Experience the vibrant flavors of the Mediterranean with a spread of healthy and delicious shareable dishes. Learn to craft dips, crispy falafel, and flavorful meatballs—paired with warm, pillowy flatbreads.
Course Dishes:
- Crispy Baked Falafel with Lemon-Tahini Dipping Sauce
- Muhammara: Spiced Roasted Red Pepper and Walnut Spread with Homemade Whole Wheat Pita Bread
- Chicken Kofta Meatballs with Mint Yogurt Sauce
- Baklava Bites with Pistachios and Orange Blossom Honey
To participate in this course you will be required to review and sign our Acknowledgment of Risk. Please click the button below to review, sign, and submit the waiver prior to class.
Please direct any questions to Adrianne Ong, Program Coordinator, at adrianmo@hs.uci.edu
Instructor: Jessica VanRoo, Executive Chef
In the skilled hands of Jessica VanRoo (“Chef Jess”), food becomes medicine that melts in your mouth.
A professional chef with two decades of experience and a culinary management degree from Art Institute of Orange County, VanRoo has a keen understanding of the power of food. This awareness feeds her passion for teaching people tips and techniques for preparing food that tastes great and can improve health.
VanRoo is executive chef of the UCI Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute’s Mussallem Nutritional Education Center, a teaching kitchen where whole health flourishes through food as medicine. She is the creative chef who develops institute programs that please the palate and promote culinary medicine. Her menus are rich in produce, reflecting the influence of her upbringing in Taiwan.
Under VanRoo’s leadership, nutritional education center instructors – professional chefs and registered dietitians, often accompanied by physicians – connect the dots between food and health in programs for health professionals, patients and community organizations. She has also equipped the eight-station teaching kitchen and dining space to support group medical visits and culinary medicine research that involves meal preparation and service.
