Chesterfield foodies keep busy during lockdown with quarantine cookery classes on YouTube

A Chesterfield foodie duo are helping to keep the town’s culinary skills up to scratch during the lockdown by hosting online cookery classes.
Tim Paget
By Tim Paget
Published 21st May 2020, 17:35 BST
Updated 22nd May 2020, 11:15 BST

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Quarantine Cuisine is the brainchild of Richard and Laura Alsop, who are best known in the area for organising the Chesterfield Food and Drink Festival through their company Edge Events Management.

With the coronavirus crisis devastating large parts of the tourism and leisure industries, Richard and Laura were forced to rethink their plans when all events planned for this summer were cancelled.

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Wanting to ‘stay as productive as possible’ and to ‘offer something new’, they quickly decided online events were the way forward during the pandemic.

Laura said: “The concept was to create an interactive group where people from the community could share photos and recipes of their food accompanied by their favourite tipple.

“Step by steps of the cooking process was also encouraged if people wished to do so. The main thing was for people to have fun with like-minded people, brought together by food and drink.”

Within one week, the Quarantine Cuisine Facebook page had gained more than 1,000 members and currently stands just short of 2,000 members in a little over three weeks.

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Richard Alsop, of Chesterfield's Edge Events, with the first Quarantine cookery lesson on YouTube.Richard Alsop, of Chesterfield's Edge Events, with the first Quarantine cookery lesson on YouTube.
Richard Alsop, of Chesterfield's Edge Events, with the first Quarantine cookery lesson on YouTube.

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“Due to the popularity and the group membership growing so quickly we wanted to offer something unique for the Chesterfield area,” Laura said.

“We decided to launch the Edge Events YouTube Channel and film and host live cook-alongs where we would invite people from across the area to film a series of cooking demonstrations.”

Rich and Laura say the sessions are not just a platform for professionals and expert chefs, urging beginners to get involved.

Some of the creations posted on the Edge Events Facebook page.Some of the creations posted on the Edge Events Facebook page.
Some of the creations posted on the Edge Events Facebook page.

“To highlight this is a platform for all levels of cooking a member of the Edge Events team did the very first demo, cooking a traditional Punbjabi curry,” Laura said.

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“To coin a phrase this group is dedicated to ‘fun and frolics and mealtime shambolics’.

“The group page is light hearted and absolutely none offensive and brings together people off all different palettes and dietary requirements. It’s fun, informative and a one

stop page for all types of recipes for all types of food.”

For more information, visit the Edge Events Facebook page.

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