A Closer Look: Tami Cecil

Name: Tami Cecil
Organization: Woodhaven Farm
Job: Chef, instructor, team-building facilitator, owner

Types of events: We have cooking classes, the “Dinner Party that Cooks” and corporate team-building events.

Purpose: You work together to prepare a meal. You are all on an equal playing field whether you’ve cooked before or not. You never know who the leader is going to be.

Objective: We have an icebreaker that relaxes folks — everyone is given the same ingredients to choose from and they have to cook something, appropriately brand their company or team, clean up their station and present their dish to the group. Everyone makes fun of how they cleaned up or prepared their recipe. The whole idea is to bond together to get the end result in a specific amount of time and come away seeing each other on a different level outside of the office and beyond technology or e-mail.

Best advice for fellow planners: Staying organized. Ninety percent of my work is done before the group hits the door. The curriculum, recipes, food cooked — my ducks are in a row so that I can relax and enjoy the group.

Biggest challenge: I can feel a group’s karma when they hit the door. It’s my job to try to address that, handle it if they are in a good mood or someone’s annoying, and just work around that. I try to overcome the fact that not everyone is gung-ho about cooking. The best compliment on my end is when someone says, “Cooking isn’t really my thing, but I really had a good time and learned something about cooking and also about my coworkers.”

Favorite quote: “Eating well is the best revenge.”

Favorite book: The original “Joy of Cooking.” My grandma cooked with it; my mom cooked with it.

Favorite movie: “Water for Chocolate” and “Austin Powers.”

Tami Cecil is a former stockbroker turned chef who began Woodhaven Farm in 1993 and hasn’t looked back. She offers cooking classes, parties and corporate team building on the farm outside of Columbus, Ohio. woodhavenfarm.com