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Cedar Rapids chef starts new online food platform to share recipes, community
New website brings charity, community and education together
Oct. 10, 2024 6:15 am, Updated: Oct. 10, 2024 12:04 pm
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CEDAR RAPIDS — It’s like Facebook for food.
But CookingHub, a new online platform launched by founder and chef Tom Slepicka on Sept. 17, is more than a place to scroll through memes or look at your friends’ vacation photos.
With elements of social media, recipe books and educational tools, the website is converging a community around its love of food while fighting hunger — both for website users and those struggling with food insecurity.
“We want to build a community around food. Everyone, regardless of their income, enjoys food,” said Slepicka.
How it works
With options for public or private profiles, the website run by nonprofit charity CookingHub Foundation makes accessibility to food a reality, both online and offline.
Users can make profiles as a safe place to save family recipes. Career chefs can show off impeccable technique. Food influencers and bloggers of all levels can connect with foodies of all stripes.
And all of them can become “friends” with each other, by clicking the “Follow” button.
“We want to be a one-stop shop for content creators,” Slepicka said. “We don’t want to be a club for the elite. We want to be for everyone.”
Recipes uploaded to the website are vetted — and not every recipe is approved. Recipes aren’t judged on taste, but as a matter of quality assurance that may help the platform stand out from many others sharing recipes online.
“We care about making sure recipes are understandable,” Slepicka explained.
Chefs and cooks can compete for attention on the Cooks Chart, a ranking system for users to vie for the top positions. Unlike other social media platforms, CookingHub outlines its algorithm and helps users understand how to be seen with their content.
For smaller food influencers who may not have a website, CookingHub can serve as a home to bits and pieces they distribute across other platforms.
Recipes from the most budget-friendly to the most expensive are all in one place. But more than that, education is built into each recipe page in a way that makes cooking not only accessible, but intuitive.
Never heard of one of the ingredients listed? Just click on it to go to a new page explaining everything you could want to know about it. Don’t remember what that kind of knife or tool looks like? Just click on it to see a photo and learn how it’s used.
A comprehensive cooking guide in the website’s main menu shows users how to grasp basic kitchen knowledge, learn new techniques and get a handle on the difference between diets like veganism and Peganism.
Thousands of articles are at your fingertips, all organized and curated in a way that streamlines learning.
Over time, Slepicka hopes to add virtual classes to educate others on a larger scale about various styles of cooking, like how to make the most of your budget with little waste.
Tom Slepicka teaches a cooking class in collaboration with the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library from his home in southeast Cedar Rapids on Oct. 3, 2024. Slepicka started CookingHub, new online platform, which converges social media, community building and recipe sharing around a love food. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
Tom Slepicka sprinkles cooked dumplings with oil as he teaches a cooking class in collaboration with the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library from his home in southeast Cedar Rapids on Oct. 3, 2024. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
How it started
All of it is built around one understanding: no matter who you are or where your cooking skills are, you still have more to learn.
Slepicka, a native of the Czech Republic, has been teaching Czech cooking through his Zoom classes for several years with the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. From 2015 to 2016, he served his own food at Czech Deli in NewBo City Market.
But he always disliked one thing about his process for sharing content online. Posting a recipe was just that — a single recipe that doesn’t listen to feedback or learn from the group looking at it.
“What I like about cooking when I teach is that we can always learn from each other,” he said. “I believe even if someone is a Michelin-starred chef, they can learn something new.”
Cooking for charity
What started as an idea for a for-profit website eventually became a nonprofit venture led by Slepicka. As tens of millions around the world fight hunger, he hopes the website will serve as a platform not just to make food, but to help those who don’t have it.
The website, which is free to all users, relies on advertising revenue from website traffic, as well as donations to further its mission.
Run by CookingHub Foundation, the website allocates donations to its charitable partner — currently No Kid Hungry — to fight food insecurity. In the future, more partnerships are anticipated.
In addition to donations, 45 percent of the website’s income from other streams also will be donated to its partner.
That was important to the Czech-born founder. Born in 1984, his family’s mentality on food in Czechoslovakia was shaped by the Soviet Union’s rule until the early 1990s.
“We didn’t have some random things, like bananas and lemons, any time we wanted,” Slepicka remembers.
Though he always had food on the table, his family knew a world where children were at routine risk of going hungry. His great grandparents ran an orphanage before World War II, where they took in children from difficult circumstances — many of whom knew what it meant to be hungry.
In some instances, his grandparents would skip meals for several days.
“From my early upbringing, I was taught to not take food security for granted. It’s still a privilege,” he said. “I was taught an appreciation of what I had.”
So when Slepicka started bringing home the bacon as a working adult, he knew he wanted to do something meaningful to make a difference for others.
Donations for CookingHub foundation are accepted at cookinghub.com/donate.
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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