The sound of pans crashing into one another while hearing a lot of laughing. Watching a mixer beat together eggs and sugar through a planned zoom call. Following the instructions given to perfect the next step of the recipe. The online cooking club is a club like no other in Francis Lewis High School. 

The Cooking Club is a club that meets every Thursday at 3:40pm on Zoom. There are over 30 people in this club, where students cook and bake with others while following recipes. It’s unique in that it most likely wouldn’t have been possible in pre-pandemic times. 

“Before Covid we’ve been wanting to do this,” Starvos Georgiou, the club president, said. “And then this situation happened, and in a way it kind of worked out because I don’t think this club would have been able to exist if we weren’t all doing it at home.”

Since the club is so big, there’s never a dull moment in while cooking. There’s laughter, talking, and friendships being formed through the Zoom squares. This is exactly what the club was meant to do according to one of the members, Abigail Niyazov, a junior.

“I hope that the people who join kind of feel a little more confident in the kitchen or make friends and have fun,” said Niyazov.

Diversity in dishes and cuisines is also a key feature of the club, as many students bring to the club different dishes from around the world. Board members take suggestions on what they should make in the next zoom meeting and every dish is considered.

“I’m most excited about the new dishes that we are going to make and the new dishes I never even heard of that our classmates, our peers, have told us about,” said Paris Sakellaridis, a junior. 

Most people in the club have experience with cooking while others are just starting to learn. No matter how different the experience is, the cooking club now has the experience to share together. They all learn and have fun at the same time, which is what Ellie Siakavellas, a board member, wanted.

“I have always loved cooking and I wanted to share with others,” Siakavella shared.

To the student of FLHS, we are in really stressful times. And according to Danitza Lezama, a member of the cooking club, this club has helped relieve the anxieties that the global pandemic has caused.

“For me the cooking club is a stress relief from all of the school work and everything,” explained Lezama.

The cooking club has became a safe place for all of the members. None of this could have been done without the board members and president of this club. Stavros Georgiou explained why he chose the people he did to help him run this club. 

“They are all my friends and I trust them,” said Georgiou. “And I have wanted to involve them because I thought they were really good leaders and I thought that they would do a good job helping me.”