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Helping out in the kitchen

Community Kitchens make cooking a social, nutritious affair

A friend gave me a small plastic binder filled with blank, ruled pages. On the white, vinyl cover, in blue lettering was its title: My Very Own Cookbook. When I moved away from my parent’s house I diligently copied out recipes that I thought I might need to be able to cook for myself – something I had never done before.

It was the third year of living away from home and I was still a relative stranger to the kitchen when a girlfriend of mine, who I admired as worldly and intelligent, started to leaf through My Very Own Cookbook and started laughing. Embarrassed, I asked her what was so funny. She held up one of my own hand-written recipes, copied from an Italian cookbook as I recall, Pasta with Butter.

Confused and still embarrassed, I shrugged, "What?"

She replied, exasperated, "You need a recipe to cook pasta and butter?!"

Well, I felt that I did – at least as a reminder that it was a good dinner option, and a cheap one.

With the winter season now in full swing there are many new faces to be seen about town and for many people new to Whistler it is also the first time away from home and three square meals a day. Kraft Dinner, though a relatively cheap option in an expensive resort town, is not very sustainable. Learning to stretch a dollar and sustain a healthy diet are the two most valuable survival lessons away from home. Dialling long distance to ask your mom how to cook rice can get pretty costly too – especially if you are phoning south of the equator.

An easier and far more fun option is to take part in Community Kitchens, a program that targets these lessons in an easygoing, welcoming environment. Most importantly, no one will laugh at you for not knowing how to boil pasta.

Community Kitchens, run by Whistler Community Services, has been a successful program for several years running and it is becoming increasingly more popular. Anybody who would like to learn how to cook on a budget or how to maintain healthy eating habits, or who just wants to get out to learn about the variety of cheaper food options available, is invited to participate in the program. Tracy Higgs, a registered nutritional consulting practitioner, who has run the program for the past two years, says that though the program targets people who are learning to eat and cook, it can be a lot of fun and it encourages creativity in the kitchen.

The first Friday of every month, people meet at Myrtle Philip school to share in the cooking and eating of a meal together. Everybody brings a donation of $5 to help offset the cost of food. As a group it can be decided how the sessions will run as there is a lot of flexibility in the delivery of the program. Some groups prefer to make a big batch of one dish, dividing the leftover food into portions for everybody to take home and freeze. Other groups decide that smaller portions that include more varieties of dishes are more beneficial. Tracy likes to include theme nights like "spice up your love life" and she often invites guest chefs or other community professionals to participate.

For many people cooking is too time consuming so the dishes that the program looks to include have minimal ingredients and a short, easy preparation time that can be achieved with minimal cost. Another important factor in teaching the program is that many people may only own one frying pan or one saucepan so the food is made using minimal equipment. This is a challenge that Tracy really enjoys.

I asked Tracy how much $5 can get you to eat in this town. "Not much," she replied.

The program actually loses money and depends on several generous benefactors for its continuing success. She is very grateful for the many food donations that The Grocery Store regularly gives to the program. The Grocery Store has also donated $200 worth of gift certificates for buying groceries.

Tableware is almost entirely donated from the Re-Use-It Centre, even down to table linens.

"We sit and eat together and share a civilized meal," Tracy laughingly explains.

This year there was enough money in the budget for the purchase of basic cooking equipment such as pots, pans and cheese graters, which will be used exclusively for Community Kitchens.

Within sessions teaching basic cooking techniques, like making home-made salad dressings, soup bases and simple sauces, is primarily addressed. After that, teaching how to look at different ingredients and put them together is the next creative process. In addition, Tracy has made up a simple manual which includes basic nutritional information, conversion charts, lists of spices and herbs and their common uses and a list of beans, grains and vegetables, their relative cooking times and the different varieties available.

She also notes that vegetarian cooking is often cheaper than buying meat and explains how to derive a balanced diet without meat as the fundamental source of protein.

Community Kitchens seeks to provide information for people that can be taken out of the community kitchen and back to the one at home. Providing ideas for 10 different types of grilled cheese sandwiches or fillings for wraps can break up the monotony of easy favourites. Once you learn how to make a crepe it can be eaten with breakfast, lunch, dinner or even dessert fillings. It is also a great way to be introduced to new foods like veggie ground, instead of ground beef, or seasonal vegetables and fruits that you may not have tried before.

Some members have enjoyed the social aspect of cooking with other people so much that they have implemented cooking clubs.

"To see how the program touches individual people is very rewarding" says Tracy.

Community Kitchens has been so successful in recent years that the contract has doubled for this year. The program has grown from six sessions within the community to include 14 additional sessions in staff housing. This year, the sessions in staff housing will be run with the help of the resident assistants from each of the seven different buildings. Sessions that are held in staff housing are to be organized by individual residence assistants.

The next sessions of Community Kitchens at Myrtle Philip Community School are Feb. 6, March 5 and April 2. The program runs from 7 to 9 p.m. Babysitting is available and paid for by Whistler Community Services, so that parents may attend the program. The cost per session is $5.

For more inforamtion contact Tracy Higgs, BHK, RNCP On the Move Holistic Health and Nutrition.

Website: www.onthemovehealth.com

Phone: 604-935-0805 (Whistler)

Phone: 778-772-2475 (Local call to North Vancouver)

E-mail: onthemove@uniserve.com