Summer Food Club

In partnership with the residence life teams at Seneca and George Brown, we developed a 4-week workshop series, focused on working with one group of students who attended weekly sessions to develop their food skills but also develop deeper food knowledge with Ontario’s delicious harvest and through the following themes: Seasonal & Local Food; Local Food is Indigenous Food; Eating Well on a Student Budget, Making Global Recipes with Local Ingredients. These themes became the foundation for our fall and winter cook-along series. A student shared this photo of what he cooked in the first session – beautiful presentation!

GBC Mental Health Conference

For the GBC Mental Health Conference, Mental Health & Food: Understanding the Connection, we presented our research findings on the mental health benefits of not only having access to healthy food, but also engaging with others to learn how to cook delicious meals that nourish body and mind. Check out the recording to listen to experts discuss the critical connection between the food we eat and our mental health.

Fall and Winter
Cook-along series

155 participants
In partnership with the student unions at Dalhousie, Lakehead, and U of Regina as well as Student Life at GBC, and in collaboration with local food suppliers, Wolfville Farmers Market, DSU Market, Superior Seasons, REACH Regina and 100km Foods, we developed a monthly series that provided students with access to a free local food box and a cook-along where they learned to cook 2-3 dishes on a Zoom call with Joshna Maharaj. And in November, we experimented with a hybrid cook-along with Dalhousie students, where half of the students joined us on Zoom, while the other half cooked in-person at the Loaded Ladle Kitchen – it was the first in-person cook-along of the project and students loved it!

Food and Identity
 Workshops

100 participants
Chef Bashir Munye is passionate about promoting the diverse food that represents Toronto’s multicultural communities, and he advocates for access to good quality food for everyone. This workshop focused on the experience of migration and finding a sense of belonging in food and cooking. He expanded on his nomadic cooking philosophy, suggesting that when we “migrate, move, and adapt…, we do it in a way that makes us feel at home.” Chef Bashir led an engaging conversation around food and identity while he cooked a meal in his home kitchen, demonstrating how to use ingredients to “compose a plate, so you can see yourself in that plate”, making this an educational, inspirational, and therapeutic session for all.

Sustainability Squad Collaboration

20 participants
This was our first student group collaboration, and it was a huge success. We worked with the Sustainability Squad student leaders, Kas and Georgy, who hosted an IG Live session to help their student members prepare for the cook-along. The next day, students cooked on a Zoom call with Joshna and engaged in a lively chat about eating and cooking sustainably. Check out their website and Instagram for more information.

One student participant, who was initially reluctant to register for the cook-along because she doesn’t cook had this to say:
“I had my first cook-along and it was an amazing learning experience. I never knew sweet potatoes could bring out their taste in spices. Thanks to our chef for adding another option to my snack list.”

Cross-Canada Cook-along

65 participants
We ended our second year of research with a nationwide “Soup, Salad, Solidarity” Cook-along! This culminating cook-along was an opportunity for post-secondary students across Canada to get together in Joshna Maharaj’s kitchen (virtually, of course!), cook a simple meal, and add their voices to a short survey about building a better campus food culture. Students from our partner campuses were provided with local food boxes, while students who joined from any other campus bought their own ingredients. The list of ingredients was simple and affordable to make the dishes as accessible as possible. And a shout-out to Concordia Food Coalition! When they found out about this event, they contacted us to let us know that they would provide local food boxes to remove barriers for any Concordia students who wanted to join.

This final cook-along also provided an opportunity to start a conversation with students about what a better food culture means to them. This included an IG Live conversation and a blog post that built on the conversations we’ve had with students over the past two years.