the pond, while Blagdon offered catering and private dinners in St. For six months she cut her butchery teeth on Florentine steaks and learned pasta-making from the all-Italian staff. Most of the time, these trial-by-fire work experiences are unpaid.Īt 19, Blagdon was off to Europe again, this time to the Villa Bordoni, a five-star boutique hotel in the mountains of Chianti. That's where eager pupils spend time in restaurants to learn the ropes. But the more recent stages of her career are literally filled with stages - the French term for spending time in kitchens, otherwise known as a stagiaire. John's for a job as a cook at the Reluctant Chef. (Submitted by Alex Blagdon)īlagdon returned to St.
The three-month intensive course on a 100-acre farm covered everything from milking cows to making cheese, in addition to menu costing, food safety and classic French cuisine.īlagdon now runs a rapidly growing online school, which offers both live and on-demand classes.
on Water Street) before heading off to Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland. She spent a few months at the Reluctant Chef on Duckworth Street under the mentorship of chef Mike Boyd (now the chef-owner of Mickey's Sandwich Co. "I was like, 'Oh, I've got a bill to pay, I'll just go and make some cookies and bring them on the road and do travelling bake sales.'"Īfter high school, she spent one semester at Memorial University before officially embarking on a culinary path. "I started doing bake sales to pay my cellphone bills when I was in Grade 10," Blagdon explains.
"I say that it was when I was seven or eight years old and I made an omelette for the first time, but even before then, I was the kid outside making swamp soup when I was five years old," she says.īy high school, the young chef had established her first culinary gig. The early stagesīlagdon says she feels like she's been cooking as long as she can remember, but her culinary career really took off in her backyard in Flat Rock. We chatted online from the comfort of our own kitchens to learn all about how Blagdon became a cookery school connoisseur. Instead, Blagdon now runs an online cookery school.įrom eight-week pasta courses, where students learn the fundamentals of rolling out linguine and folding agnolotti, to one-night-only poke bowl and French risotto supper clubs, Blagdon's virtual classes sell out on the regular. John's kitchen.ĬOVID-19 restrictions put a major damper in her original dream for the Alder Cottage, which was supposed to open as an experiential, brick-and-mortar dining destination in Tors Cove. The 25-year-old chef/teacher/forager/spin instructor was in the middle of tweaking a honey cruller recipe for an upcoming cooking class in her St. The Zoom started off with, well, Alex Blagdon zooming around the kitchen. (Submitted by Alex Blagdon/Jay Crews Photography ) Alex Blagdon, 25, opened an online cooking school after the pandemic halted her plans for an experiential dining business.