Classic French chef Jennifer Booker to visit Albany Tech

ALBANY — Classic French chef Jennifer Hill Booker will be in Albany today and Saturday for a special dinner at the home of Albany State University President Art Dunning, but will make a stop at Albany Technical College today from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and again on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., to provide some culinary insight to ATC’s Culinary Arts students.

The dinner is rotated annually by Albany Museum of Art board members, of which Karen Baynes-Dunning is a member.

Booker’s Southern culinary heritage, belief in healthy, seasonal foods and her classic French training combine to create a unique cuisine — Modern Southern Healthy Cuisine with a French Accent – that will be shared with Albany Tech students. Her cooking style is a modern reinvention of Southern cuisine that incorporates the traditional use of seasonal ingredients, important to maintain a healthy lifestyle, with French culinary techniques she learned from her training at the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Paris.

“Chef Booker has been classically trained and can offer her advice on what it takes to be truly successful in this business,” said Chef Todd White, chair of the Culinary Arts program at Albany Technical College. “She brings us knowledge, and our students will be able to see a different chef’s point of view.”

Booker’s passion for the culinary world knows no boundaries, from creating new recipes, to teaching culinary arts, presenting at live cooking demonstration, keynote-speaking engagements and in the digital world, where she engages with her online community. Her focused attention to detail came through when she was a contestant on the Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen competition food show.

She said she takes pleasure in teaching people to cook healthy and delicious food.

Booker will work on Friday with Albany Tech’s Move On When Ready students from Lee County High School, alongside other Albany Tech regularly enrolled Culinary Arts students.