Grant Awarded to Ferry Project Cookery School

It was announced today that the Ferry Project Cookery School has been awarded a £10,000 grant from Cambridgeshire County Council to run a free cookery course in their newly refurbished teaching kitchen at Octavia View in Wisbech called One Pot Wonders.

This funding forms part of Cambridgeshire County Council’s Care Together seed funding that has been awarded to a wide variety of grass roots community groups, charities and social enterprises in the county, which support the Care Together objective of enabling older adults to remain independent for as long as possible. In Fenland this includes grants awarded to a wide range of projects, including dementia support (Alzheimer's Society), Social Inclusion by phone with COPE's Talking Together service, assistive technology for those with sensory impairments (Doddington 100th Club). Other VCSE organisations will offer one-pot nutrition classes, art therapy and community cinema, as well as digital and social inclusion for older adults in Wisbech.

The idea behind the One Pot Wonders Cookery Course is simple. Throw all the ingredients into one pot, cook it and you’re done. And you can be sure that the meal you have prepared will be tasty, healthy and nutritious. The One Pot Wonders Course is suitable for those who know how to cook as well as the complete beginner, such as widowers, and is also ideal for those who are cooking on a budget and are wanting something quick, easy and healthy to eat. The course is aimed at helping with frailty and improved health by providing healthy, protein rich meals.

The free cookery classes have space for 80 participants who live in the Fenland area and are over 65 years of age. Each course lasts for 5 sessions and these will happen once a week starting from Thursday 5th September 2024 at 10am.

As part of the project, acclaimed chef and cookery tutor, Alison Crouch, has produced a booklet of 14 One Pot Wonder recipes that will be given to participants as part of the course. Cambridgeshire County Council will also have 5,000 copies that they will distribute around the Fenland area. Alison says “These cooking sessions will be great fun. A group of people sitting around a table cooking and chatting is not only a positive force for mental wellbeing, but add into that nutritious, economical and delicious recipes, it can only be good for everybody.”

The Ferry Project Cookery School, based at Octavia View in Wisbech, is for anyone who wants to learn how to cook.

The Cookery School works with the Ferry Project to provide vocational skills and work experience in hospitality to their homeless clients, alongside training in useful cooking skills which equip them to live independently.

Community classes, talks and events create a revenue stream that supports this invaluable training. These include classes for the elderly and school groups, lessons about specific cuisines, food history talks, pop-up cafés and one-to-one training opportunities.

The Cookery School is run by our chef, Alison Crouch, who has 35 years of experience working in the food industry and is passionate about enabling others to cook. She has managed restaurants, created recipes, presented at food shows alongside Gordon Ramsay and Rosemary Shrager, studied food history while working with the National Trust, and helped people through her magazine articles and radio phone-ins.

If you would like to book a place on the One Pot Wonders free cookery course, or you would like to know more details, please contact the Ferry Project on 01945 754080 or email alison.crouch@ferryproject.org.uk .