🎁 Delicious Holiday Gifts To Support Small Businesses and Nonprofits
12 Creative Culinary Ways to Give and Give Back
This year, we’ve been fortunate to learn to cook from several small business owners and leaders of nonprofits who have shared their time and culinary talents with our community.
During this season of gifting and giving, we hope that you’ll consider supporting our teachers who have brought all of us joy, opened their kitchens with kindness and introduced us to their cultures and stories.
🎁 Small Businesses
⭐Eat Hoi An
Na teaches from her home in Hoi An, Vietnam. Her family business offers visitors local experiences, including cooking classes and street food tours. Since the pandemic has impacted tourism, she has been hosting classes online and giving attendees a once in a lifetime tour of her village’s vegetable gardens and sharing her experiences.
Visit her Instagram. Watch her Tradition Kitchens class. Gift her classes on AirBnB.
⭐An Acquired Chef
Rash teaches from her home in Melbourne, Australia. Starting with her origins in Northern Borneo coupled with her South Asian heritage and South East Asian roots, she grew up surrounded by food lovers and with influences ranging from up in Punjab and across to Sulawesi. Her mission is to demystify the art and alchemy of all things culinary.
Visit her Instagram. Watch one of her six Tradition Kitchens classes. Explore her classes.
⭐Yumday
Lia teaches from Austin, Texas. She is the founder of Yumday, a curated snack shop and monthly snack box service featuring women- and BIPOC-led food brands. She taught us foods from her Filipino heritage.
Visit her Instagram. Watch one of her Tradition Kitchens classes. Explore her curated boxes.
⭐Ploy’s Kitchen
Ploy is a native of Thailand. She went to Suan Dusit International Culinary School while she was working as a financial analyst in Bangkok. She started teaching cooking classes in 2014 and has taught over 3,500 students to cook and bake Asian cuisines, vegan food, gluten free diets, pastries, and more.
Visit her Instagram. Watch one of her two Tradition Kitchens classes. Gift her classes.
⭐Red Spoon Bakery
Debbie teaches in Atlanta, Georgia. She was part of our original in-person classes in 2019 and 2020, teaching Matzah Ball Soup, Hamantaschen, Bagels and more. She grew up in the back of her mom’s chocolate shop in Cleveland, Ohio and learned to cook Jewish classics, like bagels and knishes. As a teen she traveled to Israel, which sparked her passion and curiosity for the foods of the Middle East. She’s known in Atlanta for teaching kids' cooking classes and team building through cooking.
Visit her Instagram. Watch one of her Tradition Kitchens classes. Gift her classes.
⭐PODI life
Alak teaches from Atlanta, Georgia. She is the founder of PODI life, a mom-daughter owned and run business selling PODIs (poh-dee). PODIs are heirloom spice, nut and herb blends made with quintessential South Indian ingredients (peanuts, coconut, spices and herbs). They share an intergenerational perspective on what it means to be American of South Indian heritage.
Visit their Instagram. Watch her Tradition Kitchens class. Gift their boxes.
⭐Third Culture Cooks
Ragini teaches from India as a seasoned educational professional who has taken her love for teaching, history and food and taken to developing programs to understand the relations between food and culture.She is also the co-host of the podcast More than Masala.
Visit her Instagram. Watch her Tradition Kitchens class. Inquire about classes.
🎁 NonProfits
⭐Emma’s Torch
By Empowering Refugees through culinary education, Emma’s Torch provides top-notch culinary training to refugees, alyssum seekers and survivors of human trafficking by helping them find meaningful careers in the food industry. We learned to cook Summer Rolls, a Vietnamese classic, from Thu, the Leadership Development Fellow of Emma’s Torch. We raised $800 for their organization.
Visit their Instagram. Watch their Tradition Kitchens class. Support this organization.
⭐Family Promise
With our collaboration with National Muffin Day, we supported the meaningful mission of helping families experiencing homelessness and low-income families achieve sustainable independence through a community-based response with career, education, food, housing and more support. There are local affiliates in cities across the United States. We helped raise $25,000!
Visit their Instagram. Watch our class. Support this organization.
⭐The Agricultural Institute of Marin
AIM’s mission is to educate, inspire, and connect communities, responsible farmers, and producers as part of a healthy, Earth-friendly, equitable local and regional food system. Based in Marin County, California and led by Executive Director Andy, we learned to make sustainable seafood stew and raised $330 for them.
Visit their Instagram. Watch their Tradition Kitchens class. Support this organization.
⭐Local Food Bank
Several classes have encouraged our attendees to contribute to feeding those who are hungry in their communities. Seek out your local organization and give support to where it is needed most.
⭐Wings of Love
This nonprofit finds abandoned and abused dogs that are living on the streets of Kuwait and rescues them. Dena’s puppy, Levi, is one of those rescue dogs! She taught us how to make homemade dog biscuits!
Visit their Instagram. Watch their Tradition Kitchens class. Support this organization.
Thank you for considering supporting these small businesses and nonprofits. We’re grateful for this community, our teachers and the dishes we’ve experienced together. Our classes are completely volunteer-led. We donate our time to organize because it brings us joy! Note that we do not receive any profits from your purchases or donations.
Our teachers are mostly your global neighbors who’ve opened up their kitchens to share their favorite cultural foods and stories. We’re incredibly grateful for their time.
Share a Quote: Let us know what Tradition Kitchens has meant to you.
Teach with us: Reply if you’d like to teach with us in 2022!
Cooking Library: This has all of our past classes as well as our YouTube Channel.
We’re taking a holiday break until next year. Stay safe, healthy and enjoy your favorite foods this holiday season.