Kitchen Conversations
Building peer connections through food, creativity, and conversation.
Kitchen Conversations brings youth together to cook, connect, and explore food-related issues that affect their lives and communities. Through shared meals and meaningful dialogue, young people build skills, confidence, and a sense of belonging while discovering how their experiences and voices can create positive change.
Youth explore topics that matter to them, from culture and identity to community, climate, and local food systems.
How it works
Each workshop brings youth together to prepare a meal, share food, and explore topics that affect their lives and communities. Activities such as zine-making, drawing, writing, and storytelling encourage self-expression, reflection, and dialogue.
Here’s just a taste of what it can look like!
Dress to Impress: A Salad Dressings Workshop
Where youth experiment with different ingredient combinations to prepare salad dressings with local herbs and seasonal salads
Flavour Fiesta: A Dips and Spreads Workshop
Where youth dip into their creativity to explore some tasty homemade dips and spreads with local vegetables and sides.
Smoothie Lab: A Smoothie Exploration Workshop
Where youth explore and experiment with fruits and vegetables, grains and seeds, healthy fats, and other smoothie add-ins to create a nourishing snack on the go.
Kitchen Conversations partners with schools, community organizations, and youth centres across Nova Scotia. Nourish Nova Scotia provides facilitation, resources, and tools to help organizations build the confidence and capacity to lead their own Kitchen Conversations.
The program is currently offered in the Halifax region. We are also developing a Kitchen Conversations Workbook to support organizations across Nova Scotia in running their own Kitchen Conversations with youth.
Get Involved
Contact Us
To learn more or bring Kitchen Conversations to your organization, contact our Youth Engagement Coordinator at prince.churchill@nourishns.ca.
Get Started
To learn more or bring Kitchen Conversations to your organization, contact our Youth Engagement Coordinator at prince.churchill@nourishns.ca.
"The kids at St. Joseph’s A Mackay are all talking about the food they cooked and are quite proud of their accomplishments. I think that the programs that you ran were very well timed and organized, the kids were engaged and having fun. It was clear that some of the kids felt some real ownership when in the kitchen and that was great to see. Having the kids decide what they were cooking was great because it was food they were interested in. I think that with your support we have some budding chefs on our hands. It was clear that their confidence grew in the kitchen, and I know some of them were learning these skills for the first time."
- Schools Plus staff feedback after Food Skills workshops during March break camp
Featured Resources
- Food Literacy, Food Skills
Dips and Spreads Facilitation Guide
- Food Literacy, Food Skills