Tag hands-on cooking party

Parties That Cook Event Recap: Cooking Up Success for Women’s Initiative

Last Wednesday night, Parties That Cook hosted Cooking Up Success for Women’s Initiative. Women’s Initiative for Self Employment is a Bay Area non-profit that provides high-potential, lower-income women the training, resources and on-going support to start and grow their business. This amazing organization has been in San Francisco for 23 years, and has served more than 22,000 low-income women to date!

The Cooking Up Success event was a great opportunity for us to give back to the community, and with nearly 100 guests coming together in support of Women’s Initiative, it was clear that this hands-on cooking event was a HUGE success! Bibby gave her famous interactive cooking demo, with insightful tips and tricks for the evening’s recipes. Attendees were all smiles throughout the event, as they broke up into smaller teams to create the menu of international tapas. Guests also had the chance to hear their inspiring entrepreneurial stories of four graduates from Women’s Initiative.

The event raised over $16,000! That’s enough money to put 8 women through the Women’s Initiative’s business management training program, potentially create 18 new jobs and put $480,000 back into the community! Parties That Cook is proud to lend a hand to our community.

The Ultimate Team Building Activity: Hands On Cooking Parties

“Cage matches? Yeah, they work, how could they not work? If they didn’t work, everybody would still be in the cage.” Unless your idea of team building is as new and fresh as Michael Scott’s in The Office, it probably needs an upgrade.  Many people dread extracurricular office activities, especially team building. Team building activities have become a cliché and have even disappeared off of the agenda because there seems no way around ropes courses and long, tedious lectures. Well, here is the perfect opportunity to revamp those overdone ideas. Hands-on cooking parties are the perfect way to build camaraderie and strength among a team. These unique events teach time management, trust, respect and teamwork as groups meet recipe deadlines and see real time results.  Parties That Cook offers six fun culinary team building events that can be tailored to meet anyone’s needs.

The Sumptuous Small Plates event gets everybody cooking with fresh, seasonal international tapas recipes. Being able to work in smaller teams with a common goal reinforces the importance of teamwork. Everyone loves to surprise their coworkers and show off the delicious dishes they’ve created at this fun and social team building event.

The Chef’s Table is a four course meal with formal dining service. The group works together under the supervision of our top chefs to create an impressive spread that our staff will plate and serve to the group.  Instead of just making dinner reservations for your team, this is a creative spin that gets people working together, and bonding over the delectable fruits of their labor.

The Kitchen Challenge is perhaps the most effective cooking team building experience that I’ve ever witnessed. It is styled after the cooking show Iron Chef and teams go knife to knife in this heated kitchen competition. Each team is given an hour to create a meal with the same base ingredients, and access to a colorful pantry of exotic spices, sauces and fresh produce and cheeses. This culinary team building extravaganza is guaranteed to be water cooler talk for months.

The Ultimate Kitchen Challenge is a facilitated team building workshop and competition. In this extended version of the Kitchen Challenge, teams work with a business coach to learn about how to build a strong team and master essential communication skills in a workshop setting. Teams are able to put their new skills to the test when they fire up the kitchen challenge competition.

A Feast of Chocolate and Cheese is a decadent cooking class that pairs chocolate with cheese. No one can deny the allure of either of these foods. Small groups will explore new ways to pair these popular ingredients as they team up to prepare an array of small plates featuring chocolate and cheese.

Food engages everybody – it is the universal language that breaks down barriers and inspires camaraderie. Skeptics often ask at the start of the event if we’ve ordered a pizza for when they burn the kitchen down, but one hour later, they’re leading their teams to culinary victory! Guests are always surprised by what they are able to create together in a short amount of time. Nothing matches that sense of newfound confidence in the kitchen and sense of accomplishment as guests enjoy their finished meals. So, get your team cooking and spice up your next event with Parties That Cook!

Contributed by Leigh Hermansen