Funny side up: Cooking ‘From the Mixing Bowl’
Chef and comedian Vicki Ferentinos has built up a strong Facebook Live following over the past year, and has begun to teach cooking classes online. Above, she is shown at a catering job several years ago before she moved to Vermont. (Photo Provided)
In March 2020, the whole world went from busy, to nothing, when the pandemic hit. For Vicki Ferentinos, her natural pivot was to “keep things light” as she puts it, especially at a time when the world needed some uplift.
The comedian and professional chef launched weekly trivia nights on Facebook Live, then bingo, and most recently a series of virtual cooking classes, “From the Mixing Bowl”. Recently added to the class list are: Mother’s Day Brunch, It’s Greek to Me, Eclairs, and a grill class. Somewhere between trivia and bingo, there was dancing and what Ferentinos playfully calls “some bad crafting.” Trivia and bingo winners would get random prizes mailed to them — many times odd little trinkets she unearthed at home.
“That’s what happens when you’re locked in a kitchen for 3 years, and then you’re locked in a house,” Ferentinos said.
She’s referring to when she and her wife, Shannon, sold their Woodstock cafe, Soulfully Good, before the pandemic hit. In late March 2020, Vicki had been to New York to perform a few stand-up comedy gigs, the weekend before statewide restrictions quickly went into place.
From her home in Barnard, Vermont, she eventually went online to just “talk to the people,” and started up fun activities like trivia, interspersed with some hilarity. The emails and Facebook messages kept coming in from appreciative friends, some of whom Ferentinos hadn’t seen since high school.
“It was an outlet, and people were responsive,” She said. “It was purely just to amuse people, to amuse myself, and it was therapeutic in a way. It was like, ‘Ok, let’s laugh a little bit, and be silly.’”
Vicki Ferentinos dressed up for one of her Facebook Live shows. (Photo Provided)
Comedy and cooking are deep in Vicki Ferentinos’ background. That said, she went to college for art, and opened up an art gallery in her native New Jersey in her 20s. Ferentinos moved to New York City in the early 2000s, and ended up doing improv for a year. Stand-up comedy came knocking when she was invited to do a show every Saturday at the Time Out New York Lounge.
The journey of comedy would take her to the Edinburgh Fringe, the international arts festival where she did 30 shows — including a one-person show called “Ladybug Warrior”. She would later land a gig at Comedy Central.
“I just kept going and saying ‘yes’ to things,” Ferentinos said.
But all the while, her culinary talents were there, and she eventually went into catering full-time. As one success led to another, she got significant catering work, including jobs with Julianne Moore and Michael Bloomberg. That led to an 18-year career in cooking.
“I had a lot of great catering jobs because of people I knew in comedy,” she said.
Throughout her life, though it’s been busy, Ferentinos has kept the focus on having fun, and accepting opportunities that bring you joy.
“If you say ‘yes’ to something fun and light, it leads you to something else good,” she said.
That’s been the case here in Vermont, too, because her popular Facebook Live events over the past year led to an invite to do a locally televised show. “The Vicki Show” aired on WCTV, the local cable access channel in Woodstock.
More recently, a friend suggested that she teach a few cooking classes on Facebook Live as well. That’s no problem for Ferentinos, because she used to teach some classes in New York and New Jersey years ago. So far, sign-ups are going well for the current series. Ferentinos enjoys the process of teaching and breaking down the steps for people; there are classes for culinarily-inclined children as well. Some folks get a bit serious when learning something they don’t know, but Ferentinos encourages, “It’s just food, it’s ok.”
— Gareth Henderson
The classes will be limited to 10 people. Sign up at www.fromthemixingbowl.com
