Seconds, Please! Cooking with Pride: Second Edition Cookbook Now Available

Within Creative Alliance's Creativity Center kitchen, surrounded by cabinets overflowing with cooking utensils and ingredients, a grandmother learned to roll up vegetables and rice in seaweed to create healthier after-school snacks for her grandchildren. During another class, an older lesbian couple reminisced about their first home-cooked meals together over a sizzling skillet of salmon.

This is **Cooking with Pride**: a Pride Center initiative designed to bring community members together through the joy of food, culture, and connection. Led by local chefs, these hands-on cooking experiences introduced participants to new culinary skills, healthy and accessible recipes, and meaningful connections fostered in a welcoming and affirming environment. The classes were housed in the kitchen of Creative Alliance, a cornerstone of Baltimore's arts and cultural community located in the Highlandtown neighborhood. Creative Alliance was an ideal home for Cooking with Pride, as its innovative programming and artistic experiences aim to educate, inspire, and strengthen the community.

These recipes, stories, and connections are now free and available for everyone. The Pride Center of Maryland is excited to roll out the **second edition of its Cooking with Pride Cookbook series**. This edition takes participants, staff, and readers on a heart-healthy culinary journey, exploring hearty Southern traditions, fresh vegetarian cuisines from across Asia, and the bold spices and flavors of the Caribbean.

Cooking with Pride is more than a cooking class, and it's more than a cookbook — it's an opportunity to build community, wellness, and fellowship while celebrating the diverse experiences and traditions that make our LGBTQ/SGL* community vibrant and resilient. We are grateful for our partnership with Creative Alliance and the talented chefs they provided, whose expertise helped create meaningful and memorable experiences for our participants.