Vegan Magda Community Kitchen
Food, connection, and the quiet magic of cooking together

Vegan Magda Community Kitchen CIC grew from a very simple idea: that good food should feel accessible, joyful, generous, and shared.

It started with free dhal cooking classes — just a pot of lentils, a few spices, and a belief that cooking together could do something bigger than simply teach a recipe. The response was slightly wild, in the best possible way. The classes filled quickly, the waiting list grew, and it became very clear that people were hungry for more than just cooking tips. They were hungry for connection, confidence, community, and a different way of relating to food.

That is how the CIC was born.

Why this matters

I have always believed that plant-based food should not feel like a compromise, a punishment, or a sad little side dish hiding in the corner of the table. It can be abundant, exciting, deeply comforting, seasonal, affordable, and rooted in everyday ingredients.

Through the Community Kitchen, my aim is to make this kind of cooking more accessible — especially to people who may not usually be able to attend private cookery schools, chef-led workshops, or expensive wellness events.

This is not about perfection. It is not about becoming a “better” person overnight, buying a cupboard full of fancy ingredients, or learning restaurant tricks you will never use again. It is about real food, real hands, real tables, and learning skills that can come home with you.

What we do

Vegan Magda Community Kitchen CIC runs low-cost and community-focused cooking classes, workshops, and gathering-style food events from Terra Sensa, my cookery studio at The Retreat New Forest.

Past classes have included glorious beans, tofu without the trauma, sauce and crunch workshops, communal dinners, and hands-on sessions where we cook, taste, share, laugh, make a bit of mess, and leave with full bellies and new ideas.

Every class is built around ingredients rather than products. We focus on vegetables, pulses, grains, herbs, spices, ferments, sauces, texture, seasonality, and the kind of cooking that makes food feel alive. No fake meats, no ultra-processed shortcuts, no judgement — just proper flavour, practical skills, and a big communal table at the end.

More than a cooking class

The heart of this project is community.

So much of modern life is rushed, isolated, and disconnected from the basic things that ground us: cooking, eating together, using our hands, learning from each other, and sharing stories around a table.

The Community Kitchen is my way of creating a space where people can slow down, reconnect, and feel part of something. A place where beginners are welcome, nervous cooks are safe, curious eaters are celebrated, and plant-based food is explored with joy rather than pressure.

It is also a way of gently challenging the idea that good food has to be expensive, exclusive, complicated, or inaccessible.

Looking ahead

The future of Vegan Magda Community Kitchen CIC is full of ideas: more affordable cooking classes, fermentation workshops, kimchi gatherings, seasonal pop-ups, community feasts, food education projects, collaborations with local growers and makers, and classes that support people in cooking nourishing food with confidence.

The long-term dream is to grow this into a thriving community food programme — one that can offer real value, not only in the form of meals and recipes, but in confidence, connection, skills, and belonging.

Every catering booking, corporate event, private class, and collaboration through Vegan Magda and Terra Sensa helps make this work more sustainable. It allows the Community Kitchen to keep offering accessible classes and community-focused food experiences, while continuing to build something kinder, more connected, and rooted in care.

This is food with feeling.

This is community, cooked slowly.

This is Vegan Magda Community Kitchen CIC.