Chef and educator Laurie Bell has a culinary career spanning over twenty-five years. She lived in France for four years where she earned a très bien Grand Diplôme from the famed Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. In 1983 Chef Bell founded the culinary company À La Belle Cuisine serving Washington, D.C. and its suburbs. She taught cooking classes that focused on French technique in both participation and demonstration formats, and gradually developed a catering business that, by 1987, had become a full time enterprise. Chef Bell designed and built her own commercial catering kitchen in 1991 and served as Owner and Executive Chef until she sold the successful business in 2001. She has been cooking with and studying about tea for many years, and attends tea industry seminars and conferences on a regular basis.
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| Laurie on a recent return visit to her alma mater |
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| Laurie teaching a local Brownie troop |
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She has the distinction of being invited five times to work at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll with 25 of her staff to scramble 10,000 fresh eggs. She has demonstrated her culinary talents several times on local television and has lectured at industry conferences and culinary schools. She created and wrote a quarterly newsletter for her catering company and has authored several articles for various industry newsletters.
When Laurie is not drinking tea and teaching about tea, she writes freelance and for the American Institute of Wine & Food (AIWF) newsletter Capital Wine & Food. (Read her article on tea.) She serves on the local Chapter Board of AIWF, the Advisory Board of Stratford University's School of Culinary Arts, and Friends of Colvin Run Mill. She also coordinates local educational and networking events for Women Chefs and Restaurateurs (WCR), is the coordinator for the Great Falls area Meals on Wheels program and continues to teach cooking classes to adults and children.
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