The Baking Education Center: Instructors

Elisabeth Berthasavage

Elisabeth Berthasavage is a graduate of the New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont, and former pastry chef at the Baker’s Studio in White River Junction, Vermont. She loves all thing pastry and has created a number of custom cakes for weddings and events throughout the Upper Valley. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two children.

Rebecca Faill

Rebecca Faill is a graduate of the New England Culinary Institute and a lover of food and experimentation. She is creator of The Experimental Kitchen, a Web site she developed to share her recipes and techniques with home chefs. Before joining King Arthur Flour, Rebecca catered weddings and parties, and was a food stylist. She now writes for King Arthur’s baking newsletter, The Baking Sheet, and answers baking questions on the Bakers’ Hotline. Rebecca lives in Vermont with her husband, Patrick. She likes to kayak, hike, and tend her unique vegetable garden.

P.J. Hamel

P.J. Hamel has been at King Arthur Flour since 1990, when she left a career in journalism to help launch King Arthur Flour - the Baker’s Catalogue. Since then P.J. has written the catalogue, wrote and edited The Baking Sheet, and co-authored three books: the award-winning The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion, 2004 James Beard Cookbook of the Year; The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion, nominated for an International Association of Culinary Professionals Award in 2005; and King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, nominated in 2007 for a James Beard Foundation Award. Now senior editor at King Arthur, P.J. spends time developing and writing recipes for King Arthur’s e-newsletter, and continues to write the catalogue and Web site copy. A graduate of Brown University, P.J. has received accreditation from the American Institute of Baking. Outside of work, she enjoys volunteering with cancer patients, reading, blogging, and creative thinking.  

Jeffrey Hamelman

Jeffrey Hamelman came to the King Arthur Flour in 1999  to open both the bakery and the teaching facility. He’s one of a limited number of Certified Master Bakers in the United States, and past captain and coach of Baking Team U.S.A. He’s also a recipient of the Bread Baker’s Guild of America’s coveted Golden Baguette Award. Jeffrey spends about three weeks of each month involved in production baking, loving the choreography of baking with others. The remaining time he spends teaching in the Baking Education Center, meeting people from all over the world, sharing his accumulated experience, and always learning from others.

Ciril Hitz

Ciril Hitz is a baking/pastry instructor at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island. Ciril received his artistic education at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he received his Bachelor of Fine Art degree in industrial design. Upon graduating, he completed a 3-year pastry/chocolate apprenticeship in his native Switzerland. He competed in the 2004 National Bread & Pastry Team Championship in Atlantic City, where his team took first place overall, and Ciril captured the individual honors for Best Bread Showpiece, Best Bread Degustation, and Best Viennoiserie Degustation. He was also the artistic category representative on the silver-medal-winning 2002 Bread Bakers’ Guild of America team that represented the USA at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie in Paris.

Bonny Hooper

Bonny Hooper has been with King Arthur Flour since 1995. After working in a local bakery, she joined the Baker’s Hotline staff, fielding baking questions from all over the country before joining The Baking Education Center in 2001 as an instructor and assistant. Aside from teaching, Bonny runs King Arthur Flour’s busy retail store kitchen, turning out delicious baked goods daily and sharing her knowledge with the store’s many visitors. Bonny received accreditation from the American Institute of Baking and completed the Fundamentals of Bread Baking professional class with Jeffrey Hamelman. Bonny is King Arthur’s resident pie expert, and enjoys spending time with her husband, John, children, and grandchildren.

Rosemary Hubbard

Rosemary Hubbard has worked in the food industry since 1985. Marriage to a foreign service officer kept her and her family on the move for 25 years, working and living in France, Belgium, Canada, Morocco, and Laos. She attended culinary school in Paris, and Bologna, Italy. Rosemary was also a pastry chef at Dean & DeLuca in Washington, D.C.

Paul Krcmar

Paul Krcmar is a pizzaiolo at American Flatbread in Waitsfield, Vermont. He is a devotée of the Slow Food movement and is passionate about working with (and eating) organically grown foods and free-range meats. He works regularly with the restaurant’s soapstone hearth clay wood-burning oven, baking pizzas and flatbreads of all flavors and food combinations. He lives in Vermont with his wife and children.

Michelle Kupiec

Michelle Kupiec has been with King Arthur Flour since 1997. She’s manned the Baker’s Hotline, fielding baking questions from all over the country, before joining The Baking Education Center in 2001 as an instructor and assistant. She helped build a clay wood-burning oven with Kiko Denzer, and loves creating naturally leavened breads and flatbreads in her own Vermont clay oven with her husband, Tom, and daughter, Gwen. Michelle has completed both the Fundamentals of Bread Baking and Advanced Bread Baking classes with Jeffrey Hamelman.

Barbara Lauterbach

Certified Culinary Professional Barbara Lauterbach, of Center Harbor, New Hampshire, has taught baking classes and given television baking demonstrations for King Arthur Flour since the late 1980s. Her culinary background is extensive. She has studied in Italy at the schools of Giuliano Bugialli in Florence, and Marcella Hazan in Bologna; in Paris at La Varenne; in England at Le Cordon Bleu; and at schools in West Germany. For four years, Barbara was culinary director for Lazarus Department Stores in Cincinnati, where she headed their Creative Kitchen Cooking Schools. During that time, she earned the “Best Cooks in Town Award” from the Cincinnati Post and the “Best of Cincinnati Award” from Cincinnati Magazine.

Thom Leonard

Thom Leonard is a baker and writer living in Lawrence, Kansas, and working with Farm to Market Bread Company in Kansas City, Missouri, and WheatField’s Bakery Cafe in Lawrence, Kansas. A devotée of naturally leavened wood-baked breads, he is also a member of the Bread Bakers’ Guild of America.

James MacGuire

James MacGuire works as a baking consultant and teacher, and has held bread seminars for The American Institute of Baking, The Culinary Institute of America, and The Bread Bakers’ Guild of America. He is a frequent guest instructor in the Baking Education Center. With Dr. Ronald Wirtz, MacGuire translated Professor Raymond Calvel’s last book, The Taste of Bread, from its original French into English. MacGuire opened Le Passe-Partout in Montreal in 1981. The thirty-seat restaurant featured a small changing menu of cuisine du marché, where almost everything was made in-house. He later added a bakery, where his bread and viennoiserie were considered the best in the city.

Jessica Meyers

Jessica Meyers has a culinary arts background and has worked at King Arthur Flour since 2001 as a Baking Education Center instructor and assistant, and on the Bakers’ Hotline. She lives in Canaan, New Hampshire, with her husband, Ryan, and her children, Alanna and Brayden, as well as two golden retrievers and a cat. “I feel that everyone has the potential to be a great baker and feel very fortunate to be a vital part of the learning process. As an instructor I see to it that the joy of baking lives on, and that makes me very proud,” says Jessica.

Susan Miller

Susan Miller is the Director of the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center, where she has worked since its opening in 2000. As Director, Susan teaches baking classes, oversees the creation of classroom curriculum and operations, and schedules classes and guest instructors. She is also a co-author of King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, nominated in 2007 for a James Beard Foundation Award. Susan came to King Arthur Flour after working for years in the food industry – baking for restaurants and developing truffle recipes for a Vermont chocolate company – and teaching elementary school. She enjoys baking everything from artisan breads to cakes and says what she loves about baking is the combination of its strict structure and the opportunities for creativity once a person masters the basics.

Richard Miscovich

Richard Miscovich is an instructor at the International Baking & Pastry Institute at Johnson & Wales University. He also owns and operates One Acre Garden and Bakery in Beaufort, N.C., where he bakes organic hearth breads in Magdalena, the wood-fired brick oven he built. He spends the summer in North Carolina growing a variety of grains and baking commercially for wholesale accounts. Since building his oven in 1996, Richard has been involved in the construction of several styles of wood-fired ovens. He moved to Johnson & Wales from the King Arthur Bakery and Baking Education Center, where he was head bread baker, baking instructor, assistant education coordinator, and bakery consultant. He contributed to The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion, which won the James Beard Cookbook of the Year Award in 2004. A member of the Bread Bakers’ Guild of America, Richard is also deeply interested in the Slow Food movement and organic farming. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Michigan State University, and is currently working on his MBA in marketing at the Alan Shawn Feinstein Graduate School. His formal training in baking includes master classes with Lionel Vatinet and Didier Rosada.

Susan Reid

Susan Reid has been at King Arthur Flour since 2001, combining her dual passions for words and food. After careers in advertising, in high-end restaurants, and as a Chef-Instructor at the New England Culinary Institute, she spends her time at King Arthur writing and editing our baking newsletter, The Baking Sheet, and teaching both on the road and at The Baking Education Center. She’s a contributor to the award-winning King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion and The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion, and co-author of King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking.

Robyn Sargent

Robyn Sargent has been with King Arthur Flour since 1993. For many of those years she manned the Baker’s Hotline, fielding baking questions from as far away as Japan. She spreads the good King Arthur word through classes at the New England Culinary Institute, a local food co-op, and as instructor and curriculum writer for the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center. She also writes a column for The Baking Sheet. She received baking accreditation through the American Institute of Baking and lives in Vermont with her husband, Scott, and daughter, Megan. When not teaching and writing, she enjoys gardening and foraging for wild mushrooms.

Nathan “Mitch” Stamm

Nathan “Mitch” Stamm is an instructor with the International Baking & Pastry Institute at Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island. He is former executive pastry chef of the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho. He also served as pastry chef at Zingerman’s Bakehouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A member of the Bread Bakers’ Guild of America, Mitch has extensive training in hearth breads, the science of baking, pastries, and plated desserts. While in Idaho, he served on the board of the state chapter of Share our Strength, the national organization dedicated to hunger relief.

Dede Wilson

Dede Wilson is a prolific baker and writer. Her first book, The Wedding Cake Book, was published in 1997 and was nominated for a Julia Child Award. She has since published many more cookbooks, most recently A Baker’s Field Guide to Cupcakes, and Truffles. A contributing editor to Bon Appetit, Wilson has worked professionally for more than 20 years as a restaurant chef, bakery owner, caterer, recipe developer, radio talk-show host, spokesperson, and frequent television guest. She is a host of The Holiday Table, a PBS cooking show.

Dan Wing

Dan Wing, a biologist and physician by training, is author of The Bread Builders and has written for publications as various as Fine Homebuilding and The Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He travels from his home in Vermont in a gypsy wagon of his own construction, towing the bread oven he built and sharing his deep passion and knowledge of bread (and his naturally leavened wood-fire baked loaves) throughout the region.

Scott Woolsey

Scott Woolsey, manager of Killdeer Farm in Norwich, Vermont, knows his vegetables; he spent years learning the fine points of the perfectly picked vegetable and the cooking techniques that enhance flavor. Scott is a member of the Fresh Food Network and loves cooking with organically grown produce, free-range meats, and local wild-gathered foods.