This was the first big Learning Kitchen Event: It took place in Darmstadt, Germany. Our aim was to investigate in which way cooking competences can be used as a starting point for other learning activities. The project will investigate how cooking events can make older learners aware of their informal competences and motivate them to enrole in educational offers.

16 people from five different countries met in order to cook and to learn together. Our kitchen was a studio in the Bioversum, a museum dealing with nature. Onno and Dorothee, our hosts for this event, brought along the complete kitchen equipment from the Kochwerkstatt. So we had everything we needed, much space and a wonderful workshop atmomphere!

Silvia, Cecilia and Eni from Romania.

This is Neli from Romania.

 

 Simona, Dita, Bozena and Dagmar from Czech Republic.

Giuseppina and Simone from Italy - they do not belong to the partnership, but worked with us as our guests.

Elfi, Maria and Silvia from Austria.

Sonja from Austria - I am afraid, there was no photo from all of us.

Dorothee and . . .

. . . Onno from Germany, the host of our event.

Every team prepared a meal out of eggs and flour, milk or water, oil, butter, salt or sugar in order to introduce themself and their respective country. So we could enjoy different types of pancake, Schmarren and Pasta!  In addition to that we also tasted different food - from cheese to jam - every team has brought along from his country. We cooked and eat a lot, but we also took lots of pictures! This was also on the agenda of the event: How to document cooking processes, so that other persons can follow the instructions easily. See more of it on our YouTube-Site.

After lunch and a short break we met again for a little media-workshop with examples from films and photos about cooking processes. We also listened to the sound of cooking activities - for example the boiling of hot oil. This was a good preparation for our own work in the afternoon.

Here you can see all the food stuff Onno and Dorothee had prepared for our dinner cooking session. We planned to cook four courses: soup, terrine, roulade and pastry. We worked in - in terms of nationality - mixed teams and every team documented the cooking process.

Preparing the soup . . .

. . . with vegetable, meat and spices.

Fish terrine . . .

. . . made out of wonderful fresh trout. See the recipe.

Cooperation for . . .

. . . making pasta for an extra course.

Out of the pasta dough Neli and Silvia prepared “a little something” - crispy, sweet and very good!

Wild pig stuffed . . .

. . . with bacon and fresh beans - variation of an italian receipe.

Cecilia was the chef of . . .

. . .  the sweet cuisine - with an exeptional cake.

Eating together - has to be documented as well. 

The next day started with looking at all the pictures . . .

. . . and working with them on the computer.

Interesting and intensive work! Still it was only sort of an impulse for further activities. Have a look at one example.

We enjoyed the cooking event very much: in terms of intercultural exchange and friendship, in terms of learning from each other, in terms of the place and the food!

 

Our first study visit to Romania from 16 - 20 April was really a great experience! Thank you very much to the ALEG-Team for their great hospitality!

Here are some pictures of the wonderful days - of course with focus on food again!

We had dinner at this beautiful building and experienced local cooking traditions - it is the Apafi Manor, a project of the Mihai Eminiscu Trust, where one can stay overnight.  It is also a great place for seminars and workshops!

In Sighisoara we met people on the street making “Baumstriezel”: The dow is made  with yeast. You form thin and long pieces, put them on a wooden form, butter the dow and spread sugar on it. Than you have to bake it on the fire and it tastes really great!

Casa Luxemburg in Sibiu, a very good place to stay, because it is in the center of the old town and very comfortable and nice.

In Sibiu we were invited to dinner in private homes - thank you to Cecilia and to the family of Camelia - we enjoyed it very much. It is the best way to become familiar with a new country!

More information and fascinating documentations on food and cooking traditions in Romania will be coming soon.

 

 

 

My trip to Frankfurt turned out to be a wonderful journey to the countryside! I went to visit Onno and Dorothee in order to have the first developer meeting. Onno is working in a very good place called “Bioversum Kranichstein”, which is a Nature Museum with guest house and belongs to an interesting Castle with big garden and pond and woods.

This was saturday - a lot of cars in front of the museum and the sky was cloudy. I should have taken the the picture on friday, when there was sun and no cars in front. So you must come and watch by yourself!

The most important work - all the discussing and planning for our big kitchen event - we did during dinner in the nice pizzeria near the museum. Don’t tell me the light was bad again - I know!! But this is just for documentation . . .

Eating again? Of course! The whole project is about this nourishing subject! And who can work (on food subjects) without having delicious breakfast before? I liked the sprat best (a kind of smoked fish) and of course the cheese and the honey, which is made from one of Onnos colleagues.

We also did “real” work on the computer. Here you can see Dorothee writing down all the ideas we had in the pizzeria last evening and during breakfast.  But she was also the one who took care for our lunch! Just have a look at the picture below: you will see what she brought along - beside her laptop.

So after some hours of writing and working on the computer we went on to the first small cooking session.

Cooking on the window board! Some things one can really do everywhere. The food was very special and  very good: Blood and Liver Sausages from one of the projects of the Kochwerkstatt. The red sauce turns out to be a spicy cherry sauce from an ancient recipe. Mmmhh!!

Good Food, good work, good place, good meeting! Looking forwared to coming back in June and meet you alltogether in the kitchen! Ah, I forgot, there is no KITCHEN in Kranichstein, but Onno and Dorothee will bring their enchanted boxes and build up a kitchen for us.

 

 

 

These are New Year Greetings from my kitchen to all partners of the Learning Kitchen!! In Austria we call this “Striezel”, it is made of flour, yeast, milk, eggs and butter. The recipe I use comes from my mother. I would like to know whether you have similar pastries in your countries?

Just let me know and try the comment-button!

What do you do, if you want to establish good relationship with people you don´t know? You share meal with them. And that´s what we did during the kick-off-meeting of The Learning Kitchen - and we all enjoyed it!

Apart from our discussions on the project and how to manage it in a good way, we took our time to have wunderful culinary expeditions to one of the most interesting places of vienna - the Naschmarkt.

We found lots of fruits, vegetables, wonderful smelling sausage and great bread.

We found sweets and pastry, so good and beautiful and we had coffee together outside in the morning sun.

 

 In the end we were very sure: it will be an interesting and inspiring project - our learning kitchen!

This Grundtvig Learning Partnership will investigate in which ways the treasure of culinaric experience and cooking competences of older women can be put to good use in order

• to motivate them to participate in new learning activities
• to empower their key competences, including ICT and social skills
• to strengthen their creativity and their own initiative