You can learn yoga interactively online, so why not cooking? Hong Kong pair celebrate first annivers

For the two World Kitchen Club class fundraisers, Vietnamese chef My Tran will host a Zoom class that begins with a virtual tour of a traditional market in Ho Chi Minh City, hosts a talk from one of Jack’s relatives, and ends with a lesson on how to cook a traditional Vietnamese pancake, known as banh xeo, which Jack used to cook for his young relatives.

The first fundraiser for Jack, scheduled for April 18 (Hong Kong time), is now full with 12 participants, and a second will be held on April 25. 

“It’s way beyond my expectations, what we have done this past year,” Wu says of the World Kitchen Club. “Especially this event for Jack, I’ve found it particularly meaningful.” 

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The genesis of their online club goes back to early 2020 when Wu and Leung began working on a cultural tourism project together, originally conceived as a travel and food cultural experience for adventurous travellers. Wu has worked in tech for most of her adult life, for Uber and then for an electronics giant in the US as a product manager, and Leung was a senior executive in the Hong Kong tourism industry.

The pandemic soon destroyed these plans, and Wu found she could not go on a planned trip to Paris where she was looking forward to taking a cooking lesson with an experienced French chef. She was not alone.

The devastating and rapid spread of the pandemic meant many of those who had signed up for the chef’s cooking class had to cancel. Wu suggested the chef hold his class online, but he was initially reluctant because he had no experience in giving virtual lessons. Eventually, though, he agreed to give the class just to Wu and her friends, who were all living in lockdown in the US.

Leung had just finished an online interactive yoga class when Wu rang her to tell her about her experience with the chef in France. Ideas began to take shape across the ocean from Hong Kong to the US. If Zoom could be used for an interactive yoga class and a jury-rigged Zoom cooking class, they thought, why not for regular interactive cooking classes? 

Plenty of cooking classes are available online, in many languages, but there are far fewer interactive options. Here chefs are ready to answer participants’ questions, help them with cooking dilemmas, and initiate a discussion between participants in various locations.

“It turned out to be really good, and people enjoyed it,” Wu says of her first class with the French chef. “Then we started to have classes with chefs in Italy, in the US, in Mexico, in Peru.”

Since the World Kitchen Club began in 2020, the business model has evolved. Professional chefs have signed up to offer private as well as group lessons. Corporate team-building events are on the agenda and lessons in cocktail-making on the menu. 

The club recently ran a cooking class birthday party for a US resident turning 80, a woman with family spread across the nation. Her grandchildren joined the Zoom party because they remembered their grandmother’s delicious cooking. Everyone, Leung says, was delighted by the event.

“I’m so happy because I’m 80, but I’m still learning new cooking skills,” the grandmother told the host chef, Leung says. 

World Kitchen Club lessons are given by skilled amateurs as well as professional chefs. One foodie, originally from Hong Kong, taught participants how to make dumplings and mango pudding.

Participants usually pay from US$40 to US$50 per login for regular classes, and Wu and Leung expect more than one person to learn from each class – maybe a mother and daughter will participate, or a husband and wife. The fees for private events depend on the choice of chef, among other things. 

The World Kitchen Club was not the first group to offer online cooking classes, which have proved popular with cooks around the world during various national lockdowns of varying severity across Asia, Europe and the US. The goodwill and fellowship generated by the World Kitchen Club, though, has surprised the two founders.

“I think it totally exceeds our expectations,” Wu says. “Jenny and I first had a talk about maybe doing something meaningful, from a cultural aspect and also to show people a better way to connect.” The World Kitchen Club, she thinks, has managed to do both. 

“I have been in the hi-tech industry for all my career and one of the things that bothers me a lot is that with technology, you would think it would bring people closer together, but it did not. I think that’s because people are posting on Facebook, but they don’t actually talk to each other and see each other.”

Leung expects the World Kitchen Club will change when the pandemic loses ground and eventually comes to a halt.

“Grace and myself want to hold in-person events,” she says. “For the coming six months we try to plan some online-to-offline activities. We can have a couple of people in Hong Kong in their office, in their meeting room, so they can join together and connect with the chefs in different countries.”

Eventually, she thinks, their website will be able to organise foodie tours abroad, offering a flexible mix of private and public, online and offline elements.

A keen cook and gourmet, Wu was interested in learning and sharing more about the world’s celebrated cuisines. She now lives in San Francisco. “We wanted to do something meaningful to share the cultural aspects and see what is authentic Italian cuisine, or what is authentic French cuisine, why the food matters and what is the culture associated with the food,” she says.

Leung confesses that she is “not even good at cooking” and her culinary skills are “so-so” but adds: “I love cooking culture, I love to see the stories behind, and the people’s story.”

She and Wu were both keen to use the World Kitchen Club to help Jack’s family in Orange County, California. When they were first told about the circumstances, Jack was still alive and fighting for his life. His plight resonated with many of his compatriots, and chef My Tran, recruited by Wu and Leung for the fundraiser, was sympathetic, cutting her fees. But by the time My Tran had been signed up, Jack had died. 

“Nothing has been more rewarding or fulfilling; for our one-year anniversary we can do something for Jack and his family and be able to connect to a chef from Vietnam to celebrate his life and reminisce about life in Vietnam,” Wu says.

“We both feel that’s very important, that we’re able to contribute during this time.”

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