Cooking allows people to come together, care for others, learn about different cultures and techniques, and have fun. My idea for this project was to create a weekly digital cooking club where remote college students could cook and eat together even while physically apart. This group helped offer opportunities to learn about different cooking techniques, recipes, chef backgrounds, further cooking resources, and community outreach with the New Paltz Food Pantry. We met over video once a week over the course of a month. The intention was to create a welcoming environment for people of all cooking levels to improve their skills, have a routine, and create a community.
— Adriana Fratini
This book was a year in the making and I am thankful to so many people who helped and collaborated with me along the whole process.
First I want to thank everyone in my thesis class from my professor Amy Papealias and to all of my classmates who shaped the project and gave me helpful feedback and encouragement along the way.
I also want to acknowledge the authors of the recipes I included. I chose all of the recipes from cooking materials that have been influential in my cooking journey. I received The Joy of Cooking book as a gift from my parents and Mastering the Art of French Cooking from my friend Liv. I hope my list of resources will be useful to readers and that this book might help lead them to find their own sources of cooking inspiration.
I want to thank Emma, Liv, Cori, Jacob, and Rebecca for taking part. Every week for a month we all got together and it was a big learning experience that was a lot of fun and that hopefully we will all be able to take a piece of the experience and implement it in our own cooking journeys moving forward.
I also want to thank Mandy Maldano from the New Paltz Food Pantry for helping support this project and offering her time and expertise.