A Paris-trained chef teaches Lubbock how to bake French bread Saturday

Justin Ward will spend Saturday afternoon at Culinary Co-op teaching brioche and pain au lait, a pair of breads his class listing calls the richest in French baking. The three-hour class starts at 2 p.m.

It is the last class of his visit that still has seats. His Lubbock schedule started Sept. 4 and listed 13 classes, from croissants and macarons to French sauces and a four-course dinner. Of the four sessions on the calendar this weekend, three are already sold out.

Ward grew up in Nacogdoches, where his grandmother, Elsie Ward, baked biscuits, fried pies and tea cakes that his grandfather sold to factories around town. He looked at culinary schools in high school but chose music instead, earning a degree from Jackson College of Ministries in Jackson, Miss. He then spent three and a half years in Bucharest, Romania, working for a church organization, before moving to Paris to study at L'École Ferrandi, one of France's most respected culinary schools. He apprenticed at Restaurant Guy Savoy and has taught in Paris since 2010, first at La Cuisine Paris and later at Ferrandi.

Since the pandemic he has spent more of his time in the United States, teaching under the name Moveable Feast Traveling Culinary School. The classes are held in borrowed kitchens in homes, churches, clubs or businesses. His Lubbock stop is Culinary Co-op, owned by Sherry Clark and her husband, David Clark. He comes to Lubbock about twice a year.

Sherry heads to Indianapolis next month for the 2026 World Food Championships, Oct. 15 to 18. She is a certified judge for the event, and this year she is also confirmed to compete in its Dessert Smash. She has been in business as a chef and baker since 2007, and in 2025 the Small Business Administration's Lubbock office named her small business owner of the year.

Culinary Co-op is several businesses under one roof. It is a commercial kitchen that growing food businesses rent by the hour or the month, so they can cook on professional equipment before they can afford their own. It is a classroom, where the couple run hands-on classes that follow the calendar: cookie and cake decorating, kids' classes, parent-and-child cake nights and bring-your-own-wine charcuterie evenings. In late August it was a holiday chocolate class, with students brushing colored cocoa butter into molds.

It is also a stage for other cooks. Anyone with a dish they are proud of can lease the room for a one-, two- or three-hour class and sell tickets, and the Co-op will help them set the price. Its website calls the place somewhere to learn and create "without judgement," and it offers watch-and-learn sessions with visiting chefs. A Paris-trained chef teaching brioche on a Saturday afternoon is exactly the kind of thing it was built for.

Seats in Saturday's class are $99 and are booked through chefjustinward.com. Culinary Co-op is at 5044 Frankford Ave. Ward's next stops are Austin, Oct. 1 to 4, and a culinary tour in Paris the last week of October.