A Westside High School alumna is bringing is bringing her culinary skills to the CSRA.
Kia Bolton is opening Onsite Cooking Academy, a cooking school for all ages who want to learn some new skills, that will open in September. She came up with the idea for her capstone project for her associate’s degree in culinary management from the Art Institute of Charleston. Bolton also has a bachelor’s in business administration from Strayer.
“Our task was to either do a restaurant or bakery, and I didn’t want to do either of those, so I built the cooking school,” Bolton said. “Now it’s just me bringing my dream into reality.”
As for why she didn’t want to do a restaurant, she said there is a lot of overhead and stress associated with opening one.
“That would be a burden on a lot of people because they’re working 80 weeks and stuff like that,” she said. “With this, I kind of make my own schedule based on what my availability is for the class schedule. This will allow me to do pretty much what I want to do.”
With Onsite Cooking Academy, Bolton said she’ll be offering classes for anyone, whether it’s individuals, date nights, teen classes, groups or kids.
“It’ll be different foods and different classes,” Bolton said. “Right now, the schedule that I put out, I think I’m going to switch it up…I do know people enjoy homemade pasta class. I also had a lot of people asking about kids’ classes, their kids being interested and this kind of being like a hub for kids to come and learn before they come to culinary school.”
Some of the classes Bolton is offering, at the moment, are a pasta making class, seafood boil at home, sushi rolling party and macarons and mimosas.
“I love the pasta class, the making the pasta because people don’t realize how easy it is,” Bolton said. “All it is, is flour and eggs, and most people keep that in their house, so they can make fresh pasta. The only difference is the pasta roll, and you can get the attachment for the Kitchen Aid (to make it at home.)”
As for why she wanted to open Onsite Cooking Academy in Augusta, it’s because she’s from Augusta and a Westside High School graduate. For the past two years, she’s gone back to Westside to teach cooking classes with the family and consumer sciences teacher
“The kids look forward to it,” Bolton said. “Last year we did pasta, and this year we did pizza (and they wanted to do pasta again because they loved it.”
The classes range from $70-$85 per person. Those interested can sign up for her newsletter on the website or go ahead and register for a class.
For more information, visit the Onsite Cooking Academy Facebook page or website. Onsite Cooking Academy is located at 210 Hudson Trace in Augusta.
