About Us
Helen Rennie – Founder and Instructor
While most people sneak into the kitchen to get a snack, Helen spent her life sneaking into the kitchen to cook. At 10, she thought making bean soup was more exciting than practicing the piano. At 18, she was feeding her fellow college students in exchange for help with her programming assignments. After finishing her degree in Computer Science, she went to Provence, France to study art history and ended up studying the art of cooking and eating. Traveling through the Mediterranean made her fall in love with the sun drenched cuisine of the coast.
Upon return to the States, she spent most of her free time exploring the fish and farmer's markets of Boston and cooking every kind of fish and vegetable she could get her hands on. Bored with her job at a dysfunctional dot-com, and not having enough money for culinary school, Helen got an internship in Casablanca Restaurant, and spent her nights and weekends learning the ropes of professional cooking. What started out as a hobby turned into a teaching position at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
In 2005, Helen decided to open her own kitchen to anyone who wants to learn about food. That's how Helen's Kitchen was born. Since then, Helen has taught 1,000+ students helping many home cooks put delicious, nutritionally-dense meals on their tables. Helen's cooking philosophy centers on finding creative ways to prepare local ingredients. She teaches cooking classes in her house in Natick with a strong focus on culinary techniques and food science. Her classes are small to give all students a chance for hands-on practice.
Helen is a lifelong student, spending a lot of her free time interning in the best Boston restaurants and traveling around the world to study different cuisines. Her culinary adventures include France, Italy, Spain, Peru, and Japan.