Community Cooking Day in Stratford-upon-Avon

We recently gathered at The Garden of Arden for a joyful outdoor community cooking day, a celebration of food, nature and togetherness as we continue developing our new outdoor kitchen space. The aim of this kitchen is to give members of the community the chance to cook outdoors, learn how to prepare delicious meals from fresh ingredients and enjoy the experience of sharing food in the open air.

The day began with a harvest. The group headed into the beds to collect onions, courgettes and potatoes grown with our Green Therapy group, picking produce that had been nurtured over the past months and bringing it straight to the table. It felt good to use ingredients straight from plot to plate, a simple and practical nod to sustainability and growing our own. 

With baskets full of fresh produce, we set up our off‑grid cooking stations. The pizza oven warmed in the background while camping hobs and battery‑powered blenders were put to work. Together we made fresh hummus, cooked frittatas packed with garden vegetables and cut up all the ingredients for people to make their own pizzas that bubbled and crisped beautifully in the heat of the oven. 

When everything was ready, we shared the food under the summer sky, enjoying both the meal and the setting that makes The Garden of Arden such a special place and it was lovely to be joined by volunteers from our other community projects to enjoy the food. 

Any leftovers were happily taken home by volunteers to enjoy later for supper, a small but meaningful continuation of the day’s generosity. After eating, we wandered into the wildflower meadow for a butterfly hunt, spotting species fluttering through the grasses and learning more about the wildlife that thrives in this part of the garden.

We would like to offer a big thank you to Kind Communities Kind Food for their generous donation of chopping boards and cutlery, which helped make the day run smoothly, and to The Simon Rivett‑Carnac Trust for their support in helping us grow this space and the gardens for the community to support mental health.