"Whisk" cooking club
Hello and welcome to the pages of the “Whisk” cooking club, based in Charleston, West Virginia. We are a relatively young cooking club, having only existed for about 2 years. Up until this point we haven’t even had a website, but due to the fact that our little club is growing, we decided to make a place for ourselves on the web. Most cooking clubs like ours would only have a Facebook page, if even that. Since our beginnings back in 2014, we’ve grown from a small club with about half a dozen members to a cooking club with over 40 regular members, and another 20 which come and join our sessions when time permits.
“Whisk” has regular group meetings twice a week, and every now and then we organize various events. For example, within the club we have cook-offs, where we determine biannual cooking champions amongst the members of the club. There’s also what we call “community events”, where we organize cooking picnics, and contests in preparing various dishes for the good people of Charleston. In fact, during our last picnic, we even hired a photographer who brought some cheap drone with camera to capture video from the air. We’ll make a post on our blog once that we get our hands on the footage and share it with everyone. To put a long story short, “Whisk” is a cooking club which has been operating in Charleston, West Virginia for the past 5 years now, well almost 5 years. From humble beginnings we’ve grown quite a bit, and we hope that you’ll join us as well. Keep reading to find out more about us and also to find out how to join the “Whisk” cooking club.
Quick announcement
Dear friends and those who are just browsing the website, but who will very likely become future members of the Whisk Charleston cooking club. After a long period of inactivity here on the website, we’ve decided to drop an annoucement, and it’s a big one. Even though by looking at our website here one might assume that we haven’t been very active, club meetings happened like always, twice a week. We were just busy and didn’t post anything here on the website, up until now.
Huge news that we want to share with the world is that our club is planning on taking a group vacation this summer. Our current destination of choice is Split Croatia, I have to say that we have heard some great things about the Spilt, or should I say day tours from Split in particuclar, which is stunning. We’re however still in talks and our vacation hotspot of choice might be something completely different this coming August, when the vacation is planned to take place. Currently, we’re still discussing which day trip we should take. Our favorite tour right now is Blue cave tour, it is a speedboat tour that departures from Split and you’re only 30minutes away from a beautiful blue lagoon.
Those who are members of the club will all go, but they will also bring along their loved ones. This makes our “small” group of vacationeers currently sitting at around 70 people strong. Due to the size of our group, we’re in talks with various transatlantic cruise companies, which we’re going to use for a relaxing trip over there. That way we’ll actually enjoy traveling there, instead of being cooped up in a plane. Not to mention that flying is much more expensive. We are focused on organising this tour on a top level, to make sure all our members get the best possible value for the money. That’s why we’ll spend active vacation in Europe, especially since there are many day trips from Split Croatia to choose from. I recommend you to read this guide if you’re visiting Split. Sadly we don’t plan on accepting requests to join the trip from people who are not members of the “Whisk”, the only exceptions being loved ones of club members. New members are always welcome, but with the preparations that we are making for the trip, which is very challenging to setup, I don’t think that we’ll have time to go through the process of admitting new members, sorry everyone. You’ll have better luck next year. For now, if you’re a member, keep close tabs to the website, or just listen to the grapevine for updates on the trip. Peace out.
Cooking meals, making friends, helping people and having fun
For those who don’t want to go in-depth about our history or into the specifics of what “Whisk” does, here’s a quick overview of the 4 main goals that “Whisk” has and what its members try to achieve.
Making friends
First thing that we try to achieve with "Whisk" is for its members to use club meetings to make connections and found lasting friendships. This is something that has been the whole reason why Caitlin and me started the club in the first place. Friendships are what makes life worth living, and that's why they are so important for us here at "Whisk".
Helping people
Naturally those who decide to join "Whisk" will also help each other at all times. Not just help each other by being friends, but also help when learning how to cook and prepare meals. Helping each other by learning from each other is also very important for every member of "Whisk". If you want to be part of our family, be ready to ask for help, and also to help others.
Cooking meals
As I've already mentioned elsewhere, we here at "Whisk" operate out of the kitchen of a local charity, "Mountain Mission Inc". It's a mutually beneficial agreement between "Whisk" and "Mountain Mission Inc" where we help their efforts of feeding the less fortunate by cooking meals that they then give away. Our members cook, learn and have fun, and they get cooked meals for those in need. It's a win-win situation for everyone.
Having fun
Last but not least, is that you have fun if you are a member of Whisk. Obviously we can't make you have fun, and all the previous requirements and stipulations that we mentioned might make us seem like some sort of Gestapo that doesn't make any room to have fun. That's far from truth. Even though we have our rules, but we're pretty lax about them, and you having fun is super important for us.
"Whisk" cooking club - the beginnings
“Whisk” was founded by Ellen Carpenter and Caitlin Leclaire, back in 2014, as we’ve already mentioned. The two of us started “Whisk” in our garage, at home basically, like Bill Gates started his company. The only difference between us and Bill Gates is that we started a cooking club, and we aren’t that smart, and we didn’t earn all those billions of dollars. In fact we might even be at a loss, financially speaking. Now that we think about it, why did we even start this freaking thing…Oh yeah, we love to cook, and spend time with friends, that’s why, 🙂 . Caitlin and me have been friends since childhood and we were together throughout high school, up until college, where we went our separate ways. After finishing college, both of us found jobs, got married and built our lives back in Charleston, where we grew up. In order to have an excuse to get together and spend time with each other while doing something we love, we started “Whisk”.
First year or so that “Whisk” existed there were just the two of us and 4 of our close friends from work. Meetings took place in either my family home, or Caitlin’s family home. Sometimes we were in the kitchen, other times we were in the garage, depending on what we were cooking that particular day. Back in those days we couldn’t even imagine that one day our little cooking club would grow to have practically 60 members, and that we would actually be able to organize community events like we do now. Oh, and we never expected to one day use high quality video drones in order to capture our meetings from the air, what a crazy thing we’ve accomplished. Primary goal of “Whisk” is to have fun and learn how to cook, be it advanced culinary dishes, or simple things like making salads, juces and even cooking coffee.
Cooking fun for everyone
If you are interested in getting out of the house, learning how to cook the basics like hot coffee, salads and juices, or more advanced dishes, we’ve got you covered. Join “Whisk” today. There’s room here for everyone.
Current activities of the "Whisk" cooking club
Current activities of our little cooking club include meetings of the club members at the “Mountain Mission Inc” spaces, twice a week. “Mountain Mission Inc” is a charitable organization that serves the Kanawha Valley area. Amongst many of their charitable services, they also offer meals to people in need. We’ve made a deal with them and use their kitchen for our meetings, and in turn then get cooked meals for people in need. It’s a win-win situation for both us and them. Our members have fun, learn new recipes, meals, while the good people of the “Mountain Mission Inc” get cooked meals for those in need in return.
Next to our weekly meetings where “Whisk” members have fun while cooking dishes, learning new recipes or just relax by having a chat with their friends, from time to time there are also bigger events that we organize where we either have contests for “Whisk” members only that determine the best cooks from (title that needs to be defended usually every 6 months). We also organize events for the good people of Charleston, West Virginia. Next to what we have already mentioned, of cooking meals for the “Mountain Mission Inc”, we also organize picnics where everybody can come, cook, eat, and just have in general.
Join us
Have you heard enough? Would you like to join and become a member of our little group? Well then shoot us a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. You’ll get a message from us after we take a look at your request, so you better make it a good one. Read here more about what we would like to know about you and what you need to put in the request. Hope to hear from you soon.