Twenty-five years ago, Kitchen Conservatory opened and started offering cooking classes and essential kitchen tools. Here are 25 things about us.

1. We love to cook and we love to eat. We are food-obsessed.

2. Our power breakfast is last night’s dessert.

3. On any given day, we make ice cream.

4. We are our own best customers. Anyone up for the newest bundt cake pan shape?

5. Everyone who works at Kitchen Conservatory becomes a better cook at home.

6. The best chefs from the best restaurants teach at Kitchen Conservatory. Lunch could be pork and grits from Sidney Street or lobster bisque from Norwood Country Club.

7. Microwave? What microwave?

8. Every day brings “a play of the day”: Tugboat Ed got a French manicure; “I lost my tooth, did you find it?”; “I’m in a hurry, but want to make something special, how do I temper chocolate for candy?”

9. The day before Thanksgiving brings the best “ask the chef” questions: “can I freeze mashed potatoes”; “I’m out of time, can I cook the turkey today and reheat tomorrow?”

10. One week after Thanksgiving has even better questions: “how long can you keep turkey on a silver platter?”

11. After hosting more than thirty classes of “Tuscany for Two,” we have finally tired of the polenta dish. But if there is no lobster bisque (see above), we still eat polenta.

12. Cooking class registrations are made in advance, like theater tickets. Today, one person wanted to cancel because her relative had inoperable brain cancer. Another person wanted in and was willing to trade baseball tickets for the opportunity. Everyone has a story. My favorite story is the customer who told me her beloved aunt died, so she could not come to class. When her daughter came in her place, she innocently remarked that her mother “never misses a baseball playoff game.”

13. All-Clad is the most wonderful cookware, ever. But those pans do not work on glass-top stoves. Even a wonderful company can have a tin ear. When I asked the president about cookware for glass-top stoves, the answer was, “tell your customers to change to gas.” We do have cookware for glass-top stoves.

14. Sometimes we run cooking classes just so we can eat the food: Foie gras. Croissants. Buttercream frosting. Fried potatoes.

15. Yes, we love the taste of fat. We are not fat because we cook all the meals that we eat. It’s the best kind of diet.

16. We carry some products just because we really like them and want to use them in the kitchen: Edlund tongs. Vollrath dishers. Wearever sheet pans. Thorpe rolling pins. Lee corn creamer.

17. If we really like the product and it’s discontinued, we have it made for us: turkey lifter, gnocchi board, and our home-grown honey.

18. Last year, we went through 684 pounds of Plugra butter. At two pounds a day, it IS better with butter!

19. Last year, we went through 336 pounds of chocolate (Callebaut, Scharffenberger, and Valrhona). Hmmm, one pound per day doesn’t sound like quite enough!

20. Yes, we do have so much fun thinking up creative titles for cooking classes.

21. We love when customer tells us that they successfully made a recipe, any recipe, but especially a recipe from a Kitchen Conservatory cooking class or our cookbook, A Passion for Cooking.

22. Kitchen Conservatory is open 358 days a year, offering 600 cooking classes each year, and selling 6,000 different essential cooking tools. We measure success when customers have fun cooking at home.

23. Yes, we really do cook from scratch — no mixes, no pre-fab food. Yes, we really do eat like this every day. Not only is the food safer and more sanitary when cooked from scratch, but it tastes more delicious.

24. A sharp knife is a safe knife. We keep our knife sharpener gnome busy sharpening thousands of blades by offering a 24-hour turn-around service.

25. Let’s do it again for another 25!