“I love fresh, healthy and seasonal plant-based food that’s good for you and good for the planet”
This week we caught up with self-trained chef, Robyn Degener, whose passion for delicious nutritious food found her eschewing the corporate world to set-up healthy eating school, The Copper Pot Club.
Based in St John’s Community Centre, The Copper Pot Club has a simple ambition: to teach others just how easy (and tasty) a plant-based diet can be. So, as self-proclaimed healthy foodies, we were keen to find out more!
How did The Copper Pot Club begin?
I always had this dream of starting a weekend cookery school in the South of France, in an 18-room Chateaux, with an orchard out the back, a veggie garden, and my own herb garden. A place where people would come and spend the weekend, to cook and eat, harvesting the food from my garden, before making a meal together. It couldn’t get fresher or more seasonal if you tried. That was the dream.
I left my job in the city last year, and at that stage I thought “do I want to continue in the corporate world or hold on… let’s actually do what you’ve always dreamed about”.
Ok, I don’t live in the South of France, I don’t have an 18-room Chateaux, the veggie patch is going to come one day, but I still wanted to follow that dream of showing people how to cook healthy food and that’s the key.
It’s not just another cooking school, it never was meant to be that. It was always about fresh, seasonal, healthy food and that’s what made me start The Copper Pot Club.
So here I am in Reigate. I want to show everyone how to cook and enjoy delicious, healthy food.
How does The Copper Pot Club work?
The Copper Pot Club offers a range of local foodie experiences designed to help you eat more healthily – there are three:
1 - The Copper Pot Club Taster – the taster is an introductory tasting workshop designed for those curious to find out more about healthy eating.
2 - The Copper Pot Club Cook It – if you’re looking for more inspiration in the kitchen, my cooking classes will help turn you into a healthy meal pro.
3 - The Copper Pot Supper Club – for anyone looking for a delicious night out with a difference, then this is the one for you.
Where does The Copper Pot Club happen?
I run my tasting workshops and cooking classes at St John’s Community Centre, and I love that it is so central. You have St John’s on one side, with Meadvale, Reigate, Redhill and Earlswood all in walking distance.
It’s a fantastic space, we all share workstations and the stove top oven, which gives these workshops a wonderful family feeling of cooking together – I love it.
Do you have a favourite experience?
I have a few actually. One was the tasting workshop that I did last weekend. I cooked a three-course meal based on the blue zones; you will know the blue zones as the regions where people eat a Mediterranean diet that promotes health, long into old age.
So, I cooked this 3-course lunch inspired by blue zones and over the course of the lunch we chatted about making easy food switches in every-day meals, simple switches that can help you eat more nutritious food each and every day.
The following day, one of the ladies who came to the lunch emailed to say how it was a complete revelation for her, to taste how delicious a healthy nutritious meal can be. So many people struggle with the idea that healthy means bland, difficult or time consuming and that’s the point to the workshops: to show how easy, quick, and delicious healthy food can be.
A lot of what I do is around helping people to make a change. It could be people who have had a health scare or it could be mums who have kids coming home from school saying “I’m a veggie” and they need help cooking differently.
A lot of what I do is helping those people to show them how easy and delicious it can be.
Have you always been passionate about healthy eating?
I really do believe you are what you eat. I believe that if you eat healthily, you will be healthy. And, if you start eating healthily now, you will live longer in good health.
I’m so passionate about that, and that’s really what I want to help people with.
That’s The Copper Pot Club in a nutshell.
What can we expect next from The Copper Pot?
Right now, I’m teaching a group of ladies how to cook a Christmas dinner. From canapés and punch to the full show-stopper Christmas dinner, including a delicious Christmas pudding and edible gifts.
But in January we’re focusing on a supporting new year health targets. Whether it’s for Veganuary or something longer term, I want to help teach people how to eat healthily throughout the year.
Our tasting experience will be a new year kick-starter – focused on plant based butters, yoghurts and cheeses (none taste like coconut!), meat alternatives and how to get all the protein you need from plants. There will be some great basic knowledge in there.
We also have three cooking classes:
1. Breakfasts and brunches – this will deliver help with those mid-week breakfasts to ensure they’re packed with nutrients for the day ahead, alongside a traditional brunch with a plant-based twist.
2. Nourishing lunch boxes – this workshop will look at lunch boxes children actually want to eat! We include food that will give them energy for the day and help them concentrate in class. So delicious the full family will want to take a packed lunch!
3. Easy weekday dinners – we’re all tired by the time it comes to making dinner. This class is designed to show how, in 30 mins or less, you can make a healthy and tasty dinner; setting you up for the year ahead with some great meal planning knowledge.
Excitingly, we’re also talking to a local nutritionist to bring out a workshop early in the new year focused on food and its effects on hormones. With a particular focus on menopause and perimenopause, this is a great reflection of everything I believe in; how eating good things does good things to your body.
More information on upcoming experiences can be found on The Copper Pot Club website.
Robyn has so many ideas about making healthy eating accessible and fun, from the workshops tailored towards family eating and kids’ lunch boxes to the more ‘grown -up’ sessions where delicious puddings are paired with beer from local sustainable brewer Crumbs Brewing.
Her authentic passion healthy eating is genuinely contagious.
Whether you want knowledge to support your own healthy eating goals or a group experience to share with friends and loved ones, The Copper Pot Club has so much to offer, and Robyn’s repeat guests are a true testament to how enjoyable and informative her experiences are.
Follow The Copper Pot Club on: