Andy Murphy Neighborhood Center Kitchen Hosts Cooking Workshop in Completed Kitchen

May 5, 2024

The recently renovated kitchen the Andy Murphy Neighborhood Center was filled with delicious scents of homemade food during a workshop hosted by the City of Kingston and conducted by leading Farm-to-Institution training program, The Teaching Kitchen. The Teaching Kitchen is a training and technical assistance program to help nonprofit organizations to convert their food services to a farm-to-institution model by serving more fresh, healthy and local food—without raising costs.

A dozen attendees from organizations throughout Kingston, including The Mental Health Association, The YMCA, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and The Institute for Family Health gathered to learn from instructors Evelyn García and Briana Ross. The day’s menu included recipes for black bean chili, butternut squash macaroni and cheese, and homemade apple cider vinaigrette dressing. Culinary skills were on display, but the free workshop centered on strategies to localize institutional food systems and strengthen regional farms, economy, and environmental sustainability.

The event was one of many new cooking workshops hosted in the community space. Beginning in 2021, NoVo was grateful to partner with the City of Kingston to do a complete gut renovation of this centrally located community kitchen. Working collaboratively with the City, the kitchen footprint was expanded to 2,600 sq. ft. and all-electric commercial grade appliances were installed to support the City of Kingston’s efforts to make the facility fossil fuel free.