Art of Cookery - Cooking School

Growing up on a family farm, Valerie Hanson learned bygone kitchen and farm skills as they were passed from mother to daughter for generations. She continues to learn about additional heritage skills. Valerie was one of eight children growing up near the nearby Silver Lake sand dunes in western Michigan’s Oceana County. She and her husband, John, also have eight children in their blended family. With her youngest child now in her 20s, she has continued these home arts for decades. Often John, will be found helping. Ask him to sing his “scullery man” ditty. She is licensed through: USDA, Michigan Department of Agriculture: Better Process Control School at Michigan State University in both acidified and low acid areas. Culinary degree in 2015 Life Experience: More than 40 years in the field Origins of Art of Cookery After spending 41 years living in a very old fashioned family farm environment, Valerie suddenly was living in suburbia. Valerie and John Hanson met, and then married, at the local Book Nook and Java Shop. Together, they created Bygone Basics, as it was originally named. It was born in suburban Whitehall, Michigan. The Hansons love taking cooking vacations while they travel to get a true feel for the “flavor” of an area. It began when they engaged a Mexican woman in Cozumel, MX to demonstrate her own generational culinary knowledge. Of that, and the existing passion for their own mid-west US heritage, Bygone Basics was created in early 2009. Valerie, with degrees in culinary, business, computers, food processing, and accounting, has successfully run businesses as the executive. And, John, with a technical position at a local company, and many years of re-modeling experience. As a result, they knew they could create this very unique niche company that began as a way to teach local families the value of traditional cost saving and health beneficial home arts (canning, baking, gardening, and integrating small farm animals into a life-style) and has become a tourist destination for culinary tourism. Guests arrive from all over the U.S.A (and 22 other countries…and counting) for an immersion experience in heritage mid-Western culinary and lifestyle traditions.