PartnerSchnips
PartnerSchnips
Gather Food Studio was created to be an inclusive food community based on learning, sharing and doing. It’s a place to gather with friends and family around food. Gather offers cooking classes to suit any need in an inviting, comfortable environment. It also hosts an attached spice shop which features both locally produced products as well as fine imported goods.
Matthew formed a professional friendship with Gather co-owners and culinary instructors Dave Cook and Cortney Smith in 2015; he had given Cook a very favorable review the year prior. Matthew followed their many developments, from formation of the studio in 2018 to the temporary pivot to online-only classes during the pandemic in 2020, and he’s grateful to partner with them now in 2023.
Some background: Cook spent 20 years cheffing in the industry. He was initially food-inspired when his parents gave him his first taste of kimchi at a Korean restaurant in Seoul. His later classical training from the College of Culinary Arts at Johnson & Wales University underpins his creative flair for creating dishes that make the most of locally sourced ingredients combined with unexpected herbs and spices. He has explored regional cuisines and cooking methods throughout the Caribbean and U.S., with particular interest in learning how different areas use seasonings to create exciting takes on traditional favorites.
Smith was born into a food-obsessed family; her uncle was a chef and owned a restaurant. Food and family were intertwined, and she became passionate about knowing about where our food comes from. She worked at 15 restaurants by the time she turned 30, eventually tiring of that work, but providence intervened in the guise of CHEFS Catalog, an upscale cooking equipment retailer she went to work for. She was able to combine her love of food and product: selecting merchandise, developing recipes and working with food styling for eight years at a corporate level. She believes she’s found her true calling now, with Gather, in the form of teaching others to love food the way she always has.
Focus on the Beer has been a COS-focused beer blog since its founding in 2010 by Eric Steen. In 2013, Ryan Hannigan took over the blog and has been running it ever since, providing Colorado Springs with coverage and critiques for our local craft brewing scene.
Matthew met Ryan through the colloquial grapevine that is Colorado Springs’ social scene before they became colleagues at the Colorado Springs Independent. They were neighbors for a number of years and still, on occasion, trade chicken eggs for duck eggs from their respective backyard birds. Ryan also designed Side Dish with Schniper’s logos.
The Carter Payne hosted monthly third Thursday Sip With Schnip happy hours between summer 2023 and Feb. 2024 and will return to host again in August 2024. The venue, located in a beautiful old church building, serves beer, wine and spirits alongside eclectic food menus created by Chef Brent Beavers and his team. Matthew worked for Brent around 20 years ago, in the early aughts, at Beavers’ former fine dining restaurant named Sencha.
Thank you to Side Dish sponsors/advertisers:
Ranch Foods Direct (lead sponsor 2023)
Tipperary Cocktail Parlor (Bar Battle co-presenter 2023-2024)
Taste of Pikes Peak (2023) / Visit Colorado Springs / Cheyenne Mountain Zoo / TESSA (Pasta in the Park, 2023) / Taste of OCC (2023) / Distillery 291 / Diavolo Pueblo / Pikes Peak Brewing Co. / Banning Lewis Ranch (OktoBREWfest 2023) / Bristol Brewing Co. / Pikes Peak State College / Wine Festival of Colorado Springs