Natalie Bay on The Magic Ingredient of Food

“Food creates a distraction . . . When you’re just talking to somebody one-on-one it’s hard sometimes to get out your ideas and open up your heart; but, when you’re distracted by the flavours and you’re excited and it’s drawing in memories, suddenly it’s just a lot easier to have the conversation flowing.” — Natalie Bay

Like many others, Natalie Bay hit video call fatigue early on in the pandemic. Despite living alone and missing seeing people, she found the online version of pre-pandemic hangouts left her feeling less connected than ever. Then one day she texted some friends in a group chat about her ‘boring’ plans to make macaroni and cheese with the leftovers in her fridge and suddenly found herself hosting her first online cooking class.

Join host Valery as she drops into a ‘Cooking with Nat’ class and hears from community members one year after they first started gathering on Monday nights to (virtually) cook and eat together. 

 In this episode:

* The high failure rate of pandemic online hangouts 

* How a macaroni and cheese craving launched an online cooking class

* Highlights from over a year of collaborative cooking and eating 

* Why food, and particularly preparing food together, is such a magic ingredient to creating connection and community 

* Whether to turn your community building event into a side hustle

* Why communities thrive on consistency.

Find Natalie: Instagram

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