[Editor’s note: The Tyee's health reporter Michelle Gamage contributed this uplifting essay on community and friendship for a seasonal series on sharing in 2022. We're pleased to republish it this year as we welcome the holiday season.] Thursday Night Cookups started in the fall of 2017 as a way to bring friends together to cook a big meal we'd never attempt as 20-somethings on our own, like a savoury pie or batch of perogies.
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We’d gather at my friend’s shared house in Kitsilano and cobble together cozy meals as icy rain drummed against the windows. We were in our mid-20s, working precarious, low-paying jobs and living on our own for the first time after school. We were cash-strapped, lonely and relatively new to the world of cooking for ourselves every night.
Though restaurants were a luxury few of us could afford, we could comfortably pitch in $5 to buy ingredients for a communal meal. Thursday nights worked best for everyone's schedule, and so the ritual was born. In the beginning, there were three of us.
We’d roll out dumpling dough with a discount wine bottle, and eat together. Eventually, over weeks and months, Thursday Night Cookups sprawled into something way more chaotic and wonderful — a 60-member-strong community, where dozens of us.
