Sasha Kondrashov, Manu Sharma and Jane Gingrich

This winter households in Kamloops had an opportunity to participate in the inaugural cohort of the Cooking Online Together program. Hills of Peace has received a generous City of Kamloops grant to launch a new program to encourage community building in times of pandemic.

Cooking Together Online program participants had an opportunity to meet on Zoom to learn about to better use online platforms (Zoom, FaceTime, Skype) for conversation. Households were paired-up as cooking teams for four monthly cooking meet-ups. Each month, pairs received a gift card, an ingredients list, a recipe, and a non-denominational prayer in the mail. Pairs of households decided on what date during the month to meet, and together, online, they were encouraged to cook the recipe provided to them.

Jane Gingrich, Manu Sharma and Sasha Kondrashov designed the program as an opportunity to share talents, meet new people, and connect over food- all while safely distanced from home. We are currently looking for participants for the summer cohort. There will be 40 spaces (one per household) to participate in 4 consecutive cooking experiences from May-August 2021. If you are interested in this unique experience and might want to join the summer cohort of cooking teams, please contact the office: 250-828-2221 ; office@hillsofpeace.com

The feedback from winter cohort was overwhelmingly positive. Many participants noted that they enjoyed cooking together online in the couple of past months and thanked project organizers for facilitating this. They had fun!  The most common evaluation response was “Thank you so much for the recipes and gift cards these past four months.  I enjoyed getting to know my cooking partner”.  Please check the first four recipes from winter cohort and keep cooking online together.

• Red Pepper Quiche Cups served with Toast
• Delicious Burritos and A Side of Fresh Guacamole
• Sheet Pan Perogies and Sausage
• Chicken Fajita Pasta