If you struggle to come up with meal ideas or want to learn more about cooking, Oh SNAP!’s virtual cooking classes are your answer. The purpose of these cooking classes is to teach college students how to make easy, convenient homecooked meals.
When a class opens, the first 40 students who sign up can get a bag of ingredients to make the dish and pick it up at the Oh SNAP! Pantry (RWC 122) the week of the class.
Students who aren’t in Humboldt can still sign up and get their ingredients for free through Instacart. If you can’t make it to the live Zoom session on the day of the class, the ingredient bags also include a printed recipe so you can make the dish on your own time.
“Cooking can be intimidating for a lot of people, so I think that these cooking classes are a great way to step out of your comfort zone and learn how to make different types of recipes that you normally wouldn’t have tried to make before on your own,” said Veronica Amezola, one of the coordinators of the Oh SNAP! cooking classes.
Amezola said that if she wasn’t working for the program, she would still sign up for the class as a student. She thinks that students should take advantage of the classes because they’re free, the recipes aren’t complicated, and you’ll learn how to make something new.
Ariadne Lugo, also a coordinator of the Oh SNAP! cooking classes, said that she knows the feeling of being limited on ingredients but still wanting to make the most out of them.
“Before working for Oh SNAP! I participated in a cooking class myself and it was a great experience,” Lugo said.
Classes have been taught by students and other faculty, and if students are interested in hosting a live virtual cooking class, they can contact the cooking class coordinator.
Associate Dean of Students Roger Wang has led two of these classes. When deciding what dish he wants to share, he said he makes sure it’s something that’s quick and doesn’t require appliances that students may not have access.
“My mom never taught me how to cook things really so I had to learn myself as a college student,” Wang said. “I love cooking now and it takes up a lot of time, but it’s usually healthier and cheaper and so I want to share those skills.”
There isn’t a schedule for upcoming classes, but they plan to have one a month. Amezola said that they usually always reach their 40 person limit and the best place to see when the next class will be is on their Instagram @hsuohsnap.
“I hope that the students that join get a fun experience out of our cooking classes,” Amezola said. “We try our best to make these cooking classes very approachable and easy for students so that they’re able to gain more experience with cooking meals for themselves and expand their options as well.”
