“Nun Better” – Sister Circulates Cooking Skills on YouTube

Bring Me A Friar, nah, I mean a frying pan

A cooking nun? On YouTube, of all places? Well, why not?

Sister Vicki Ix, a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Virginia is one hip nun. A graduate of culinary school who found her calling in a religious order, she took her passion for food, God and doing good works (not necessarily in that order) to the Internet, where she cooks and shares recipes on her homegrown series, Nun Better.

Sister Vicki loves eating and cooking for her religious community. Before entering the monastery, she had a brief career as a sous chef in a small restaurant in her hometown of Maplewood, New Jersey. She is also a big fan of television cooking shows and has a great affection for the celebrity chefs on the Food Network. “My theory is you can only learn Italian cooking from real Italians,” she said in Lesson 1A of her series, where she was preparing Spaghetti Bolognese. “Forget the books, unless they’re by real Italians. Lidia Bastianich, love her. Giada, love her. And she is the only skinny chef I actually trust!”

One of the mandates of Sister Vicki’s outreach is working with young women who feel they have a calling to the religious life. So she has a Facebook account and writes a blog. She was just featured in the Sunday edition of the Richmond Times Dispatch and will have a follow-up story in this Wednesday’s “Food” supplement. But Sister Vicki’s passion for cooking and her willingness to take risks is helping her connect with the generation of young women that she’s trying to reach. More power to her.