Convivial Kitchen is a monthly gathering of friends to teach and learn to cook delicious food and master lost domestic arts. We all have our special signature dish. The one we almost know by heart. We can whip it up for a pot luck dinner and still manage to impress our friends with our culinary skills! Convivial Kitchen is here for us to swap and share these favourite dishes and cooking styles so we can all widen our repertoire. Homemade Granola might be obvious to you but it’s a whole other realm of impressive for some people! Convivial Kitchen is a community group borne out of Transition Port Philip. Will Pullin first put the idea together when he wanted to learn more recipes, share the dishes he had learned and make friends at the same time! Since then, we have been running workshops at the Ecocentre in St Kilda. This year so far Emma has shown us how to make our own green cleaning products with only a few key ingredients, we put the abundance of summertime tomatoes to good use when Jo taught us how to make tomato sugo. We have mastered the art of classic Cantonese cooking with Shufen’s mum’s fail safe recipes. Chloe taught us all about the wonders of raw food and Astrid whipped us all into a frenzy of delicious freshly made gnocchi!
Workshops run on the last Wednesday of every month, from 7pm to 9pm. First we learn the recipe or skill then we enjoy the feast together! Over the last few months our little community has grown and strengthened, we share our skills and recipes and celebrate this connection on our facebook page.
So what’s your signature dish or kitchen skill? Are you the master of winter stews? Do you know the secrets of cleaning with vinegar? Do you rock the green smoothie? Or dominate in the baking bread category? Do you know the key to the best curry in St Kilda?
There are still Convivial Kitchen teaching spots available for anyone that wants to teach and share their special recipe or kitchen skill with us! Teachers are fully supported by our facilitator, All we ask is you contribute your ideas, skills, time and enthusiasm! Are you up for it?
But what is Transition Port Phillip??! Transition Port Phillip is an active Transition Initiative in the Port Phillip area, as part of the global Transition Towns movement. A Transition Initiative is a place where there’s a community-led process that helps that town/village/city/neighbourhood become stronger and happier. It’s happening in well over a thousand highly diverse communities across the world – from towns in Australia to neighbourhoods in Portugal, from cities in Brazil to rural communities in Slovenia, from urban locations in Britain to islands off the coast of Canada. Many of these initiatives, including Transition Port Phillip, are registered on the Transition Network website. These communities have started up projects in areas of food, transport, energy, education, housing, waste, arts etc. as small-scale local responses to the global challenges of climate change, economic hardship and shrinking supplies of cheap energy. Together, these small-scale responses make up something much bigger, and help show the way forward for governments, business and the rest of us. You can learn more about the concept here: www.transitionnetwork.org/support/what-transition-initiative
So what is Transition Port Phillip up to these days?
Connecting: many groups and individuals across the Port Phillip area and beyond who want to improve local environmental and social sustainability.
Doing: Finding inspiration and living the change you want to see is easier when you’re connected to like-minded people! Skills sharing, learning, creating and advocating are some of the ways that Transition Port Phillip makes its mark!
Our group site highlights some of our current activities and interests. We have a calendar of events and access to great resources that we collect from our activities! Come and connect: http://transitiontownportphillip.groupsite.com/main/summary.