The Neighbourhood Table At Home Fall...

SO ExCited to be part of this great initiative again with St.Philip's Lutheran Church in its third year addressing food insecurity, and championing food literacy and cooking skills! 

With the receipt of a large United Way grant, came the launch of #NHTatHome The Neighbourhood Table At Home Fall Program in Etobicoke. Making head waves across the city at large, their great volunteer efforts and community building achievements was picked up on CTV News 🤗❤!

Check out the CTV News article and video.

The Neighbourhood Table was a summer program that started three years ago, where we hosted free family activities and cooking lessons with 6 to 12 year olds to learn food education and kitchen skills in preparations of serving a healthy and delicious multi-course, multicultural dinner to the registered families and guests. 👩‍🍳👨‍🍳🥗🍧. See here to read more of how this originated and see the action from our first ever session.

However with Covid, The Neighbourhood Table pivoted to the home this spring with #covid19 food boxes from Food Share @foodshareto, further funded by the Government of Canada and Community Food Centres Canada @aplaceforfood to help offer emergency food relief to the Etobicoke community, doubling the number of families to receive the support 💥! And with the recent United Way grant, the program was able to extend into Fall to continue to help families in need, coupled with an online cooking component led by myself and co-host Chef Sandy. Yay!

Demoing colourful salads with this fine bunch of kids in 2018.

The day of the Fall program inauguration was a beautiful day.

Weekly generous produce boxes from @foodshareto and bread 🍞 from @cobsbread 💖, along with online cooking food skills workshops are offered for eight weeks to 73 families in Etobicoke. Our partnering communities are returning Arab Community Centre of Toronto (ACCT) and new collaboration Polycultural, an immigration and community centre serving East Europeans mainly Russians.

This wouldn't be possible without the incredible organizers and volunteers devoting their time every week to help put together the weekly themed loot bags, unload the FoodShare delivery truck and get in their own cars to deliver the goods on the various routes to all the homes 🏡👏👏.

This is Salma, the lovely lead at ACCT, unravelling the first fall food box to be delivered to a family. So many lovely fresh produce to make some tasty meals.

Food boxes are delivered alongside gift bags containing some ingredients or supplies that would fit the weekly cooking themes. Here is what we have in store.

We even had member of Parliament for Etobicoke Centre Mr.Yvan Baker join in the presentations and award the church for their huge achievements. Congratulations 🤗!!

Check out the full article with video on the church's site to hear more about the exciting initiative.

It's a daily challenge: which parent doesn't scramble to find inspiration, variety and extra time in the morning to keep their children interested in their daily lunch box, and not have them bring it home half-eaten? 

I proudly presented my first pretaped video (BTS Lunchbox) on Zoom offered to 73 families as part of the cooking skills portion of the Neighbourhood Table At Home Fall Program for eight weeks. Showcasing a number of lunchbox packing ideas I do for my three kids, in hopes to inspire theirs with themes such as "All Dips and Dippers", "Build Your Own Lunch Kit", "Bento Compartment- Style", "Cook Once, Eat Twice", "Creative Leftovers", and "Beat The Square Wonder Bread Sandwich Blues" etc., 🍱🥙🥗🍐.

Check out the CTV News article and video.

Get your children to cook with you. Lunch can evoke powerful feelings of childhood. As adults, we talk about tackling the dinner dilemma and the powers of wonderful dinners -- we discuss them, plan them, labour over them. But it is lunch that has this grasp on children-- those toting a lunchbox to school. It is when they are entrusted outside of their parents presence, free of their glares and lectures of not eating their vegetables or everything on their plate; this is the time they break bread with their schoolmates, and enjoy a piece of love from home as they plough through the long day. If you let them take some of that control (whether it be making it with you or choosing from a list of healthy options) we can assure you lunch will have a whole new meaning -- one they can feel good about to show off to their teacher and friends.

This is a collection of my favourite lunchbox ideas for visual inspiration.

Here is my co-host Chef Sandy. We divided the weekly themes, and are in charge of four each to concept build and content develop with produce information, recipes, food ideas and family activities.

We have had three sessions so far, and she has covered Ontario apples and most recently on fresh basil and different types of pestos.

On the bottom right you can see her fun bouquet of edible roses made with hollowed out
cherry tomatoes with cheese cube centre and basil leaves. How creative!

Here is a sneak peek into our next lesson with me: Thanksgiving with a focus on Fall harvest.

A look into my recommendations for family activities to enjoy Fall nature's bounty.

The timing of the program couldn't have been more fitting with a flashback four years ago to my great involvement with the global Food Revolution foundation led by Super Star Chef Jamie Oliver.

Two years ago, (October 6th, 2018), Jamie Oliver was in town talking with TO Food Revolution ambassadors about a healthier Canada. Our unified message was clear: the more we are equipped with food knowledge and can cook for ourselves, the healthier the outlook for our futures and the next generation. And less food waste with cooking and ideas know-how! An overall impactful kind of wonderful 🤗❤!

I am on a mission to help inspire others to eat well, for a better and healthier tomorrow. Although, Food Revolution no longer runs, I continue to carry that torch🗽- championing real food, food education, and inspiring people of all ages to cook in my every day work and passion for teaching culinary in schools and the community, and now moving things on-line. I am Forever Grateful to you and for our global like-minded family @jamieoliver!💕🙏 See my post Jamie Talking Food Change In Canada for more.

Up next, my TDSB Learn For Life Asian Cooking Program moves to live on-line with Zoom. I will cover the changes to consider in my class planning process as I navigate this brand new world to me, with virtual teaching. Stay Tuned!