Seema Vekaria and Laurie Su-Yin Roche founded Batch Cook Club with the idea of helping young families rediscover the fun of cooking and eating together, but they soon realised that their sociable cooking sessions held a much wider appeal. “Whoever you are, and as much as you might like cooking, there comes a point where you can get demotivated,” says Vekaria. “If you have to do it every day, it can become a chore.”
The Bristol-based events they run now attract a wide range of local people interested in batch cooking nutritious meals – and enjoying the sociable side of sitting down to sample what they’ve made before they go home. Recipes are mostly plant-based and use fresh ingredients, with enough provided so that the “chefs” can make several portions to package up and take away with them for the week ahead.
Batch Cook Club’s mission is to make cooking a sociable event, reinvigorating the sometimes humdrum process of preparing meals. The founders also see group cooking sessions as a great way to tackle social isolation in communities, and run subsidised sessions for people who might not otherwise be able to attend. “I grew up going to big gatherings where there’d be a group of women always sitting around chopping or peeling or cooking or frying something,” Vekaria says. “And that’s the vibe that we want to bring to the Batch Cook Club sessions.”
Since Batch Cook Club was founded last year, Vekaria and Su-Yin Roche have run 36 events across Bristol. Cooks have batch cooked brunches, suppers and snacks, whipping up treats such as savoury feta and spinach brownies and Thai-inspired curries.
Tonight there is a twist because Batch Cook Club is raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support, which offers advice and help for people living with cancer. Fundraising is vital as it helps Macmillan provide emotional, practical and financial support to the more than 3 million people living with cancer in the UK. Vekaria and Su-Yin Roche have planned their own take on the more traditional Coffee Morning fundraiser. “We want to show that Coffee Mornings don’t have to be about coffee, they don’t have to be in the morning and they don’t have to be about cake,” Su-Yin Roche says. “We want to show that there are other ways of doing it.”
This approach is totally in line with Macmillan’s philosophy of encouraging supporters to run their own style of event under the Coffee Morning banner. For Vekaria and Su-Yin Roche, working the fundraising element into their cooking evening was simple as both are focused on community and food.
For this special event, I join Batch at Square Food Foundation, a charity-run community cooking space in south Bristol. Today’s chefs – couples, friends and siblings – are lined up at cooking stations, ready to get chopping. For many, it’s not their first time at a session, and they say that what keeps them coming back is the sense of community the club is building.
The kitchen has been decorated using the contents of the free Macmillan Coffee Morning fundraising kit – the cheerful green and white bunting and balloons add a sense of occasion to the evening. For sustainability-minded Vekaria and Su-Yin Roche, the fact that the Macmillan pack uses recycled materials is a great bonus.
On the menu is vegan peanut miso noodles served with vegetable and tofu rice-paper dumplings. Ingredients are taken from a colourful centre table stacked with vegetables: mushrooms, carrots, red onions, cabbage and herbs. As we cook, the chefs put cash into donation boxes or make digital donations using a QR code – also provided by Macmillan – and reflect on the joy of cooking together.
“It’s a really nice mix of nationalities and food from different cultures,” says one of the cooks. Another reflects on the joy of going to the freezer and taking out a healthy meal you’ve already made: “When ‘past you’ has made a meal for present you, you’re like, ‘Ah that was nice of me!’ You’re going to cook anyway, so you might as well cook three times as much.”
Vekaria says: “This is about doing the Coffee Morning in our own way, which aligns with our values and allows us to do food that doesn’t include sugar. It’s a chance for us to talk to our own club members, people who love what we do, and be able to give them what they come to us for. And also raise money for Macmillan.”
The members echo Vekaria’s testament. “It’s so special to be part of this. Cancer affects so many of us – the Coffee Morning makes us feel like we and Macmillan can make a difference,” says Corrine Dowlaty. Holly Alpren, meanwhile, emphasises the importance of raising funds for charity: “It was fantastic to raise money for Macmillan – their nurses do such incredible work to support people during the hardest of times.”
Macmillan Coffee Morning was launched in 1990, and has since grown into all kinds of get-togethers, from drag cocktail evenings to pet-friendly events. So, if you have a community of like-minded people who get together to share a passion, chances are you’ve got everything you need to turn it into a fundraising powerhouse, just like Batch Cook Club.
Want to get involved? Raise money to help support people living with cancer and sign up to host a Macmillan Coffee Morning at macmillan.org.uk/coffee-morning
Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SCO39907) and the Isle of Man (604). Also operating in Northern Ireland.
