About Us
Everywhere you turn- the news, the media, there is a renewed interest to be back in the kitchen making healthy and creative meals for family and friends. Kids want to be a part of this fun. Tiny Chefs is dedicated to providing interactive and educational children’s cooking classes at your school, camp or community center within the DC, Maryland, and Virginia metroplex and Connecticut and Westchester.
Our philosophy, “learning through cooking,” encourages children to discover the joys of cooking while obtaining basic educational skills and culinary techniques. Our instructors teach kids to follow recipes, measure and combine ingredients, and work together on a team all while promoting personal creativity. We strive to instill health-conscious values in kids along with the confidence to experiment with their own creations in the future.
Meet our Team
Anna Reeves
Founder
Anna was inspired to create Tiny Chefs by combining her experience teaching young children with her passion for cooking and baking. Tiny Chef’s cooking classes and birthday parties support Anna’s philosophy that children deserve the opportunity to explore food, nutrition, and cooking at their individual pace of learning. Anna grew up as a child baking with her mother and trying out new recipes for friends and family. Anna continues to grow her skills through various cooking and baking classes, and cooks with her three daughters.
Allison Collins
Recruitment, Training & Development
As the head of training and development for Tiny Chefs, Allison develops training programs for our instructors, prepares them for the classroom and does quality assurance visits to classes and camps to ensure consistency across all programs. Allison has a BS in Health & Business from the University of Richmond and an AOS from the Culinary Institute of America. Prior to working with Tiny Chefs, Allison served as the Regional Restaurant Manager for Nordstrom where she opened several restaraurants requiring the hiring and training of the entire restaurant staff. Additionally she served as the Culinary training program manager for Ukrops Supermarkets.
Katie Raguindin
Area Coordinator
Katie is a passionate food lover, which makes her an excellent chef instructor for Tiny Chefs! Katie started working with Tiny Chefs in 2009, but left the following year when her husband was stationed overseas. When she returned in 2012, she wasn’t quite sure what to do next. Then, her husband asked her, “What do you really enjoy doing?” She realized that baking and interacting with children were her two favorite activities, so we were happy to welcome her back.
Janine Nyquist
CT Area Coordinator
Janine earned her culinary degree from the Art Institute in Tampa in 2010 with a focus on baking and pastry arts. She worked as an executive pastry chef and cake designer, in Florida, for some time, before moving back to her home state of Connecticut. In Connecticut, Janine continued her career in the pastry field and worked as a special occasion and wedding cake decorator. From there she went on to become a corporate sous chef for Scott Conant’s hospitality group in New York City. She has always had a love for baking and cooking as well as for children, after having been a nanny for many years. After finding Tiny Chefs, Janine realized it was the perfect way to combine what she is most passionate about. In her spare time, Janine loves creating custom cakes, experimenting with new recipes, and spending time with her family.
Jenni Bashaw
Curriculum Development
Jenni joined Tiny Chefs in 2008 as a classroom & party instructor but almost immediately started researching recipes and themes for Anna. Soon she was developing full curricula for Tiny Chefs’ ASE programs and Summer camps, and writing copy for catalogs and school newsletters. She tries to teach a class or a camp every now and then, which she highly enjoys and feels is very important in order to create lesson plans for the rest of the Tiny Chefs instructors that are actually “do-able”. Working for Tiny Chefs has been a fantastic boon for Jenni as it allows her to stay home with her young son & continue to do what she loves– cook, write and organize! Jenni has a BA in English from Penn State, is a few credits shy of a Masters in Arts in Teaching from the University of South Carolina & often threatens to move to Bimini “because no one knows where it is.”
