Reconnect with your culinary curiosity
Through self study classes, collaborative workshops, and opportunities to connect to the magic of food that you won’t find anywhere else.
At the Culinary Curiosity School, we believe in the magic of everyday things. And we help you weave that magic into your everyday, too.
Here’s a sample of what’s on the menu:
Finding your Food Story
Whether you’re curious about finding stories from the past or building the story of the future, this class helps you deep dive into the world of culinary history research, storytelling, and magic, so you can find and share your own unique food story.
The Fermentative Creation Lab
Build the world-changing, fulfilling fermentation business and fermentation practice of your dreams, with your biggest visions for change and community care right at the center.
Preserving family papers and recipes
Your food stories deserve to be saved: Carry your cookbooks, recipe cards, and other papers forward to future generations through preservation techniques taught by a former special collections librarian.
Mycelial and microbial meditations
Using guided meditations and journaling prompts to tap into the unseen world in your kitchen, your body, and in nature so you can find connection, grounding, and community.
Rooted in Place
Using fermentation and wild foods to connect to the places and memories that matter most to you.
The Curiosity Club
A virtual space to gather and learn, enjoy surprise guest speakers, and build community. Coming 2025
Intuitive Guidance Sessions
Find guidance for your culinary practice, work, and life through a customized 1:1 reading, all done remotely.
And more!
We also offer private events and classes, and love building and leading multi-day retreats on fermentation and place, food writing, wild foods, and creativity.
Head to this site to learn more about Dr. Skinner’s events and private classes.
Meet your teacher
Dr. Julia Skinner is a person who thrives at crossroads: Her life and career are built from a series of intersections, between career paths, academic disciplines, and interests.
She’s been everything from a university professor to a museum curator to a restaurant manager to a bus driver.
And of course, a teacher and a writer.
Her diverse background, and constant curiosity, are her strengths as a teacher: Because she uses all of that experience to create classes that help you connect what you learn to your whole life.
She designs her courses and events around what’s possible: Knowing each topic she covers contains infinite possibility, but so does each person she works with. And curiosity and play can help them not only build the kitchen skills they want, but use their cooking practice to shape their lives in surprising, fun ways.
These aren’t just cooking classes: They are curiosity-driven experiences that can transform your world.
Julia has been a business owner since 2018, after leaving a successful career in academia and taking a chance on doing what she most deeply desired: To share the magic of food through writing, teaching, and consulting.
She founded Root in 2018, offering classes, consulting, and events around fermentation and food history.
In 2023, she founded Roots + Branches writing and creative coaching, based on the need she saw in her clients for writing support rooted in sustainable, consistent effort (rather than burnout) and in pleasure and play rather than hustle.
She is a fierce advocate for community care and care for the natural world, and lives between Cork, Ireland and Atlanta, Georgia while also stewarding acres of forest at the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in north Georgia.
She weaves magic throughout her everyday life, and she wants to help you do the same.
To learn more about Julia’s work, research, and more, head to this link.
To get in touch with Julia, please click here!