cookforyourlife.org

When was the last time you took time to cook a meal from scratch? Most of us don't think we have time, and head for the prepared foods counter or the supermarket freezer case to grab dinner. Many of the foods there feature the word 'healthy' but are they? For people with cancer, this question becomes more nagging. What am I really eating? The answer is that we can only control what we put into our bodies by preparing it ourselves. This is where CookForYourLife! comes in.

Two time cancer survivor Ann Ogden Gaffney founded CookForYourLife! as a not-for-profit 501(C)3 with business partner Bruce Crouch in 2006.
Although Ann loves to cook, when she was going through treatment, she couldn't always face it, so she had to teach her husband, whose kitchen skills ran to ordering in pizza, how to cook a couple of simple nutritious dishes that he could make for the family with the minimum of effort. This gave her the idea for CookForYourLife!

CookForYourLife! cooking classes are hands-on affairs. Everyone gets their hands dirty! People really have fun - they see that cooking doesn't have to be a chore. All the menus are simple and quick to make and use the freshest and healthiest ingredients possible. Ann uses her experience of how chemo and radiation feels to make sure that all the dishes are user friendly.

CookForYourLife! provides 101 nutrition classes as a complement to the cooking. Working with our partners, we organize field trips to local supermarkets and farmer's markets, and guide people towards the right choices from the enormous selection of produce and merchandise available. After all, shopping for food is a big part of cooking well!

CookForYourLife! is about food for the body and the soul!
Last but not least, perhaps the most important aspect of all our classes is the support they offer. Our goal is for all our classes provide a break from the routine of treatment and the difficulties of just getting through life each day.
This is a warm relaxed environment. While they cook, the participants chat about the food and their lives, and share their experience of their illnesses. By the time the class sits down together for dinner afterwards, the atmosphere is fun and social. They are enjoying eating the food they have made, and each others' company. CookForYourLife! is not just about learning to cook and healthy eating, it is about being alive and loving it!

About Ann:

Ann comes from an Anglo-Italian family of eaters. Her Mom’s father and uncle were Italian chefs, her Dad was an English baker. She never really stood a chance! She has been an avid cook since she was 12 years old.
Through her career in fashion as a designer, she has traveled the world over for her job, trying as many new cuisines as possible along the way! she lived in Paris for 12 years, working in Italy for 3 months each year: Japan was her other frequent destination. In 1985, she came to live and work in New York City.

In 2001 she was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and had her right kidney removed, then in 2005, unusual soreness in her left breast announced an unrelated breast cancer. Having recovered from major surgery and then, less than 4 years later, having to go through more surgery plus chemotherapy and radiation, she has deep personal experience on both a physical and psychological level, of what it means to receive a cancer diagnosis and to have to go through the rigors of treatment.

After everything she had gone through, it seemed Illogical to go back to designing clothing people didn’t really need, and logical to use her experience of both the disease and her love of cooking to do something positive for others who like her have had to endure the unavoidable suffering and loneliness of cancer.

Ann has wanted to do something with food for a long time. She is a long time practitioner of Zen Buddhism. After working many times as assistant Tenzo (cook) during retreats at Dai Bosatsu monastery in upstate New York, she came to understand that cooking can be an act of love, and that working for others is a great privilege.

Perhaps because of her background, for Ann nothing is a more an expression of living than eating. Like breathing we have to do it to stay alive, but unlike breathing, we actively think about it and enjoy it. Through the cooking classes, she feels she has found a simple way to put back some of the warmth and laughter, and to restore that joy of simply being alive that is so often lost during treatment. Ann understands that despite everything, life goes on, so we might as well have fun while we’re about it. Cooking can do that. This is what CookForYourLife! is really about.

Make a Donation!

All of our classes for patients and survivors are free! To help us keep them that way, make a secure credit card donation via PayPal from the 'Donate' button on our home page. We are a registered 501(c)3 charity. Your gift will be tax deductible!

Please check out our Events page for upcoming classes. You can also ask us for class information at: info@cookforyourlife.org

We now have a blog page! Visit it to send us your comments or favorite recipes!