Cory Hoos started cooking in his Jefferson City home at a young age. As a teenager, he cooked at local fast-food restaurants before graduating from chef school and cooking in upscale restaurants throughout the country.
Now, he’s sharing his cooking skills with others at The Art Gallery-Studio, 1014 Northeast Drive.
He’s teamed up with Janis Burgin, the studio’s resident artist, to hold occasional cooking classes. His next class is at 6 p.m. today when he’ll teach how to cook dill tilapia frites. The cost of the class is $25. To stay abreast of future classes, visit theculinaryclinic.net.
Meanwhile, Hoos works as a bartender for Sofia’s in Columbia, which gives him the flexibility to pursue a new endeavor: Hoos’ Missouri BBQ.
Through the years, he’s developed a barbecue sauce he believes has a winning flavor profile.
“I want everybody to taste it and enjoy it,” he said. “It will be a nice balanced barbecue sauce on meats and — I would encourage you to even use it on vegetables, such as potatoes,” he said.
The sauce will have some aspects of the classic Kansas City-style barbecue sauce, but it will have a flavor that represents the entire state, he said. Among other things, it will have brown sugar, black pepper, coffee and bourbon to give it a caramel flavor.
He’s working on the project with the Lincoln University culinary incubator, and he’s taking a Launch U Boot Camp class from the Small Business Development Center.
The six-week class, he said, involves writing a business plan, a feasibility plan and learning the costs associated with a new business.
“It’s definitely an eye-opener,” he said.
He hopes to start selling the sauce at events such as farmers markets, then have it on store shelves by sometime next year.
He’s hoping to retail it for $3.99 a bottle.
“I want everyone to be able to try it,” he said. “It’s important to me to be able to put my food in the hands of everyone.”
Hoos has worked at restaurants across the nation — including Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Alaska and Virginia — and he enjoys cooking a variety of regional cuisine styles.
What does he eat when he cooks for himself?
“It’s a pretty big range,” he said. “I love seafood, steak, and I’ve got some sushi-grade tuna at the house. I love Mexican food. I can make tacos any day, or chili.”
While working for one restaurant, he took home the blue ribbon in a chili contest between 19 restaurants in New Hampshire. His recipe used espresso, zinfandel and rib-eye coulotte — a cut with a good amount of fat.
If he were on The Food Network’s “Beat Bobby Flay,” which of his dishes would he challenge the celebrity chef to make?
Possibly his Neopolitan cheesecake or maybe his Mexican street tacos, he said.
The chef who’s inspired him the most he said, is another Food Network chef: iron chef Masaharu Morimoto of Japan.
“Some of the techniques he uses is really avant-garde stuff,” he said.
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In the accompanying video, chef Cory Coos creates a flame in a pan with bourbon as he talks about his barbecue sauce and cooking class.
CORRECTION: This article was edited at 10:21 a.m. May 2, 2022. The original version listed the incorrect name of the business where Cory Coos offers cooking classes. The business is The Art Gallery-Studio.