Valarie Carter has catered to German and Swiss visitors at the 1996 Olympics and cooked for Muskogee and Southern Hills country clubs.

But the Muskogee resident said she especially likes what she can cook up at Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology, where she teaches culinary arts.

“The education venues offers more creativity,” Carter said. “You still have structured classes and competencies to meet, but if there is certain product I can use or technique I can practice in the classroom as well, that’s good.”

The OSU Institute of Technology, formerly the OSU-Okmulgee campus, honored Carter’s creativity earlier this month by naming her Outstanding Faculty member. Fifty faculty members from 11 departments were nominated for the honor. Of those, four came from the culinary arts department, Carter said.

Carter traced her passion for cooking to her early childhood. She grew up in Webbers Falls and graduated from Fort Gibson High School in 1990.

“Mom was a great cook, and both my grandmothers are great cooks,” she said. “I have pictures of me as a tiny girl at the table cooking something with Mom. My uncle, Bruce Shropshire, has My Place Barbecue on the west side and another uncle, Larry Randolph, has Charlie’s Chicken in Sallisaw.”

She said the most important thing she teaches her students is to “seek out the part of the field they love.”

“I knew early on what I wanted to do,” she said.

Reach Cathy Spaulding at 684-2928 or cspaulding @muskogeephoenix.com.