McCook Community Kitchen
This Year's Project: Kids Cooking classes, Produce Paloozas and cultural celebrations
About Our Organization
McCook Community Kitchen strives to bring community together through classes, food events, cultural celebrations, and nutrition education in collaboration with community partners. We promote a farm to table approach by highlighting local, seasonal products by regional farmers and ranchers and using their products as much as possible in events and classes. We support cultural events for the entire community to learn from each other via shared food experiences. We offer private and public classes in food safety, recipe development, meal preparation and nutrition. Our goal is a happy, healthy and connected rural community!
Current Project: Kids Cooking classes, Produce Paloozas and cultural celebrations
For 2024 we are planning monthly beginner level cooking classes for kids. These will be exciting, informative classes where kids can learn basic cooking techniques while being creative and having fun. Each class, taught by Kimberlee Obert, is an entirely new experience incorporating culinary skills that build upon each other to progress over time into more complex food preparation and presentation.
We will deepen our relationships with local growers. In 2023 we hosted Celery-palooza with beautiful celery grown locally by Common Scents. By sharing this produce with the community with tasting samples and recipes we strive to build local sustainable loops that promote locally grown food that can be easily prepared at home.
Finally, we support cultural celebrations for all community members to share their histories, perspectives, and food. Building on the success of prior events, we will host a third annual Juneteenth and Dia des los Muertos celebration in 2024 and welcome your ideas for other cultural celebrations.
Equipment Acquisition & Expansion of Classes
Project Details
As we continue to host classes, community gatherings and a licensed space for chefs, we will add equipment and upgrade our kitchen space to include a dishwasher, refrigerator/freezer space, warm holding boxes, a produce sink, a stand mixer and cooking utensils. We will expand our class offerings and develop education related to health and nutrition offered at low to no cost to our community.