Our Crew

Erin is passionate about getting kids to not just eat, but actually crave healthy food! She has an extensive background in the food and wine industry and loves to use that experience to craft new Sticky Fingers recipes that bring together fresh ingredients, global flavors, math, geography, nutrition, food history—and a big dash of tasty fun. Erin also writes terrible jokes about food that make everyone groan.

Erin's three energetic daughters are her first round of taste testers and she is never reluctant to push their culinary boundaries. In fact, Erin has so enjoyed introducing her family to a wide variety of foods that she wanted other families to have the same opportunity through Sticky Fingers Cooking. Erin bought & transformed SFC from a brick and mortar children’s cooking school to a 100% mobile cooking school in 2011. Sticky Fingers Cooking now has hundreds of cooking classes throughout Colorado, Illinois, Texas, and beyond.

An accomplished doer of all things, Katie joined us in 2014. Her knowledge, expertise and momentum provide heart and soul for our entire SFC crew. Katie is not afraid to take on challenges! Her tenacity and ability to create happy order out of chaos led her to Sticky Fingers Cooking. Katie helps manage Sticky Fingers Cooking’s “virtual office” and is the secret sauce in SFC’s recipe for success. In the kitchen, she enjoys watching her husband cook and says their two kids are his biggest critics. She loves flash mobs, Josh Duhamel, llamas and tequila. She is a graduate of CU Boulder.

Lauren graduated with honors and received a degree in Business Administration with a minor in Entrepreneurship from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She studied abroad in Ireland and has since worked in marketing as well as in the kitchen!

Lauren owned and operated her own granola business and also worked at a spectacular bakery in Arvada. While her role for SFC has changed over the years, her passion for good food, children, and education remains. When she's not working, you'll often find her exploring a new local coffee shop or restaurant, cooking up some plant-based deliciousness in her kitchen, or reading.

Maggie Whittum began with Sticky Fingers Cooking as a Chef Instructor in 2010 and taught for several years between her extensive jaunts abroad. After surviving a massive brainstem stroke in 2014 at age 33, Maggie rejoined the Sticky Fingers Cooking Team in 2016 as the Social Media Maven. Maggie performs with Phamaly Theatre Company in Denver, which exclusively casts actors with disabilities, and she is creating a documentary about her life entitled The Great Now What. She is a graduate of Colorado College.

Jacqui grew up in Minneapolis and spent time in Florida, New York, Seoul, and South America before spontaneously moving to Denver where she's lived since 2016. Her passions for writing, travel, culture, food, and education have led her on a long, winding, and exciting path, and her favorite way to tie these passions together is by creating and cooking recipes from around the world....with kids.

Joe brings his proven and savvy startup know-how and extensive experience in business development and marketing skills to Sticky Fingers Cooking. He played pivotal roles in widely varied startups in the Solar, Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Golf, Health and Wellness, and Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle sectors.

His very diverse startup experiences makes him passionate about cultivating more ‘cool’inary curiosity in kids to ever more communities by bringing the fabulously fun and truly tasty Sticky Fingers Cooking experience to many more young chefs. Did we also mention that Joe also a bit of a foodie himself; he makes a pretty mean San Francisco Seafood Cioppino and a very tasty Vietnamese Carmel Simmered Chicken dish.

Amanda is a former preschool teacher and speech pathologist who taught for over 10 years. She is now mom to three busy and happy kids. She loves creating and cooking with natural foods and her newest hobby is aquaponics; raising her own fish and organic produce at HOME!

Her love of working with kids combined with her passion for fun and natural foods led her to Sticky Fingers Cooking. Amanda started as an instructor with Sticky Fingers Cooking and now helps manage Sticky Fingers Cooking’s “virtual office” and maintains the database behind scenes.

Kate received her degree in Secondary Education for English and History from Grand Valley State University and a Masters in the Art of Teaching for Curriculum Design and Instruction with the drive to positively impact students’ lives. Since then, she has taught Language Arts at the middle school level and outdoor recreation for campers as young as 4 years old. Being a part of an organization that fosters kids’ passions and creativity has always been important to Kate, which is what drew her to Sticky Fingers Cooking.

Kate loves to explore new recipes in the kitchen that feature bold flavors and is especially fond of baking and the Great British Baking Show! She’s always looking for people to share her recent bakes with. When Kate’s not in the kitchen, you can find her hitting the trails with her husband, Chris, and fur-baby, Apollo, or rock climbing at the local gym.

After working in the corporate world (Pepsico, Kraft General Foods, Unilever) for over 20 years, Eileen hung up her corporate hat and donned her chef coat—following her dream of starting her own personal chef business! Eileen joined the SFC Team in 2014; her love for cooking and making people's taste buds come alive mixed with her ability to manage made for the perfect combination! Eileen learned a lot about cooking from watching her grandmother and mom but what really kicked up her passion for exploring new and exciting foods was living overseas in South Korea.

Eileen currently lives at the beach on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where she loves to walk with her best buddy, 13-year-old yellow lab Riley (102lbs of LOVE), and her husband. She also enjoys year round outdoor sports—golf, kayaking, paddle boarding, hiking, skiing, snow shoeing, cross country skiing, and snowman building (lots of snow in the Upper Peninsula).

A Chicago native, Lucy was one of the first Chef Instructors in Denver. While her background is in education—she is a certified Montessori teacher (ages 3-6)—her passion and zest for cooking were clear from the beginning. She loves to cook so much that she even started her own culinary business, Green Gourmet Cooking!

Lucy fell in love with Sticky Fingers Cooking: she loves how it teaches children about food, expanding their palettes by chopping, stirring, and tasting the DELICIOUS recipes on a weekly basis. She has been one of our most dedicated and enthusiastic chefs, so much so that she has helped us expand from Denver to Chicago! Watch out Windy City, here comes Sticky Fingers Cooking and Lucy’s passion for teaching children about yummy food!

Amy Carter grew up in southern Indiana and received a B.A. in Therapeutic Recreation & a Minor in Psychology from Indiana University. Amy came to Chicago to start a job with St. Joseph's Child Center running the Activity Therapy Department. She went on to become a Park Supervisor for the Chicago Park District running various sports programs and special events. After spending a few years at home with her two children, Amy joined SFC in September 2015.

Robin has worked in the restaurant industry for 30 years, both in operations and training. She loves to cook and believes that you are what you put in your body. Robin’s passion for teaching and making an impact on a child’s life through healthy cooking led her to Sticky Fingers Cooking.

Francine has over 10 years of experience working in the food industry. After earning her Bachelor's in Nutrition and Dietetics, she spent countless hours working in kitchens tweaking and cooking nutritious recipes for collegiate athletes.

Combining her food science expertise with her passion for nutritious and delicious food led her to Sticky Fingers Cooking in 2018. Francine continues to open the door for kids to experience and explore the world of food; she especially loves cooking with kids because their expressions and comments are priceless. Her favorite thing to see is how excited her students get when they taste something amazing that they NEVER thought they would like!

When she’s not working, Francine loves reading books, hanging out with her two dogs, and hiking the trails in Austin.

Chef Alli started cooking as a teen, volunteering during the summer at church camp. Then after traveling the world as a United States Marine, she decided she wanted to teach children to cook, because that's where the real action is! She took her culinary degree and her experience with her two wild boys to Sticky Fingers Cooking! Things might get a little loud and a little crazy but it will always be tasty!

Jessi was born and raised in Austin, TX. She is a pediatric dietitian and has spent her career helping families create healthy relationships with food and a love of healthy eating. She joined Sticky Fingers Cooking in 2017 and has been so excited to share with young chefs in and around Austin that food can be good for you AND taste good too!
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Jessi and her husband have thee young children, two dogs and a cat. When they're not cooking and exploring new foods, they like to do things together outdoors like camping and swimming.