Community: La Cocina

A quick note today to highlight one of my favorite food community organizations in San Francisco, La Cocina. This organization is an incubator kitchen founded to serve as a platform for low-income entrepreneurs launching, formalizing, or expanding their food businesses. In their words, "La Cocina was born out of the belief that a community of natural entrepreneurs, given the right resources, can create self-sufficient businesses that benefit themselves, their families, their community, and the whole city (of San Francisco)."

Recently visiting on a Thursday morning there were 6 different businesses working in the kitchen. I love that the businesses they support range from kids food and catering companies to healthy drinks and packaged treats. Today only at all the Whole Foods Markets in San Francisco, 5% of the sales for the day will go to benefit La Cocina. And, several of the La Cocina businesses that currently have products at Whole Foods (Peas of Mind, Kika's Treats, Clairesquares, and CMB Sweets) will be at each of the three locations in San Francisco sampling their products, yum!

They also offer amazing cooking and mixology classes, and rent out their commercial kitchen space to already established food businesses. In May I took a cooking class called Stocks, Soups, and Sauces. This class was put on by professional chefs who donated their time to come in and teach us the basics for building a good stock and then how to use the stock as the base for amazing soups and high-end sauces. The chefs also shared their knowledge of tricks to use in the kitchen and funny stories from their own personal experiences.

Their next class, A Tour of Tequila, is tomorrow night at their location in the mission. During this class guests will learn about tequila culture and history, taste vertically, sample different varieties, and create a classic cocktail. Learn more about the mixologists teaching the class and how to sign up at their website.