Make sure your “kitchen” has the necessary tools for a successful class: measuring cups and spoons, bowls-small and large, sharp knife, cutting board, spoons, forks, plates, napkins, cups, wax paper, baggies, and towels. Any small appliances you may need like a blender, food processor, grill press or slow cooker you can find at almost any thrift store for a fraction of what a new one would cost. Remember, you aren’t going to be using them daily like at home.

Somethings will need to be prepared for class. Make sure everything is chopped, peeled and ready to use so you don’t have to waste time during class. Have everything, as the chefs on the FoodNetwork say, mis en place (in it’s place).

A lot of items I usually just bring from my home kitchen because buying even a small jar of mayo can be wasteful if you only need a few tablespoons for a recipe. Buying non perishable items, however, can be worth it, especially when you have classes on a regular basis. These items include olive oil, salt and pepper, vinegar and other spices. You’ll be able to plan other classes around items you already have on hand.

Sometimes buying packaged food can be costly, check with the deli if they have any sales going on that you can take advantage of and plan your class around. You don’t need to advertise precisely what you plan to make, but rather list your theme and create your menu around the ingredients you can get. And you don’t have to make three course meals. A smaller scale version of your menu is fine, because people aren’t going to be eating plates of food, but they will want a taste. Talk to your local grocer and ask if they would be willing to donate a small amount from the deli to your class in exchange for a free advertisement with your patrons.

Always have some recipe books on hand, too, for your patrons to checkout.

And always encourage tasting. My tag line is: Come Hungry. Tasting is Mandatory.

The post Adult Programming: How to Have Cooking Demos Without Cooking first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

We realized cooking shows, cooking podcasts—cooking everything—are very popular these days. Tutorials, demonstrations, and photos of cooking are all over television, social media outlets like Facebook and Pinterest, and sites like BuzzFeed and Tasty. We thought, why not appeal to the masses and give them what they want, and  decided to move forward with this project. I teamed up with two of my staff members and we got to work. Honestly, the whole process was very simple.

We pulled out multiple cookbooks and found some pretty easy recipes. When we decided what we wanted to make first (pancakes and a smoothie), we took a trip to the grocery store. The total cost of supplies was only about nineteen dollars.

We then set up shop in one of our library’s storage rooms with our library’s Canon XA10 camera and ZOOM H1 microphone. Very primitive, I know, but the result was actually quite spectacular. After our two-hour shoot, we were ready to post to our YouTube channel and Facebook page. Our initial episode was so raw and unscripted that it made the whole experience more appealing. The comedy of it all sucked viewers right in, and we had over one thousand views on Facebook in under twenty-four hours.

The video was shared over twenty-five times and had more than sixty likes. Since we are not the largest library, these numbers were staggering, and they let us know that we were on to something great, or, as we started saying, “We’re going viral.” Our second episode, in which we cooked up a southern-style grilled cheese sandwich to pay homage to our region, was just as popular. We now have the community asking about and recommending the dishes we will be making next.

The community engagement has been great. Not only do we get to cook up some great food, but we also have the opportunity to promote our library’s cooking literature. Since we aired our first episode, we have seen an surge of cookbook checkouts. Our goal had been accomplished.

Libraries are constantly innovating and coming up with new services and programs to appeal to their communities. It is a smart move to take what is trending and incorporate it into your library’s events and programming. We felt food and cooking were trending, so we made something unique and simple out of it. Millennials love food, and they love to gather ideas from social media on a daily basis. In an interview with Eve Turow by The Atlantic, the food writer demonstrates how college perspectives towards food have changed in just five years:

Back when she was in college, she was content subsisting on “gelatinous brown rice, pre-cooked mushy pinto beans, [and] blocks of bouncy tofu.” But if she were in college now, she says, she’d be taking rice-bowl inspiration from Pinterest and making good use of the nearby farmer’s market and the greenhouse attached to the science library.^[1]

The cooking blog Bon Appetit claims that, “On average, Americans spend only 27 minutes a day preparing food, compared to 60 minutes in 1965.”^[2] Those are sad numbers. We want people to get excited about cooking again and show them that they can cook up something tasty and filling with just a few ingredients and in less than twenty minutes. We hope our community gets excited about cooking again and enjoys our future videos.

Our first two episodes:

Cooking With Ben Episode 1

Cooking With Ben Episode 2

References

[1] Eve Turow, “Why Are Millennials So Obsessed with Food?” by Joe Pinsker, The Atlantic, August 14, 2015.

[2] Elyssa Goldberg, “Why Americans Don’t Cook as Much as We Used To,” Bon Appetit, February 17, 2016.

The post Cooking With Ben: Our Library’s Cooking Show Adventure first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Attending the seminar New Uses of Public Libraries (organized by the Province of Barcelona with the Library Consortium of Barcelona, the IFLA Section on Public Libraries and the IFLA Section on Library Buildings and Equipment), I learned that these two libraries had kitchen and cooking programs. I emailed both library directors a few questions. [1]

Children’s Mexican Cooking Workshop at the Central Library of Castelldefels

Public Libraries Online: What made your library decide to start activities about cooking?

Mariona Chavarria Domingo (Biblioteca del Fondo): Seeing the multicultural context of the neighborhood, the municipality, [and] aiming for social cohesion, [we] thought about the idea of “cooking” as a central point to all cultures, and as an excuse to bring diversity together and build a community by creating mutual trust.

Marta Granel Dalmau (Central Library of Castelldefels): Our library specializes in cooking, [so] these activities are the ideal complement for our specialty. We complete our cooking programs with a collection of books about cooking, for kids and adults.

Children’s Mexican Cooking Workshop at the Central Library of Castelldefels

PL Online: What information, tools, and processes did you need?

Mariona: One of the halls of the library has a complete kitchen installed, prepared to cook and to perform cooking shows. It is equipped with a hotplate, electrical oven, microwave oven, fridge, [and] dishwasher. It is also equipped with enough kitchenware (a list of which was provided by a local Restoration School). We have gathered information about legal points to take into account (related to health and food security, hygiene, and first aid). A Commission has been established in order to think about the project named “Cuines del Món” (Cuisines of the World), which includes the kitchen and a section of the library collection (books and other document types).

Marta: We need professionals to do the activities, normally local collaborators, [as well as] multipurpose spaces and users interested in activities about cooking.

Children’s Mexican Cooking Workshop at the Central Library of Castelldefels

PL Online: How did you determine what activities to organize?

Mariona: The above mentioned Commission “Cuines del Món” (which includes: representatives of the municipality – politicians and technicians; representatives of social, educational, and cultural entities of the neighborhood; representatives of the University of Barcelona Campus de l’Alimentació – Food and Nutrition  and representatives of Fondo trading association as well as a well-known Chef, Víctor Quintillà, whose restaurant La Lluerna has been awarded with one Michelin Star during the last three years). The overall objective of the “Cuines del Món” Project is to be a tool helping to bring together diversity; bringing down walls of lack of trust; and, being a public library, to promote reading habits and skills. We have oriented the activities in three main directions or levels:

a) Academic level – about food, nutrition, science and cooking – inviting cooks as well as university lecturers;

b) Informative level – bringing together people from different backgrounds to share a cooking session while explaining similarities and differences of cooking, for instance about rice, potatoes, or about the use of species or different kinds of oil, etc.; teaching to cook nutritive meals to people with low incomes; teaching children cooking habits, etc.

c) Reading Promotion: the library, in collaboration with educational and cultural entities of the neighborhood, organizes activities connected to its own activities (storytelling for children and families, a reading club for adults, people learning Catalan or Spanish, etc.).

In some cases we offer the kitchen space for activities organised by others: i.e., by a psychiatric center nearby, or by other similar associations; by groups working with children with social risks, etc.

Marta: First we contact the collaborators and look for the activities, we want the activities to be attractive, easy, and possible to be done in the library, without fire. Normally we try to organize the activities in cycles, for kids and for adults.

Cooking Workshop at the Biblioteca del Fondo

PL Online: What challenges did you face?

Mariona: The main challenge is to implement good projects that keep the kitchen lively and used at its best. Linked to that, another challenge is trying to keep with a regular activity in the kitchen while not having enough library staff for that, having to work with volunteers (good on one side, but unstable on the other). Also the follow-up after the activities in the kitchen (the washing up and putting back stuff in the cupboards) is an unsolved problem. I wouldn’t call it a challenge but it’s challenging.

Marta: The challenge is making programs varied, attractive, and cheap.

PL Online: What kind of positive results have you had? (And, any negative ones?)

Mariona: We are “young,” yet the fact that this library, situated in such a popular neighborhood, has a kitchen, has put this place in the newspapers for something good and unseen before. It gives a new/better status to the surrounding area. The kitchen opens us easily to different collaborations (for instance with market stall holders or other commerce in the area, or the University Campus, lecturers, and students).

Marta: The results are very positive, the users are very happy and thankful about these activities. The are usually no vacancies in these type of activities.

Cooking Workshop at the Biblioteca del Fondo

PL Online: About how much time does it take?

Mariona: It takes a lot of time: meetings, contacts, preparation of the space, being close during the activities in case of any need, and collecting and washing the kitchenware.

Marta: We spend a lot of time to program these activities. First we look for the possible collaborators who could do the activities, and sometimes we have to pay for the activities. Then we have to do advertising and registration. Afterwards we send the participants an assessment questionnaire, as we want to know their feedback.

PL Online: What advice would you give a library wanting to do something similar?

Mariona: I feel it is too soon to be able to give any good advice. The only one I can think of is: don’t be afraid to start a similar project!

Marta: At the end of the activities the users are so thankful and happy!!

Sources:

[1] Mariona Chavarria Domingo’s e-mail to author (03/19/2015); Marta Granel Dalmau’s e-mail to author (03/25/2015). The interview questions were inspired by Kate Theimer, Web 2.0 Tools and Strategies for Archives and Local History Collections, Facet publishing 2010

The post Kitchens in Libraries first appeared on Public Libraries Online.