About Chef Terri C.V. Email
Chef Terri is a chef instructor-startup entrepreneur based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is currently working on her own startup, Dear Martini while also serving the role of Resident Chef at the Sur La Table Cooking School in Los Gatos, California. In between startup projects and video production, she also teaches cooking classes!
Terri was born and raised in New York City, but her family moved to San Mateo, CA when she was in high school. She studied Political Science at San Francisco State University and spent a year in Washington, D.C. as a White House Press Intern, working in the Office of the Vice President. She went on to a successful career in political consulting and campaign management, but always loved cooking, and was especially talented in baking and decorating cakes.
The tragic events of 9/11 forced her to realize her life’s dream was not toiling in an office, but in a kitchen. So she enrolled in the Culinary and Hospitality Management program at City College of San Francisco in 2003 and was hired by Draeger’s Cooking School in San Mateo, CA immediately after graduation in 2005. At Draeger’s she worked in several culinary capacities: apprenticed for a wedding cake designer, catering cook, prep cook, line cook, recipe developer and pastry chef. Since graduating from culinary school, she has taken additional classes in nutrition, food science, food safety, and she believes there is always more to learn.
In 2011, she and her Draeger's Cooking School colleague, Mia Chambers founded Dear Martini, a media and technology startup based in the San Francisco Bay Area focussing on changing the way people learn to cook by using simple, effective, bite-sized videos. Bootstrapped and supported by generous friends and family, Dear Martini is on its way to developing a web-based application tool to help home cooks synchronize their cooking/searching/learning experience.
Have a question? Email Terri Need more Twitter followers? Follow @ChefTerriDien! She'll follow you back!
Want to learn how to cook like a pro in your own kitchen? Check out Dear Martini's cooking technique videos, "like" Dear Martini's Facebook page or drop Terri a line and set up a private cooking class!
You can view Chef Terri's resume here!