Creative Help: Rachel Hunt

Cooking Square Meals in a Few Hundred Square Feet

Article #1 about cooking during COVID-19

By: Natalie Scarlett, Huckleberry Literary

While some couples plant themselves on the couch, freelance chef Rachel Hunt and her partner, local filmmaker at New Trash Media Jesse Nyander, are planting seeds in their backyard and a new show on Youtube. Rachel Hunt has created menus for new restaurants around the country, cooked everywhere from food trucks to fine dining, and knows how to butcher a pig, make cheese, and forage for wild ingredients along the Front Range. All her talents combine in her new cooking show,  Gourmet Shut-in, where she teaches Fort Collins folks how to frugally feed themselves while staying hyper-local.

Her warm smile and killer knife skills burst through the screen into your kitchen. She teaches her audience to break down a whole chicken, jumpstart a sourdough starter with freshly foraged juniper berries, and build raised garden beds with salvaged wood neighborly donated by someone off Craigslist.

Targeted at Millennial and Gen Z viewers, she hopes to teach young people how to eat well despite economic austerity. Young people living alone or with roommates are often disproportionately broke and out of work because of the shutdown so learning how to make the most of dried beans or other cheap ingredients is a skill she hopes to impart with humor and panache. Rachel Hunt leaves us with these parting words: “As we regrow its important to support our local farmers and businesses, and for a large percentage of our population they might find that financially difficult, this show will help you how to eat well while supporting our neighbors.” 

See them at: “Gourmet Shut-in” Youtube cooking videos channel. 

This article is part of a series of highlights about our Fort Collins artists and creatives making a difference during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Thank you for supporting local artists, musicians, creative small businesses and Downtown Fort Collins!