Southwestern cooking school classes foods market

Chef Tracy is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in NYC and the International Pastry Arts Academy in Katonah, NY.

She is considered an expert in nutritional cuisine with an emphasis on Southwestern flavors. Tracy opened the first "Tex Mex" restaurant in NYC in addition to working at Arizona 206, Mesa Grill and Gotham bar & Grill before heading west to become the Executive Chef at the prestigious Golden Door Spa and consultant to Rancho La Puerto in Tecate, Mexico.

Tracy's Southwestern cuisine was featured on the cover of Bon Appetit Magazine's "Guide to the Best Restaurants in America" and in a six page feature in Art Culinaire magazine. She has appeared on Good Morning America and the Food Network numerous times, cooked at the James Beard House as a Rising Chef, trained chefs in Malaysia, debated Julia Child on the merits of healthy cuisine, owned two restaurants in Santa Fe and helped write the curriculum for the New York Restaurant School.

We are thrilled to have Tracy as our Executive Chef and Culinary Director.

Noe Cano, Chef de Cuisine, is an invaluable asset to the School. He does all the food purchasing as well as prep and assisting with the classes. He has been at the School for 15 years.

Noe has worked at many of Santa Fe's top restaurants including La Casa Sena, Coyote Cocina and was chef de cuisine at Hotel St. Francis. He has worked alongside many of the chefs of Santa Fe as well as some celebrity chefs.

He was instrumental in the production of a segment of The Food Networks show called Dinner Impossible, which celebrated the traditional foods of New Mexico.

A Santa Fe, New Mexico based Native American Chef, Native American foods historian, culinary anthropologist, James Beard Award winning author and photographer, Lois Ellen Frank's first career experiences were as a professional cook and organic gardener. Ms. Frank has spent over 20 years documenting the foods and life ways of Native American communities throughout the Southwest writing and photographing many articles and papers on the topic. This lengthy immersion in Native American communities culminated in her book, Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations, which won the James Beard Award upon its release. In 2010 she released, The Taco Table, which won the Glyph Award upon its release.

She completed her PhD dissertation in May 2011in Culinary Anthropology entitled: The Discourse and Practice of Native American Cuisine, Native and Non-Native Chefs in Contemporary Southwest Kitchens, which she is planning to publish as an upcoming book, tentatively entitled, "The Turquoise Plate". Frank partnered with PCRM to teach a series of cooking classes entitled Food for Life: Healthy Native American Cooking in both Santa Fe at the Institute of American Indian Arts, IAIA and Albuquerque at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, IPCC. She is a featured cooking instructor at the Santa Fe School of Cooking, an adjunct professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and the chef/owner of Red Mesa Cuisine with Diné chef Walter Whitewater. Frank is an avid gardener of local cultivated and wild plants.

Michelle Roetzer brings 26 years of experience to the stoves of the Santa Fe School of Cooking. Her experience began in the San Francisco Bay Area at the age of 14 rolling pasta for a family friend. She eventually rose to the position of Sous Chef in an upscale Northern Italian Ristorante at the age of 21.

In 1996, she returned to her hometown of El Paso, TX and became Executive Chef of Café Central for 7 years. In 2003, she was the Chef De Cuisine for the Professional Golf Association Champions Dinner in Rochester, NY and has cooked for numerous notables including presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Vicente Fox of Mexico. She moved to Santa Fe in 2003 and is currently the lead instructor for Santa Fe Community College's Culinary Arts program and a freelance caterer for several local catering companies. In her spare time, she is a student of Political Science at College of Santa Fe, windsurfs, snow skis, mountain bikes, gardens and mentors young chefs.