Women in Food of WNY presents:
Cooking Class with Gina Wieczorek
Homemade Duck Egg Pasta + Cacio E Pepe
Join me (Missy) along with Alex Levine from Yelp, as your hostess & host for this Virtual gathering of the Women in Food of WNY. In this Free Class with Gina Wieczorek, Co-Founder of Produce Peddlers, she’ll teach us how to make our own homemade pasta and then turn it into the iconic dish, Cacio E Pepe.
Cacio E Pepe is such a simple, yet sublime dish, using only cheese and the pasta water to create it’s creamy sauce texture. When you start with homemade pasta, you really can’t go wrong! Gina will be showing us how to make our own pasta using Duck Eggs (although you can use any eggs) and then from there, we’ll cook up a delicious plate of this peppery, creamy pasta. Add some peas for color and texture along with a side salad and voila— you’ve got dinner!
Along the way, I’ll be asking her questions and chatting about her journey with food at home and with Produce Peddlers, being a woman food entrepreneur in WNY and whatever spontaneously comes in our shared storytelling. I’ll also share some bits about Crown HIll Farm and my own passion for food and YOU will have a chance to ask questions as you cook and enjoy along with us!
Whether you cook along with us or just sit at the “table” and enjoy the conversation, I’m sure you’ll love to hear Gina’s story and learn how to make homemade pasta, (A little secret — its really easy!!) In addition to learning with us during this live, play-along, how-to adventure in the kitchen with Gina, you will get a copy of the recipe to use over & over again to make pasta for all your favorite spaghetti night desires!
About Gina Wieczorek: When Gina was diagnosed with MS, she was committed to holistic treatment after being dissatisfied with a traditional medical route. To accommodate her specific diet, rich in natural and organic foods, she searched out locally grown, organic produce finding that it was not as easy as she thought it would be. She drove daily to different farms in the Southtowns of Buffalo to get the freshest produce she could find, but didn’t always know what they would have, how much it would be, and how much of it would be available. With her passion for cooking delicious, fresh food for herself and her family, this inability to consistently access farm fresh food was frustrating.
In the meantime, her husband, Gary, after 20 years in the food industry was seeing how much beautiful perishable produce was going to waste. Together the husband and wife team came up with a tech-based idea to tackle both problems. After two years of planning, creating, and collaborating they launched Produce Peddlers in 2019 bring together farmers with bulk food consumers like restaurants and schools.
About the Women in Food of WNY series: Being a solo Woman Farmer and Woman Entrepreneur I have always kept my eye out for fellow women in business with whom to connect (and commiserate). As I’ve established myself in the WNY area, I have loved meeting new chefs and farmers alike. However, one thing that I noticed was a serious lack in attention towards women Chefs and Farmers of the region, despite the fact that there are many of us. Here at Crown Hill Farm, we love to host Farm-to-Table dinners featuring local chefs preparing seasonal foods. From there, I saw a vision: A series of dinners highlighting the women chefs of WNY. Now, in 2020 with COVID keeping us all away from social gatherings in person, I had to get creative while hanging on to this vision of featuring women in food in WNY. And so, after many conversations with incredible women, this series was born! This is the first step to what I hope will be a Conference of WNY Women in Food. For now, let’s gather around our respective kitchens to chat, cook and learn together.