With winter fast approaching, local markets are providing the opportunity for students to take a break from studying with a seasonal cooking class. 

In preparation for winter festivities, City Market and Healthy Living Market are sponsoring many cooking events to bring out the chef in students. 

Nina Lesser-Goldsmith, director of learning at Healthy Living Market, bases her classes on holiday themes and what’s in season.

“I ususally base classes on seasonal ingredients or on topics that customers tell me about,” she said. “I’m holding cookie baking classes [for Christmas].”

Other holiday themed classes include:

Saturday, Dec. 3 

From 10 a.m. until noon, City Market will host “Warming Foods for Winter with Betzy Bancroft.” Bancroft, who teaches at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism in Montpelier, will teach class members which winter foods are warming to bodies and why, according to the City Market website. 

The event will also teach attendees what foods release phytochemicals that help increase vitality. Recipes for vegans, vegetarians and omnivores ,including the essential Immune Tonic Soup, will be available. 

Thursday, Dec. 8

From 6-7:30 p.m., City Market will introduce festive Italian biscotti cookies. 

Adele Dienno will guide students to baking easy Italian cookies as well as demonstrating variations to the traditional dough, according to the City Market website. This event will take place at the Sustainability Academy, 123 North St. 

Monday, Dec. 12

Feeling under the weather? At City Market from 5-6 p.m., learn about simple herbal recipes for both preventing and treating common illnesses of winter. 

Attendees will also learn strategies to prevent “lingering” symptoms. This class shows how to incorporate useful plants into soup stocks and teas, according to the City Market website.

Wednesday, Dec. 13 

From 5:30-8 p.m., learn how to cook for someone who eats no sugar, dairy, or wheat at Healthy Living Market. 

On the menu, students will learn to cook: roasted delicata squash stuffed with wild rice, plump cherries and toasty walnuts; spiced no-sugar cranberry-apple compote with dried fruit; roasted brussel sprouts with bacon, apples and onions; and potato and zucchini fritters with curry oil, according to the Healthy Living Market wwebsite.