Earlier today, I made a statement that seemed to hit a raw nerve with some:

Almost immediately after I posted this, I was made aware of the controversial tone. Do you see one? I don’t. But apparently, here’s the rub – I am one heck of a misogynistic racist son of a gun. You see, SF has something along the lines of a “community kitchen” – La Cocina. Some friends and fans of the “incubator kitchen for minority women” took offense with my “REAL” (emphasis mine, twice :) and wondered if I, sad misogynist sack of manure that I am, needed a few hours of training in non-offensive behavior.

I stand by my statement, and I am sure La Cocina will agree with me – LC is not a real community kitchen. Way back when, the later years of the last century just barely fading into the dim dusk of history, I helped design and open a community kitchen in one of NYCs less affluent neighborhoods, Hunts Point. The project was sponsored by both a Catholic outreach program, and a Jewish Center community grant, making it important for us to work out the basics of what precisely a “community kitchen” was…

• The Community Kitchen is non-judgmental. We admit anyone, regardless of race, religion, gender, income status, or citizenship.
• Our classes are open to anyone, both as student and as instructor. We are blessed to have rallied some of the greatest culinary minds in the greater New York state area to visit us and show their craft. Admission prices are based on a voluntary sliding scale.

These two lines became a mantra to me for the years to come, both in commercial kitchens as well as a teacher. Community Kitchens can not afford to work with one particular population segment over others. Specific, directed, efforts such as La Cocina can (and LC should be commended for doing so, though I am still wondering why a incubator kitchen for minority women has no minority women on their staff page), Community Kitchens can’t.

Especially today, things have changed and need to be re-evaluated. The number of single parent fathers has gone bu exponentially in the last ten years, making it vitally important to have classes on healthy infant and child nutrition available to them. The economy has crashed and buried everyone it could, the Wall Street disaster had, at least, a very equal opportunity backlash to it – homelessness and unemployment rates are up across the gender and race board. For the first time in twenty years, every open job for a minimum wage prep/washer position, gets as many female as male applications, spanning all ages, races, classes, and experience level.

Outside the Community Kitchens, which often function as service operations through food banks and cheap/free meals, the demographics have changed, as well. Men or woman, single parent or head of a six-person household, our “old” clientele has changed.

Today, we have a unique challenge and a unique opportunity. Community Kitchens not only feed those who can not afford to feed themselves and their families, they also teach valuable courses on home cooking, shopping cheaply, and allow many attendees to enter the world of food service, a $16BN, 9 million employee, 1.4 million organization strong field of work.

For this, we need to have open, non-judgmental, non-specific, and free Community Kitchens. We must attract chefs from around the Bay Area, create volunteer efforts, link with food banks and charitable organizations, and open up Kitchens that are accessible to anyone inside the community.

That’s easier done than you might think. At a quick blush, the Silicon Valley East Bay sports close to twenty five shuttered restaurants in need of a new owner. Taking over one of these properties should be a breeze, especially in a climate where opening another restaurant might not be the smartest thing to do. Hey, we had a bundle of tax payer millions to throw at the failing Yoshi’s, why not use some of that money to actually benefit the community and not just a private enterprise?

We have a chance and a choice – to keep meandering the way we are, ignoring or providing a major disservice to the communities that would benefit tremendously from Community Kitchens, or to build the framework for a healthier, more sustainable, cheaper, and more accessible eating and cooking landscape. Or, to quote my old Chef: “Buy someone a loaf of Wonder Bread, and they’ll eat crap for a week, or teach them how to bake great bread on the cheap and they’ll be healthy for little money for a lifetime.”

Community Kitchens give us a chance, rather pragmatically, to alleviate some poverty, create opportunities, bring healthier, more sustainable, diets into our communities, and are, usually, places for anyone, rich or poor, chef or culinary apprentice, to come together and make things happen. We need that. We need REAL community kitchens.