Hi from Nourish Food School Founder, Joanna Lacey

We're SO ready to share everything we know that inspires people to see food and cooking from scratch as a truly happy and positive part of everyday.

We've got something for everyone including themed cooking masterclasses, cookery courses, workshops for schools, workshops for businesses and projects that strengthen food security in some of the more disadvantaged communities in the North East.

My name's Joanna and not only am I owner of Nourish but I'm a Director at social enterprise Food Nation too. Lots of things changed for everyone during the world of the COVID pandemic. One thing we discovered at Food Nation was that it was time to separate our cooking skills work from our other initiatives (such as the awesome Men's Pie Club). We realised both sides of that company have quite distinct, different social purposes and so separating them out gives each type of work a greater sense of identity and clarity.

Having spent the past 10 years developing and delivering food education programmes and community cookery courses, I'm so excited to be bringing all that knowledge and experience to Nourish Food School - with lots of our Food Trainers at Food Nation staying involved too. Essentially...same team, same enthusiasm and a continual development of what we've been doing for years although under a new social enterprise and brand.

For me, passing on food skills isn't just about people knowing how to cook. It's about seeing people feel confident in their own abilities, develop this incredible increase of self-esteem, seeing people completely change their approach to shopping and eating, helping people tackle barriers to eating well when facing issues of food insecurity, and in so many occasions reducing all those anxieties that come up about "am I making the right choices?", "is this the right thing to feed my kids?", "I just don't believe I can afford to cook from scratch even if I wanted to".

EVERYONE has a relationship with food and sometimes that's a really great one and sometimes that's one surrounded by negativity. The world we live in has spent way too many years telling us what food is "good" and "bad", creating this sense of diet culture that instills that feeling of guilt when you eat a food you associate as being a "bad" one (sometimes a slice of chocolate cake is just as important for your health, mind and wellbeing as that delish slow roasted vitamin-packed carrot).

All foods can have a place in our lives, but if we can cook it ourselves and know what it is made of then even better.

If Nourish Food School can help establish good relationships and behaviours with food from a young age then that just has to make an impact on future health and wellbeing - that can then be passed on from one generation to the next.

But let's not forget that cookery schools and food education companies don't always have to be about tackling public health - let's make cooking fun for everyone, make it an opportunity to learn new stuff and spend time enjoying what so many of you already love doing - and make it a way to come together with friends, or to make new friends at group classes.

And that's why Nourish Food School has something available to pretty much everyone who wants to get involved! (including volunteering opportunities in our community-focused project work too).

We're all looking forward to bringing our brand new classes and food experiences to as many of you as possible and can't wait to hear from you.

What do you want Nourish to do for you?