Community Cooking Together Classes

Community fragmentation, social isolation, depression and ill health (physical and mental) are negative experiences many of our society are battling with today. Our community cookery classes help to combat these issues by bringing people together through the shared experience of food. Our classes provide hands on cookery experience for small groups or up to 50 participants (particularly relevant for families). We teach a selection of simple, tasty and quick dishes relevant to the lifestyle and tastes of the attendees, often using surplus food provided by The Felix Project that would otherwise go to waste. We impart vital cookery skills and food knowledge that aims to equip the participants to lead their own healthy lifestyle and we show that cooking is easy, social and rewarding, especially as we all eat together at the end.

Cook & Share -Edmonton Green

Thanks to funding from Trust for London we launched our new set of classes at the Green Towers Community Centre in Edmonton Green in February. The classes were a great success but have unfortunately been suspending due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Community Cooking Together - East Finchley

Thanks to funding from Grange Big Local and the National Lottery Community Fund we were able to offer free cooking classes to the local community in N2. We launched these classes back in September and we’re proud to say they were a great success. We had a mix of residents that attended regularly each Friday and each week we welcomed more new participants. Unfortunately we’ve have had to put the classes on hold due to social distancing requirements of the Covid-19 outbreak. We are however planning to cook meals for the local vulnerable instead.

Community Cooking Together – Grahame Park

Thanks to funding from Near Neighbours we’ve been able to bring people together to share and talk about cultural festivities, family traditions and popular customs over some homemade delicious food since September last year. The sessions were free of charge and all ingredients and equipment was provided. The classes have proven to be really popular and would have continued through 2020 however due to Covid-19 they are currently on hold. We are however keeping ties with Grahame park and the Colindale Community Trust by providing free cooked meals to the residents every week throughout this crisis.

Community Cooking Together

We’ve been holding weekly Community Cooking Together sessions at The Rainbow Centre in the Dollis Valley Estate, Barnet since September last year. Each week we got a good selection of local residents who attended to learn new recipes, meet other residents and enjoy a meal together. So far residents have learnt how to make tastier and healthier recipes from a mix of their favourite take-aways; Indian, Chinese, American burgers, Italian pizza’s and pasta’s, Turkish kebab’s as well as introducing a lot of tasty vegetable sides and salads, not to mention flavoursome and sugar free drinks. Recipes are given out each week with free food from the Felix Project so residents can make them again at home.

Classes are currently suspended due to Covid-19 however we are still reaching out to the local community by cooking healthy nutritious meals for them to take-away.

Being Well Together

Last autumn we teamed up with Metropolitan Housing Association to deliver our Being Well Cookery classes to the Edmonton Green community. We launched with a 5 week course based in the Green Towers Community Hall. Each week community members came together to learn new recipe ideas, learn some healthy eating tips, whilst getting to know their neighbours and then enjoying a meal together. We also teamed up with The Felix Project so each participant took a food bag home with them as well as recipe cards from the session. We hope to encourage people to cook more for themselves at home. But its not all about what we think people should be eating, the attendees helped shape the sessions by letting us know what recipes they wanted to learn too. We have just secured a new grant so these classes will continue in 2020.

Youth Cooking Together

In January 2019 Bread n Butter ran a five week cooking programme at the Living Way Ministries youth club based at the Grahame Park estate in Colindale. Children from the ages of 9-18 attended and learnt how to make a healthier versions of their favourite foods such as home made burgers, pizza, cookies, banana milkshake, chicken nuggets and more. They were taught basic cooking and food prep skills so they could replicate the recipes at home.