‘Tis the season to be cooking up a storm and if you’re looking for inspiration in the kitchen, you may want to turn to Facebook’s “Dinner Mumspiration”.
It’s a group that had 2,000 members when Global Montreal first checked in with the founder last year.
Now, it’s nearly quadrupled in size and the group is no longer exclusively online.
A stay-at-home mother of two from Vaudreuil-Dorion was craving a connection with others and searching for inspiration in the kitchen when she turned to Facebook close to two years ago and created Dinner Mumspiration.
It’s a picture-driven group that’s grown from just a handful of members to close to 8,000 amateur cooks from around the world.
“Everybody who is a member of the group is there to share to encourage, to inspire. There’s no shaming -which is very difficult to find on social media these days- so I’m incredibly proud of that,” the group’s founder Myriam Porrazzo said.
Watch above: Dinner Mumspiration: meal ideas for the everyday family
Most of the members are Canadian.
One of the group’s administrators hails from Edmonton and calls it a lifesaver, both in terms of meal ideas and because of the social interaction it offers up to members.
“I would not hesitate to invite several of them over to my house if they happen to be coming to town,” mother-of-three Alexandra Reid said.
“It’s like long-lost sorority sisters or something, because we can all relate. And even the men in the group, they’re awesome!”
The idea isn’t only to share picture-perfect dinners but it’s also to show that everyone fails.
“When you see those fails you know ‘hey I’m not alone’ and we can feel comfortable in that,” Reid told Global News.
“There’s no judgement, there’s no shame. And even if someone laughs at you, it’s in good nature and it makes you feel better about your fail.”
The group’s founder recently decided to take her following to the next level – offline – offering real-life cooking classes.
READ MORE: Stuck in a ‘food rut’? Dinner Mumspiration serves up unique meal ideas
“I think it’s a nice way to just have a night out, it’s a nice way to meet people in real life,” Porrazzo said.
And at the end of the day, it’s not the finished product that counts.
It’s the team work, both on and off-line, that make a remarkable meal that much better.
“There is a friendly camaraderie in the group,” Reid said.
“It’s not in any way competition but it kind of makes you think ‘hey I want to see if I can do that, if I can lift myself up to that level’.”