Nourish
It isn’t lost on me how lucky I am to have access to a consistent supply of healthy food, how lucky I am to be comfortable in the kitchen and that I actually enjoy the act of cooking.
Besides our professional relationship, I am really grateful to be able to support the good work of the Nelson Community Food Centre, and their Food Skills program, by passing along some of my cooking skills to folks in our community through classes and videos.
Participant shows off the meal she helped prepare in the class
Food Skills Class
Keiko leading a cooking demo
A partnership between Nelson Community Food Centre and Nelson Community Services, my food skills session welcomed youth, 18-25, who were keen to learn some kitchen skills and how to make inexpensive food delicious and healthful.
Adding beauty is always worth the effort — another tip I wanted to pass along to participants — so I brought along some tasty edible flowers, tender pea shoots, as well as some crisp and juicy Asian pears from my garden to add to the flavour and the beauty of the meal.
With instant ramen as a familiar starting point, we explored ways to dial up both the flavour and the nutrition using economical and easy to find ingredients from the grocery store.
I demonstrated some basic knife skills as well as methods of chopping the veggies, explaining that even simple decisions around angle and size will add to the experience of enjoying a meal!
After all the planning and preparing, it was a pleasure to get into the flow of the class and enjoy the interactions and conversations that naturally occur with cooking and eating in community.
Cooking Videos
It’s been such fun working with the Nelson CFC on a series of cooking videos where I share my love of growing and preparing seasonal produce with their community. The videos are part of their Food Skills program, providing “simple recipes, tips and tricks, that’ll make it easier (and hopefully more fun) to cook with the healthy ingredients you pick up from the Good Food Bank every week.”
I look forward to sharing more recipes and videos in the future! Check out their full collection of videos, including lots more by me, on their Youtube channel.
One of Keiko’s cooking videos from the Nelson CFC’s Youtube channel