Over the past month, Seeds Feeds has hosted a bi-weekly virtual cooking event. Senior apprentice Zoe Frank said the organization wanted to look for ways to bond with the community and teach people how to make fresh meals.

“We started doing these “cook with us” events as a way to connect with people at home and utilize the food we are distributing to help people make fresh meals at home. So it’s like a lesson and you all get on the Zoom call together,” Frank said. 

Operations director Ariel Steinnan said during the Zoom calls there will be cooking and discussions held about several topics. 

“We are also going to be bringing in conversations about food security and starting to build a community virtually. Talking about barriers that are being set and how we should tackle those and what we are already doing and how we could improve,” Steinnan said.

According to Frank, before COVID-19 Seeds Feeds used to host summer cooking classes but have chosen to do it virtually this year for the safety of others.

“Before the pandemic we used to have summer classes for cooking which were really fun. We would have the chef at the Lenox Community Center and get together and learn how to cook meals,” Frank said. “ that’s obviously not safe these days so this is a way to do that remotely.”

Senior apprentice Audrey Long said she enjoyed her time at the first “cook with us event” held because people were talking with each other and had their cameras on during the Zoom call.

“The first one was really cool actually people were engaged and people had their camera. You could see everyone cooking and people were asking questions on different ways that things could be used,” Long said. There was like a 10 minute discourse on barley and people were like what should I do with barley, it was really cool.” 

Steinnan said Seeds Feeds will continue hosting virtual cooking events based on the number of participants that attend. 

“As long as there is interest, we will keep doing it. If we stop getting participants this Sunday afternoon if it becomes a challenge for people we might change it,” Steinnan said. “We are just kind of taking it month by month right now because it’s a test, we (have) never done virtual cooking before.”

Long said she looks forward to the “cook with us” events as it helps bring together the community and interest in Seed Feeds. 

“I am really excited for (“cook with us”). Cooking is a really great way to engage people and so I hope we can engage the community and sort of bring some interest to Seeds Feeds,” Long said. 

To join the next “cook with us” event, visit the Seeds Feeds website for more information. The next meeting will take place at 3 p.m. Dec. 20 over Zoom.