If you could cook a meal with your favourite athlete, who would it be, and would you be better than them?
One downtown business is putting that question to the test by hosting the London Lightning basketball team to cook dinner alongside a few fans.
Jill Wilcox is the owner of Jill’s Table and explains what’s going to happen the night of the event.
“So we have four of their players coming. They will partner up with two customers and they will make pizza,” says Wilcox. “It will be a hands on class and we’re going to put some fun into the class because we may take some key things out of the equation that are necessary to make pizza just to make it a bit of a challenge.”
Friendly neighbours
It would help the partnership between Jill and the Lightning that her business is a stone’s throw away from Budweiser Gardens, the Lightning’s home arena.
“What happened was Downtown London approached us and said they would like us to be the recipient of a 50/50 draw. Part of that partnership was that we would also do a fundraiser for the foundation here at the store with the London Lightning,” Wilcox says.
She adds that the nobody really needs to know how to cook all that well.
“One of the nice things about pizza, it’s such a universal food and obviously we’ll be helping them. I think between the London Lightning team member and the two people who are coming, I would think they’ll be well able to put out a good pizza.”
Jill Wilcox Foundation
Tickets can be bought through the Jill’s Table website. She explains what the proceeds go to.
“The Jill Wilcox Foundation, we established that two years ago. We helped a group through the Thames Valley District School Board called ReConnect, and that’s a program whereby young people who have fallen out of the education system have an opportunity to come back and finish their grade 12 so that they can go back and possibly pursue further education,” she explains.
“Many of the students are young moms so we went in and did a cooking class, outfitted them with a cooking tote, gave them a cookbook and showed them some really great, economical meals.”
