Healthy food classes and training in Medellin

The end of the year 2019 was a busy one, but I did manage to take some time away and enjoy 18 relaxing days in Peru, where I continued a delicious eating frenzy, and brought back a lot of ingredients and supplies for future cooking classes in Medellin.

December to February is considered high season for tourism here, and I have been kept busy with cooking classes and project tours, which brought in enough money to get a rooftop constructed over the front patio dining area! I repurposed a garage door opener to make the roof partially retractable, in an effort to not completely lose the beautiful mountain view from the rooftop gardens. With one of our trusted workers Duban, we also cut, welded and installed budget lighting that looks gorgeous, and cost a fraction of what would have otherwise been a very expensive job.

Now that we have the retractable roof done, before we can seal off the stairs leading to the rooftop gardens and make the front area independent (for low-income entrepreneurs and their clients to sell and enjoy delicious affordable food), we need to get all the big construction materials for the rooftop kitchen completed, as it will be very difficult to get the materials upstairs afterwards. That work has also started, as you will see soon!

Hannah has arrived from the United States for the month of January: she came last year for a cooking class while touring Colombia with her mom, then stayed in touch, asking to intern in between university semesters. She's helping in the kitchen with activities, learning how the project works from an administrative and marketing standpoint, and is helping research potential clients online, to help position us better for more activities once this construction finally comes to an end. I'll have lots more to share and show in the next report, as we come ever so close to finishing!

Have a great 2020 and talk to you soon!

This quarter has flown by, as a third of it was spent travelling back to Canada for administrative work, with a LOT of eating and visiting friends in between. I needed to get away from the project and recharge, learning new things that I can bring back to my project participants with refreshed energy. So on my way to Toronto, I stopped for 5 days in New Orleans, where I visited a former Via Cocina volunteer, and took a couple cooking classes so that I can share Cajun and Creole cuisine in some of my community classes and events here in Medellin. I also spent time in Saguenay Quebec, visiting my cooking professor Caroline, who had come here last March to visit the project. I participated in some of her cooking classes and have developed a new bread making class for the local community classes here, which will be shared in the next couple weeks!

Before my travels, we managed to finish the kitchen drywall and stainless steel station installation, which makes it much easier to keep the kitchen organized now. We're still cleaning paint up off the floor however, which is a never-ending task.

And right before I left, we were able to finally get the second floor hardwood floor sanded, sealed and polished, which was another huge outstanding job; with this done, we can start to use the second floor for project activities, and I can also finally construct myself a bedframe out of old recuperated wood doors, which will be installed in my little apartment in the back of the house (I can finally say goodbye to 4 years of sleeping on my sofa bed!).

With this work done, we'll finally be doing a huge cleaning of the house with volunteers, to get rid of as much construction dust as possible. I've already done the designs for the outstanding house renovations required to activate the entrepreneurial space and rooftop kitchen/training centre, but am looking forward to some renovation downtime as we increase the number of classes available to the public during tourism high season. We've been spending a lot of time testing out new recipes for a number of classes, so I'm looking forward to sharing them!

Thanks for reading our updates, I hope they motivate you to stay connected as I transmit how motivated I am to keep Via Cocina moving forward!