Happy New Year, dear kitchen friends!
May I wish us Love, Glory and Beauty for 2018?
Oh, but we have all that already!
BYE BYE 2017
Oh, Holiday Season! It was great, extraordinary, and the best part is that it’s over now! SouthWest Kitchens are officially reopening today, after two weeks of semi-closedness (this is a word) during which we served one spectacular turkey meal for 300, and another less spectacular but equally yummy community meal for 15.
On a very personal level, our kitchen statistics for 2017 have made me very happy. Last year, we served 26 Welcome Wednesday community meals to approximately 1,300 people. Even more satisfying to me is the number of volunteers who lent a helpful hand in the kitchen throughout the year : that was over 50 people, some showing up once, some staying true to us week after week. Thank you all for this amazing human experience, and for this loving, resilient community we are building all together. #VerdunLuv big time.
YO 2018!
We have many projects for the New Year.
The first and most urgent one is to replace the faucet in the kitchen : it has been dangling dangerously, and is saddly beyond repair. We have decided to make the most of the catastrophe-to-come to replace the whole counter: the new sinks will be bigger and deeper, and the new counter will shine its stainless steal upon us, oh yeah!
Another important project for us this year is to transform our bi-monthly community meals into a weekly event – hopefully in the coming weeks, when the counter business will be sorted out.
Finally, we wish to welcome and accompany more groups in the kitchen this year. If your organization or yourself are thinking of starting a collective cooking group, you may like to become residents in our kitchen: we are blessed with great equipment (Vitamix alert!) and are able to offer produce at low prices or for free, including meat. Oh, and did I mention the chef’s expertise?
JANUARY, FEBRUARY AND THEREAFTER
Our usual activities are back :
- Every Wed. am, we cook for the community. The Dream Team Cuisine is not a exclusive group for a happy few, but a welcoming place for all of you who want to cook, improve their cooking skills and make the community profit from the process. We have a lot of fun, and I swear that all of you who have already volunteered have become experts in the art of onion chopping! Contact me if you want to join in.
- Every Tuesday, 5-6:15 pm, Easy Peasy Recipes, cooking workshop for 10-12 year-olds. Registration is closed for the Winter session.
- Every Wed. 5-7 pm: TeenCuisine, cooking workshop for the 13+. Talk to your teens, encourage them to come, threaten them if need be! Registration continues for the Winter session : $5 per workshop, $40 for the session.
- Every second Wed., 12 h 30 pm : Welcome Wednesday community meal, at the same time as the Mission’s minimarket (fruit and veg at cost price). The meal is free, though you may contribute generously. The next one will be on Wed. Jan. 17th.
As for less usual activities :
- Tuesday, Jan. 16h, 1 :30-15 :30 : Savour life, or how to feed your infant, a workshop in partnership with Verdun CLSC. Nutritionist Josée Corbeil will be explaining the theory, and I will be getting my hands dirty ! This workshop should become monthly as of March. Contribution : $15, free for all OLO participants. Call Josée to register : 514-766-0546 poste 52293.
- Monday, Jan. 29th, 4 :30-7 pm: collective cooking with the Centre des femmes. For women only, right! Call Nathalie Vigneault, at the Centre des femmes de Verdun, to register: (514)767-0384
Have a great beginning of 2018!
Strength and energy!
Léonore Pion
Community Cook
Kitchen Coordinator, SouthWest Mission
leonore.pion@gmail.com
Facebook : SouthWest Kitchens / Les cuisines du Sud-Ouest