Love to cook and want to learn more? A culinary adventure awaits one's inner foodie at the historic Wakefield Inn Bed and Breakfast.

Professionally trained chef and innkeeper Janel Martin is offering separate two-hour cooking courses that cover all of the important elements of French culinary techniques. The first class, “Slow Food at its Best,” starts today, April 18 at 5 p.m., but additional classes are offered through April and May.

Culinary Weekend Retreat packages, three-night affairs where guests learn to cook a gourmet five-course meal, are scheduled for this week (April 19-22), and in late fall (Nov. 1-4).

“Baking Basics and Beyond” is the topic of the April 25 class, where Martin will cover the techniques for baking success.

Learn all about desserts at the May 9 class, and how to cook savory first course dishes on May 16. Each class is two hours of hand-on learning, followed by an informal sit down where participants eat the fruits of their labor.

Martin and the Inn have earned accolades on travel websites, like TripAdvisor.com. Her courses on cooking for Thanksgiving were featured in a television program last fall. “Word of mouth” is helping her grow a clientele and a reputation as a fine-dining establishment in the picturesque historic district of this small Lakes Region community, located between Route 16 and the Maine border just south of the White Mountains.

For Martin, the role of professional chef and innkeeper came after she dumped her desk job for a new career nearly a dozen years ago. The Farmington native grew up in the area, then lived and studied for a time in New York City and outside Washington, D.C.

Martin was working a desk job — sales support for a technology company — when she was inspired by a television commercial for a culinary program at Stratford University, and decided to switch careers at age 30.

“I went to the open house. Signed up. Came home. And told my then-boyfriend I quit my job and I'm starting culinary school on Monday. To me it was doing something that I enjoy … and I didn't have to sit in a chair again,” she said, explaining that back pain problem contributed to the decision to get up from behind a desk.

While at school, her instructors noticed Martin's knack for teaching other students. The dean of the school offered her a job teaching if she chose to return after two years in the field.

Martin turned down an opportunity to work as a pastry chef with Charlie Trotter's five-star restaurant in Chicago. Martin described Trotter as one of the most influential American chefs, but he isn't a “TV chef,” said Martin, “he's a real chef.” But she didn't want to move to Chicago at that point in her life.

Climbing the celebrity chef corporate ladder was not appealing to her either. “Please, no thank you,” Martin says to her Inn clientele who threaten to send her name into reality shows like “Celebrity Chef.”

“The pressure! I like to create things but I don't spend all my time reading cookbooks. I don't watch TV. I just like it when I can see someone's happy face when they are eating my meals — or that ‘aha' moment when someone in my cooking class learns, ‘so that's what I've been doing wrong all these years!'” “In my classes, I'm always explaining the ‘why' and ‘how' as I go, so that someone understands why you just stir pancake or muffin batter, but you knead breads,” she said. (It's all in the gluten content.) Martin worked as a pastry chef in a bed and breakfast with a 65-seat restaurant outside of Washington in Paris, Va., and then worked as a catering manager for the Hyatt Corporation before moving to Paris, France, when her husband, James, an engineer for Lucent Technologies, was transferred there for work. The couple and their young daughter lived in France for three years. Martin was a stay-at-home mom with a young child, but learned about the French foods, cheeses and wines, before the family relocated to New Hampshire.

Martin explained her family ties — except for a sister in Florida— were all in New England: her mom in Farmington, one sister in Brookfield, a brother in Waterboro, Maine, Thus, when Martin's sister, Jennifer, a real estate agent, found that the Wakefield Inn was for sale, the timing was right.

“It was perfect. It had a small restaurant, a kitchen, and was big enough to do classes.”

Martin bought the Inn in 2007, and began classes and culinary retreats in 2008. Her classes include recipes that a person can do on their own at home, and lessons on cooking techniques and food that can be applied to many dishes. For example, in an upcoming class on desserts, Martin teaches how to make a mousse, but a big part of the recipe is how to treat the eggs, in this case, beaten over a water bath to make them frothy and thick. The same beating process can be used to make a hollandaise sauce.

Her classes are limited to six pupils, to provide space and time for everyone. “Cooking should be comfortable and fun,” she said.

What she finds is customers find out about the classes through her restaurant. “One feeds off the other,” she said.

Summer dinners at the inn begin Friday, May 18. The restaurant will remain open to the public through October, serving a five-course dinner featuring fresh produce, cheeses and meats on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Reservations are required. The summer dinner menu, which will change weekly, is available for advance viewing on the Inn's web site.

The Wakefield Inn is located at 2723 Wakefield Road. For more information, call the inn at 522-8272, or toll free at 1-800-245-0841, or visit the web site, www.wakefieldinn.com.