Guest post by Catherine Morba, Community Health Education Programs Coordinator
Families recently gathered safely to prepare healthy recipes in the open air at Camden Street Learning Garden. Community Health Education offers Cooking Matters classes to teach members of our community strategies for preparing nutritious meals on a budget. The bulk of these classes have been virtual since COVID-19, however the outdoor classroom at Food Shuttle’s Camden Street Learning Garden was the perfect environment for holding socially-distanced cooking classes. The garden also served as an on-site grocery store for harvesting fresh produce to use in the recipes, like this Fall Vegetable Salad. Each week participants learned strategies for incorporating nutritious foods into their diets and watched a cooking demonstration, then took a bag of ingredients home with them to replicate the recipe again with their families. The class was delivered in Spanish to welcome families from the Latinx community into the space.
Nohora Pinzón attended class with her daughters. “Es una clase muy interesante ya gue he aprendido couso de una manera sencilla puedo consumir vegetales y que quedan de un muy buen sabor. La idea es mostrarle a mis hijos otras maneras de incluir vegetales en nuestra alimentacion.” (“It is a very interesting class since I have learned how to use vegetables in a simple way and that they have a very good flavor. The idea is to show my children other ways to include vegetables in our diet.”)
Patty Dwyer, a Food Shuttle volunteer who took on the role of Culinary Instructor at the class, reflected “I cannot think of a better way to invest my time other than to volunteer for the Cooking Matters program. The classes have been in wonderful outdoor locations. I have learned some tips along the way from the other chefs and nutritionists that I can use in my own kitchen to help me eat better.”
We look forward to welcoming more of our community members, both participants and volunteers, to Camden and Geer Street Gardens for Cooking Matters classes in the springtime!