Liverpool Students Enjoy Cooking Session at Chabad

When it comes to student cooking, I consider myself a serial bad-habit maker; a culinary Jack the Ripper. I’ve committed all the gastronomic sins: Buying microwave meals, not checking the sell-by date on milk and the classic ‘healthy epiphany.’ Over-zealously buying vegetables then forgetting about them later, leading to a severe biohazard situation developing in the fridge two weeks later… (or was it a month?)

However I’m sure to see some improvement with the help of the Jewish cooking guru Denise Phillips, who ran a fantastic cooking session for Chabad of Liverpool Universities, directed by Rabbi Shmuli & Tzivia Brown, Denise started by giving us the definitive rundown on how to maintain a healthy, cost-effective diet at university. Useful advice was also given on basic Kashrut, I now consider myself a ‘leaf-checking’ expert.

Our appetites demanding attention, we began the main part of the session: cooking dinner. From the chopping to the frying, everyone took part in preparing the meal. Denise made sure to advise on safety in the kitchen. More than once, I was advised to stop yielding the sharp knife like a crazed axe-man and start concentrating on cutting up the onions safely. The result was a colourful, wholesome and tasty feast, one that was also easy to recreate ourselves. We started with sweet potato and carrot soup accompanied by a basil dressing. This was followed by sesame fish with udon noodles and an eggplant and tomato salad.

Everyone enjoyed the evening, with many people winning their long-lasting battles against their discriminatory taste preferences.

When I eventually ventured back to my bleak student kitchen, I finally opened the dusty student cookbook my mother had naively given me on the first day of university.

I would like to express my thanks to Rabbi Shmuli & Tzivia who constantly arrange a wide variety of events for everyone to enjoy their Jewish experience on campus.