They Love it! Missoula’s Honeyberry Kitchen A Hit

If you could design your dream kitchen, it would look like the new Honeyberry Kitchen in Missoula.

Then again, if you loved to teach about great, nutritious food, it's also what your classroom would look like.

The Honeyberry and the other great facilities at the new Missoula Department of Ecology and Extension building on South Avenue are less than a year old but are already proving their worth as a source of educational opportunities unmatched in Montana.

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Officially known as the Gerald W, Marks Exploration Center, the facility was the dream of recently-retired MSU Cooperative Extension Agent Jerry Marks and a talented staff. They recognized a new facility at the Missoula County Fairgrounds was the perfect way to extend efforts to promote horticulture, agriculture, and ecosystem management. But they also knew it would provide the space needed to teach and promote nutrition, health & wellness, and "youth development"; teaching the next generation about our natural world.

Co-located with the Missoula Butterfly House, the Exploration Center includes classrooms, meeting space, research areas, and the stunning Rocky Mountain Gardens, which opened in the last year.

"It's kind of become a destination spot," explains Kelly Moore, MSU Family Consumer Science Agent, noting the combination with the Marks Center and the Butterfly House. "It was like, well, we're going to get a lot of traffic, how can we capitalize on that traffic and engage more people."

What happens at the Honeyberry Kitchen in Missoula?

On any given evening, weekends too, you can smell the wonderful aromas coming from the "cooking show level" kitchen, as Moore walks a class through the steps of a simple, tasty, healthy recipe, helped with cameras and massive screens.

And the herbs are often the secret.

"So one of the things involved is trying to introduce people to maybe foods that they haven't actually either seen or grown before," Plant Clinic Coordinator Sandy Perrin tells me. "And to show that it can be easily done. We're trying also in the gardens to grow a lot of these products. For our classes, we can actually take people out to the gardens, show them how it is to grow or how to harvest it, and then come back in and then have Kelly make up something with that dish."

Kids love Honeyberry too

The "all ages" effort is evident every week. Moore also teaches a "Young Chefs" class, with lots of hands-on learning during the course. All are aimed at educating the entire family about healthy choices.

"I really think it's it's critical," Perrin says. "Most people grow up in cities that they don't necessarily have a lot of the rural aspect that we do here or even involved in farms and gardens. So to let people know, it's not that difficult to find some of these things or where can they source them?"

"People get caught up in, 'well, what is healthy eating? What is that?', Moore says, explaining many people think it's more than they can do. "And we're here to show them that healthy eating doesn't have to be complicated."

Check out the upcoming classes

The "Cultivate & Cook" classes continue this month with "Poinsettia Care & Chocolate Waffles" on December 19th. And while there were still a few openings on Monday, classes can fill up quickly. So check the Missoula County Department of Ecology and Extension Facebook page to register and for more details about course offerings in 2025.

And don't forget, you can join the "Healthy Acres Healthy Communities Foundation" in supporting the programs on Giving Tuesday, or throughout the year.