By Andrew Sachs
When Leonard walks in to his first cooking class of the year, he wonders how he’s going to pay. It’s only one dollar but he’s vigilant, watching every quarter that comes out of his pocket.
Pat, Kyle, Hirotozo and her new baby join the group as instructor Bryana Katz welcomes everyone to the first Back to Basics Cooking class at the Centretown Community Health Centre.
The goal for the day is to make a meat and potato pie and a salad. The wider goal is to learn new skills, such as how to read a recipe and the difference between a teaspoon and tablespoon.
For persons with disabilities or even for some new Canadians the prospect of making a meal from scratch can be a difficult and scary idea, says Katz.
Katz wants to decrease this fear.
“Some people really don’t cook,” she says. “You’ll get people who aren’t necessarily living independently or they’re being prepared for living independently.”
Katz says her job is as much about teaching basic life skills as it is about teaching how to cook a nutritious meal.
Cooking and nutrition classes are part of a new form of social services developed to reach people who can’t always get a nutritious meal and is challenging traditional ways of helping people keep a full stomach.
“The soup kitchen doesn’t empower the person participating, but you come here and you’re learning,” Katz says.
For Leonard, learning to cook is part of a larger goal of becoming independent.
He recently made what he calls a “big decision” for his future by becoming a custodian at the local Tim Horton’s with a little help from the YMCA Owl Maclure Centre.
The centre helps adults with disabilities find and retain jobs.
Going to a cooking class is a way to expand the number of foods Leonard and his friend Pat eat.
Both admit they eat a lot of junk-food even though they know they need to eat more nutritious foods.
“I make mostly peanut butter sandwiches at home,” Pat says.
He’ll also eat the occasional salad when his sweet tooth permits it.
According to a recent report by the Ontario Association of Food Banks, Pat and Leonard are part of the second largest group served by food-banks.
In 2006 almost 20 per cent of food bank users in Ontario were disabled people. Other heavily dependent groups include families with children and the working poor.
In Ottawa, and specifically in Centretown, people with low incomes get their food from a number of different sources, says Nicole Blauer, who runs the Ottawa Good Food Box.
The program delivers fresh fruits and vegetables at a low cost to Ottawa residents.
“People aren’t just getting their food from one source, they’re getting them from a whole bunch of different options,” she says.
Food banks, grocery stores, soup kitchens and community programs like the Good Food Box all serve to contribute to the diet of those on a low income, she says.
For Leonard, the challenge is to start making meals at home, which he doesn’t like to do.
“I usually go to a restaurant, but try going into a restaurant broke. I tried that before. It didn’t go so well,” he says.
Leonard says he hopes this class will teach him to make something besides the quick meals of hot dogs or soup he usually eats.
He admits trying out the new recipes he learned today might be a problem.
“What if I forget how to make this at home?” he asks Katz.
“You can take the recipe home,” she responds.
But Leonard is unfazed; he wants to make something he’s used to. Meat and potato pie and salad seem strange and foreign to him.
“I want to make hamburgers, can we try making hamburgers sometime?” he asks.