Timothy Freed is a passionate chef and cooking instructor at Illinois Valley Community College. Thanks to his grandmothers, Tim was able to take steps towards his dreams at a young age.
“Both my grandmothers inspired me to cook.” Freed said. “I remember being a child and helping them in the kitchen during the summer time and then the holidays they taught me the basics and that’s what inspired me to become a chef.”
Chef Tim went to school at IVCC for two years for cuisine and then transferred to JJC for two more years to study culinary arts. He has had four jobs as a chef during his working career. The most important one would be Hy-Vee where he is the head chef.
Chef Tim is known throughout the community for his cooking talent. He prepares all types of foods that Hy-Vee sells.
Tim explained that his favorite foods to cook are seafood, German cuisine, old school Italian food, and also sauces and soups. However, when it comes to baking, he is not the first to the kitchen.
“I do bake; it’s not one of my favorite things, but I will make banana bread, a few cakes, cookies and brownies. But it’s not my favorite thing to do in the world.”
Tim explained that the creativity in cooking is what he loves the most. He also said that he finds it truly fun.
Chef Tim had been professionally cooking for 11 years when IVCC asked him to start a cooking class.
One night a week, he teaches a full class that aspiring chefs enrolled in enthusiastically.
This is what Chef Tim said about how his class at IVCC started: “Actually it was the college who was first to approach me about doing short evening culinary classes. After a few phone calls, emails, and some meetings we finally came up with the current format that we have at the college, which has blossomed into even part of the new Peter Miller Music Community Technology Center.
“My original reason behind wanting to do the culinary classes was because I really do enjoy spending an hour just cooking and showing food ingredients to the general public, especially those who have an interest in cooking and food in general.”
His favorite part of his class would be spreading his knowledge of cooking and to hopefully inspire other people to enhance their own cooking skills. Throughout his career, he has found other people who inspire him such as TV personalities and celebrity chefs.
As of right now, Tim is not looking for a different job: He said he is content with where he is at in life and only hopes to perfect his cooking skills.