The Stanley A. Milner library in downtown Edmonton has just unveiled its new 2100 square foot cooking area called — The Kitchen.
The Kitchen is designed to provide a space for community building and will host cooking classes for up to 36 people at once. The library hopes that by providing a space like this they’ll be able to help get people interested in cooking and possibly pursue careers in the culinary arts.
Sherry Norton a longtime customer of the Library said that “last year, with the pandemic, cooking wasn’t one of the things that was offered where you might take a home economics class and learn something if you’re not able to learn it at home. This fills the gap and continues to do so. So cooking is a variety of… classes that you might not expect from the library, but it’s about learning…That’s what the library provides learning opportunities.”
Plans for the kitchen have been in the works for over a year. Due to the pandemic, however, they’re just opening now. The kitchen facilities in the library will be used to teach people basic cooking literacy and how to improve their cooking skills how to cook nutritional meals, and lessons about how to meal plan on a budget.
These classes will be taught by a variety of top chefs from Edmonton. They’ll contribute their time to teach people those cooking basics. And also how to make fancier regional meals and desserts.
Kitchen Coordinator Zofia Trebaczkiewicz has high hopes for its future. She said she hopes to have “new immigrants that come to Edmonton, gather in the space, make food from their respective countries and share them over a communal table and learn the language. Break the sometimes isolation that they face and get to know, connect with other Edmontonians.”
The community kitchen will be offering virtual sessions on a variety of topics for the rest of March while in-person classes will be starting in April. Space is limited so make sure to sign up quickly on their website.
