Photo by Jeffrey S. Hall Photography
Eileen Pewitt has come a long way.
This time last year, she was helping to run a food pantry out of a garage. Today, she’s running the same operation on a large scale out of a spare room in a New Albany school building.
“This is like a palace compared to what they had before,” Pewitt says. “It’s really hard to find a place when you’re a nonprofit and you don’t have money.”
People don’t always realize that hunger and access to food are significant problems in New Albany, but Pewitt and the Village Coalition Against Hunger (VCAH) have been working to raise awareness and improve the situation.
“When it first started, this community was like, ‘We don’t really want to believe that that’s a problem here,’” Pewitt says. “Every month, we seem to gain more connection.”
For Pewitt, connection is huge. It’s what she strives for with the food pantry – connecting clients to resources and recipes. It’s how she found herself teaching and presenting with the City Life Center and Bradford School, it’s how she convinces others to use their skills and it’s what brought her to cooking in the first place.
Pewitt wasn’t always a cook, at least not in this sense, though she’s long been a lover of the kitchen. Years ago, Pewitt was a nurse in Chicago. Two kids, one move and some time later she found herself in New Albany, looking for the next thing when her first son went to college.
That thing was culinary school.
“We always hear people say, ‘Do what you love, follow your passion, take a risk,’ that sort of thing,” Pewitt says. “Because we were fortunate enough that we didn’t need my income, I said, ‘Well, what the heck.’”
The transition from nursing, to the Bradford School’s Columbus Culinary Institute, to teaching and confronting food insecurity makes more sense than it may initially seem.
As a nurse, Pewitt saw herself as a teacher, helping clients understand how to best take care of themselves. When she graduated culinary school, she saw the potential to share her knowledge of and passion for cooking with others.
A chance connection at church led her to teach culinary classes at Central Ohio Youth for Christ’s City Life Center. For the last few years, Pewitt, along with founder Joyce Pinson, have been working to introduce students to cooking – both the basics and “cool stuff.”
Since then, Pewitt’s culinary resume has grown to include VCAH, presentations as a Bradford School admissions agent and cooking classes at the Philip Heit Center for Healthy New Albany.
“To me, it made sense that somehow I could share what I learned,” Pewitt says. “That’s what I did in nursing; I shared what I learned with those families.”
Pewitt has little trouble making the connections, but she has found some challenges bringing others’ attention to the issues. Particularly with regard to New Albany, Pewitt has encountered some uncertainty about the significance of food insecurity.
Photo by Jeffrey S. Hall Photography
“We’re not that much different than other communities,” she says. “People look at us here like we’re the golden mecca or something, but we have the same issues. People can’t believe that we have a food pantry.”
Within New Albany, though, Pewitt has found a community of people ready to help and give what they can. That’s one reason her family has called the city home for almost 20 years.
“There are a lot of people to help and connect with,” Pewitt says. “There are so many generous people here, both generous financially and with time.”
Pewitt has put her time to use trying to not only provide food and basic cooking instructions, but expand upon people’s knowledge. With the food pantry for example, she makes an effort to test and share new ways to use the same food. Try splitting a box of mac and cheese for a light olive oil pasta dish and, later, a cheesy popcorn snack.
Volunteering has become a lifestyle for Pewitt, and it’s something she thinks we all can do year round.
“Once you volunteer, you realize all the other volunteer opportunities that are there,” she says. “It’s little, teeny, tiny things too. Do you have a half hour to deliver groceries?”
While the first volunteer experience might not be the one, Pewitt says it can introduce people to other ways that they can put their own skills to use. After all, she’s all about connecting one thing to another. How can our skills be put to use? How can we do more? How can we get others involved?
“It’s hitting the pavement and meeting people,” Pewitt says. “The more people you come in contact with and the more you share your story, the better off the world is.”
Fit Five with Cameron Carr
What’s a favorite healthful recipe of yours?
I love a very basic, healthful chicken noodle soup that can be made in 15 minutes, because soup is such comfort. If I were going to have a business, it would be called Stone Soup, that story about two visitors who came through a village. They didn’t have food or money to buy food, so they went to the village and said, “We have this great recipe to make this stone soup.” They put this pot in the middle of the town square, they filled the pot with water, they put their stones in there. They eventually had the whole community coming and adding to the pot, then when that was finished, the community ate out of this pot of soup. So it’s a community connectedness kind of story.
Are there any foods you try to avoid?
I honestly don’t love raw fish, so sushi, I don’t love. I’ll eat it, but I don’t love it. I love to make it, but I don’t eat it.
What’s your favorite recipe to make?
I really love to make veal Bolognese sauce for pasta. It takes all day and it has wonderful flavors. Then you create this pasta dish and you can feed everyone; I love that.
What’s something you do to relax?
Crossword puzzles and cooking magazines. The whole idea of cooking and food is so comforting to me, so I love to look at new recipes and think about flavors and those kinds of things. Crossword puzzles for a few reasons; because we have Alzheimer’s disease in our family, plus I just love the challenge of finding the words. I usually do them at the end of the day or after dinner or when I’m in bed and, to me, that’s kind of like the end of the day.
What’s your favorite way to stay fit?
I love to play tennis. I started playing tennis when I was 36 and have enjoyed it ever since. It’s a great physical sport, it’s a great team sport – so there’s connectedness with other people. It’s one of the life sports so you can do it at any age. Like my son says, “You can’t play old geezer football, Mom.” But tennis, you can play.
Cameron Carr is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at adeperro@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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