A new way of bringing people together, at Just Be Cooking we believe where there’s food, there should always be music. Music has the power to change the world because it changes people, connecting us to ourselves and the people around. That’s why since 2017 we’ve hosted countless cooking with music events across Toronto alongside passionate local cultural chefs and musicians to create cooking with music experiences people could really connect with.
From Cultural Cooking Classes with Music to Cultural Meal Boxes with Music (post pandemic) we’ve come a long way. What has remained constant has been the joy of connecting people to each other through culture, music and conversation. We hope you welcome the joy into your life too.
“When I was 5 years old, I escaped communist Poland. We could tell no one of our plan, we just walked out the door one morning. Because travelling families were viewed with suspicious, we split up, me going with my Polish father while my brother went with my Ukrainian mother. At a time before instant messaging’s, we didn’t reconnect until our final destination, which was a refugee camp in Italy. But we made it, and were put into a hotel with other Polish families for the next year.
Yet during those bleak times, our cuisines were kept alive, as a symbol of our heritage and resilience. I remember we paid great care in maintaining our hospitable traditions by sharing and swapping whatever food we could get our hands on. The same sharing and swapping we did back in Poland because of the rationing. Sometimes it was not uncommon to find only vinegar on the store shelves.
Our new life awaited us in Canada. And when I was 6, we landed in Toronto. Growing up very traditionally Polish and Ukrainian, I was lucky enough to experience both. The sweet and sour smells, the somber hopeful songs, the lifetime of traditions. I saw the power that food and music had in bringing and brightening people together, and I yearned for others to share those moments with each other.
So after hosting my first pierogi class nearly two decades ago, while serenading my guests with songs from the highlands, I knew cooking with music were needed in people’s lives. It wasn’t until 10 years and countless sold out cooking with music classes later that I made it my full time business. Eventually quitting my international teaching job, I took my Masters Degree in Education & Training, culinary experience and love for all things cultural to help people create their own way to ‘Just Be’ Cooking.”
