Abra Berens & Erik Hall to Launch Teaching Kitchen in TC

Chef and writer Abra Berens has a long list of culinary credits on her resume. She started cooking at Zingerman’s Deli, trained at the Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland, co-founded Bare Knuckle Farm in Leelanau County, and helmed Local Foods in Chicago before settling into her executive chef role at Granor Farm in Three Oaks for the last decade. She’s also published three nationally acclaimed cookbooks: Ruffage, Grist, and Pulp.

Now, Berens and her husband – musician Erik Hall – are preparing for a new venture: launching a teaching kitchen for home chefs that will open in the historic Boardman Building on Webster Street in early 2027. Everyday Cookery will offer individual cooking classes and workshops, community dinners and special events, an online library of virtual cooking tutorials, and a mission of making programming accessible to all income levels while addressing issues like food waste and insecurity.

Berens and Hall are targeting a first-quarter launch next year for the business. “The space is for home cooks at all levels to feel better about cooking and eating together,” says Hall, who will help run operations. “It’ll also have longer deep-dive workshops, and people will be able to eat a meal together in some kind of regular dinner series. We’ll have visiting chefs and authors doing special events. Simultaneously, it’ll be set up to shoot audio and video to create a virtual library of cooking classes that people can access anywhere at any time.”

Hall adds that Everyday Cookery is “our opportunity to reconnect with the place we love so much and the legacy of growers, producers, and friends that have been doing incredible work for so long.” That means featuring Michigan farms and ingredients and ideally in the future wine and spirits at select classes and events, working with Granor and a local wine partner.

The vision for the business evolved over several years as Berens and Hall kept “an eye toward coming back to the area,” says Hall. For Berens, who farmed and cooked for eight years in Northport and wrote a local food column for the Traverse City Record-Eagle, the region holds an irresistible draw. “It’s the people, and the community we built while farming, and the natural beauty…the whole area is emblematic of the massive diversity and connection to agriculture and nature that Michigan has as a whole,” she says.

Downstate at Granor, an “educational lens” permeates all aspects of the operation – starting with a farm camp for kids and expanding into adult and staff curriculum, Berens says. That led to the idea for Everyday Cookery, with Berens realizing that what she’s “passionate about is making people feel confident in their own kitchens. So much of professional cooking is just having the muscle memory of doing it every single day. All of us have that opportunity, so we’re trying to provide some tools geared toward home cooks.” Berens, who has served on the advisory board of the Great Lakes Culinary Institute, emphasizes the goal is not to overlap with that professional culinary school but instead focus on individuals improving in their own kitchens.

Berens will remain director at-large for Granor but is transitioning into focusing on launching Everyday Cookery. The school’s location in the Boardman Building came about through her friendship with local chef Rose Hollander and husband Eric Gerstner, who has been renovating the former TCAPS Administration Building with partner Ken Richmond. The building, which will soon welcome its first tenants, will house four luxury condos, 12 workforce apartments, the new headquarters of Ford Insurance, and Grand Traverse MSU Extension.

Everyday Cookery, the final tenant, will occupy 2,000 square feet encompassing the former boiler room in the basement area. Richmond calls it a “really cool space” that will be fully renovated and feature a skylight, tall ceilings, stone walls, and all the amenities needed for a teaching kitchen – including a community gathering space and a “backstage” production area with storage, coolers, prep room, and offices. Having a school return to Traverse City’s oldest surviving school structure is a full-circle moment for Richmond and Gerstner, who fended off competing development offers to earn the right to preserve and readapt the 1913 building.

“We’re encouraged because everything is coming together,” says Gerstner. “We’re tickled we saved it and are really happy with how it looks.”

Everyday Cookery is being structured as an L3C, or low-profit limited liability company. That’s because having a mission focus is a key part of the venture, Berens says. “It’s always irked me that sometimes local and regional food movements can feel out of reach for a lot of people,” she says. “So we’re trying to do our part in making that not the case.”

Full-price tickets and virtual subscriptions will help offset subsidized and free classes for those who can’t afford them, according to Berens. “We’re taking the profits of this school and plugging them back into the subsidized tickets and other tools,” she says. Berens also hopes to partner with community groups like Food Rescue to creatively reduce waste – a common byproduct of cooking classes – and address issues like food insecurity.

Berens cites as an example offering a “soups 101” class and intentionally having the class produce more soup than attendees can eat or take home, then donating the surplus quarts – safely prepared in a commercial kitchen – to a shelter or community kitchen. “I think there’s a lot of power in the generosity of cooking and knowing what part of your ticket price is paying for,” Berens says. “Food insecurity is real. People are struggling. So making that part of why we’re doing this is a big motivation for us.”

While Hall says there’s “much more to come” in terms of announcements for Everyday Cookery, attainability will remain at the core of the couple’s plans for Traverse City. “Our clear goal is to make it accessible to anyone who wants to be there,” he says.