Cooking Up Connection Building Community Starts With You
growing up
i found a lot of routine in my
day-to-day life it looked something like
this
there was a drive to school every
morning where i passed by the same man
playing guitar in his front porch
the same snacks that i grabbed on my way
to whatever sport i was practicing at
the time
and most notably the weekend gatherings
of my very large extended egyptian
family
each of these activities bonded me to
others and began to form my first
sense of community whether it was my
classmates who also chatted about the
man on the front porch
my teammates who i spent every day after
school with or my family
who shaped the largest portion of who i
am today
in each chapter of my life i’ve been
challenged to redefine
what a community looks like the
community where i engage daily as an
undergraduate student looks very
different from my childhood community
i discovered that community is found not
only in the experiences that come my way
but in those that i can actively seek
out
when you stop to think about how you
connect to a community what comes to
mind
does it look something like this this
right here is my breeding ground for
community building
a crowded kitchen too many used dishes
ingredients of every variety pulled out
for using
some might consider it to be
overwhelming but i find it to be a place
to figuratively and literally cook up
connection
throughout my life in an egyptian
kitchen the purpose for my large
extended family to gather
was to eat my immigrant grandmothers are
the stereotypical chefs
who eyeball every measurement pull
recipes out of a mental reserve
and for those reasons taught me in the
kitchen less recipes
and more lessons about life how there is
power in food as it brought people
together
those weekends i saw a beauty in
community
while it was food that brought us
together it was only the bridge that
sparked conversation on life and other
happenings in the world
i came to the university of florida i
longed for connection and i found so
through food
i found comfort in my solo bake sessions
and trips to farmer’s markets for pies
or fruits
but what i craved the most out of the
cooking and the eating was the part
where i gathered with others
so i began to cook more and it
intersected with the quality time i
spent with my friends
it bridged us closer and closer together
as we created a space for conversation
and vulnerability
in every ad-lib recipe or communal
potluck we shared ideas and we shared
stories
of how our families did things in the
kitchen and how things were in our lives
but why does gathering matter so much
there are a lot of parallels between
gathering community
and social justice in the modern age of
social action
diversity and inclusion have become the
golden words of our society
but how do we bridge these into a
reality
we find the answer to this in community
when we create communities based on our
shared interests
we’re able to be brought together in
ways that supersede
race religion socioeconomic status
or any other identity or element of life
that may prevent the intersection of
diverse corners from gathering
and when these communities are built
based on our interest diversity and
inclusion
become the core of their existence
rather than an element of division
it’s important to note though that
identities are intersectional
and that whatever an individual comes to
this newly created community of interest
with
is a bunch of other histories and this
is the key to be part of many
communities
is essential to our holistic
understanding of ourselves
and the world around us additionally it
serves as a tool to engage with others
empathetically
let me visualize this for you imagine a
paint palette
with colors organized into their own
individual spaces
the wide range of colors represent the
many communities we are born into
and represent but as colors interact
with others we create a new shade or a
new community
separate from any individual identity so
in the same way that yellow paint when
connected to blue paint
creates a new shared green paint when i
engage with others
through the meaningful connection that i
find through food and cooking
i’m able to understand learn and engage
with even more perspectives and
communities
that i am not individually a part of all
of this
while preserving and bringing to those
conversations everything that i embody
as an individual
we’ve seen this work in subtle ways and
as someone planning to enter medicine
i’ll speak of it in the context of
health care where connection is the
basis of success between the patient
relationship to the larger medical
infrastructure
when i pick up the phone to call a
patient at the mobile outreach clinic i
typically start by finding one point of
connection
that will allow for other non-connected
issues to be brought up
so when we first get on the phone and
start laughing about how the kale salad
recipe
really did the trick on their digestive
system that vulnerability and trust
formed
invites conversation about food
insecurity and mental health
they may also be facing our shared
experiences
become a common ground in a starter kit
towards social justice and social change
as we become allies and advocates for
one another on these larger issues down
the road
but social change is big and it can
often be difficult for an individual to
find a place to start
i want to help open the floodgates of
thought into where within yourself
you already hold the first materials
needed to bridge
yourself into another community
the materials are sourced from any
passion or interest you hold
outside of your regularly programmed
identity
film appreciation painting working out
volunteering you name it for me
my community of interest found a home
base in the kitchen
i found a connector to others through
food and cooking and in the beautiful
moments of togetherness created because
of that food
it wasn’t that everyone in my kitchen
was a professional chef
it’s that we were all able to understand
one another through the universal
language of food
which brought us together
for many sports fans the excitement or
even the distress of
last week’s game can be the start to
further conversation
whether you are the player or the
observer the supporter of the winning
team or not
there’s a connection there that can lead
to an understanding
outside of that shared sports community
for environmentalists attending for
example a volunteer cleanup
can connect you to others who have a
shared passion for environmental
activism
but hold an entirely different unshared
identity that you can learn from
it’s almost as though you need to find
within you your outer layer
that will connect you to a community
lead to a conversation
and allow for shared understanding and
actionable reflection
whether it’s a kitchen a sporting arena
a place of solitude
or your very own home there are so many
places to find connection
and i challenge you to think
intrinsically about what supersedes your
identity
and use that to connect communities
it’s exciting to know that through the
resourceful intersection of your
passions
you can be a community builder there’s
no need to invent a new skill or wait
for something extraordinary to happen in
your life
you have the power to connect to
somebody right now
today think of the space you frequent
the most
your workspace the seat you taking class
a spot on the bus
wherever now think of the people who
surround you
in that space if you ask them
they probably don’t have the same name
as you probably don’t have the same
favorite food as you
and probably have a different
understanding of life than you do
but they for the same reason or not
landed themselves in a spot that day
next to you
and would benefit a lot from getting to
know you and why
so i’m not asking you to cook more or
even to eat more
i’m calling on you to find your kitchen
your place for community building and
maybe
you might just even get a good dish out
of it too thank you