Our "I love Aveiro - Cooking for Solidarity" project took us on a gastronomic and cultural journey one more time! This month, we traveled to Ukraine, with Natalia Kolasa, who immigrated to Chicago a long time ago with her family, but still carries Ukraine in her heart.

From the city of skyscrapers, Natalia moved to Oliveira de Frades and completely changed her lifestyle. One thing however remains the same. She loves cooking and preparing Ukrainian food so she was the right person to conduct the workshop of Ukrainian cuisine. Besides, Natalia is a natural born storyteller so we heard heartwarming stories of her family meals when she was a child, learned that varenyky are done mostly only for Christmas because it's not easy nor quick to make them (we agree 100% on this!), and confirmed how borsch not only warms your stomach, but also your soul. Our group of 15 participants managed to make close to a hundred dumplings, and although they didn't look perfect, the taste was heavenly. Many people had a soup with Greek yoghurt for the first time in their life, and although it was an improbable combination for Portuguese people, everyone liked it! Besides Portugal, we had participants coming from India, Brazil, the US, the UK and Italy.

Next workshops are already being planned. In January Madhuri, who has been living in Aveiro for more than 10 years, will reveal some secrets of Indian cuisine and in March we will travel to Mexico and Morocco and get to know new exotic flavours. Besides, we are collecting all the recipes for those who could not attend the workshops and will share it with you at the end of the project. 

"I love Aveiro - Cooking for Solidarity" aims to promote the social inclusion of migrants and refugees in Aveiro through the sharing of food, recipes, and traditions. The project celebrates the diversity of our region and explores different cultural influences around us. We love the ovos moles and eels, but Aveiro in 2024 is much more than that. There are close to 100 nationalities living in our region and we want to learn about the new flavours in our city! This is just the first one out of many workshops that we are planning for you, so stay tuned.

“Cooking for Solidarity” is part of “I Love Aveiro” project and is organized by Agora Aveiro in partnership with Casa Vera Cruz and CLAIM Aveiro. It is co-financed by the European Solidarity Corps programme of the European Union. It also had the support from the Municipality of Aveiro and IPDJ - Instituto Português do Desporto e Juventude, I.P..