Home Cooking with Love has special meaning for Chef Roshara Sanders and Whirlpool

Home cooking with love is more than just a sentiment. For Chef Roshara Sanders and Whirlpool, this campaign has a deeper connection to family and food.

When someone says the phrase, Home Cooking with Love, those words can have a variety of meanings. While food provides nourishment for the body, cooking can provide nourishment for the soul. A dish, recipe or meal can be a lovely way to connect friends, family or anyone around the table.

In the food community, there are many important topics. From food waste to proper nutrition, hot button topics often get noticed. Still, other pertinent topics aren’t as popular. If a family doesn’t have a place to cook a meal, does it matter if they have access to good food?

Whirlpool understands that the home kitchen can inspire a lifetime of Home Cooking with Love. Through its partnership with Habitat For Humanity, the brand has donated “$107 million and over 197,300 ranges and refrigerators to new Habitat homes in the U.S. and Canada.” For many people, that home kitchen sparked a love of cooking, food and family bonds.

In particular, one celebrity chef has a deep connection to this initiative. Chopped champion and professional Chef Roshara Sanders grew up in a Habitat Home. Her love of food and cooking started on a Whirpool stove. In the Habitat home, where her mother still lives, she found that cooking and food were her passions.

Chef Roshara Sanders, photo provided by Whirpool

Chef Sanders has partnered with Whirlpool and Habitat for Humanity on the “Home Cooking with Love” campaign. This campaign looks to empower families with knowledge, tools and inspiration to get in the kitchen and start cooking. After all, the kitchen may be the heart of the home, but cooking can be the nourishment for the soul.

Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Chef Sanders regarding her participation in this campaign as well as her thoughts on food and cooking. The knowledgeable chef offered several simple, yet profound ideas that could encourage anyone to get in the kitchen.

Having personally benefited from Whirlpool appliances in a Habitat Home, she felt that this campaign was a wonderful opportunity to give back. Without those appliances, she never would have discovered her love of cooking. Such a simple thing, that many people take for granted, created a lifetime love affair with food and cooking.

As part of this partnership, Chef Sanders created several recipes that can inspire and encourage Habitat homeowners to get in the kitchen and start cooking. Her goal was to make these recipes approachable. In most cases, the recipes can be created in 30 minutes.

The ease of execution was intentional. The newbie cook does not want to feel intimidated in the kitchen. If something is too difficult, a person might opt for that drive through on the way home. When fresh, home cook meals are attainable, those meals can hopefully inspire more time in the kitchen.

Making cooking fun may not seem like a huge deal, but it is essential. That time in the kitchen or around the table can become a family tradition and memory. Whether it is Sunday dinner or a special recipe, the fun aspect makes people want to come together and create that moment time and again.

Additionally, Chef Sanders looked to make each of her meals affordable. Food cost is important to families. Smart shopping, and cooking, ensures that delicious, healthy, homemade food is doable. Again, it starts a habit that can last a lifetime.

Chef Roshara Sander shares recipes for home cooking with love campaign

Once that habit is started, it can lead the home cook to be little more food adventurous. As a professional chef, Sanders is well versed with flavors and ingredients. While she may be comfortable transforming the trendy jackfruit into something tasty, she recommends that the home cook start with something a little more approachable.

One ingredient that Chef Sanders loves cooking with is ginger. The versatility of this ingredient is a huge factor. That spice can be manipulated into a variety of recipes. From a bold spice in an Asian dish to the subtle flavor in tea, ginger is definitely an ingredient to learn how to use.

Additionally, she mentioned that spices in general are extremely important to cooking and developing a love of cooking. For the most part, spices are affordable. From layering flavors to exploring cuisines, spices can expand a home cook’s love of food.

Thinking about the title of this campaign, it is a reminder for everyone, not just those benefitted from Whirlpool appliances in a Habitat home. Cooking a meal for someone is a token of endearment, a willingness to provide and an expression of love. From that simple bowl of pasta to the elaborate holiday meal, food provides all types of nourishment, for the moment at the table and beyond.

I would like to thank Chef Roshara Sanders and Whirlpool sharing their stories and providing information on this campaign.

Next time you look to sit at the table and enjoy a plate of food, think about the “Home Cooking with Love” campaign. Shouldn’t a home kitchen be filled with infinite possibilities?