Cookbook Story | Cooking with Camden

Guest Blogger - Jan 29, '21 - Cookbook Stories - Corporate

Camden (NYSE: CPT) is one of the largest publicly traded multifamily real estate investment trusts in the United States. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Camden provides Living Excellence to residents in over 165 apartment communities nationwide. Our WHY - to improve the lives of our employees, customers, and shareholders one experience at a time.

What inspired Cooking with Camden?

Camden’s culture is the bedrock of what makes us Great Place to Work-Certified™ and named on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® list for 13 consecutive years. Camden fosters culture with our many, long-standing traditions. Corporate departments and our apartment communities all take part in Camden’s folklore. I oversee three groups with over 100 employees – Information Technology, Marketing, and our internal contact center, and we take culture seriously! We have a small team each year that champions our Culture Club. The group coordinates and hosts quarterly events at the corporate office, ranging from ice cream socials, pep rallies, food donation drives to even a taco truck rolling through the halls.

In addition to quarterly fun, my department has hosted a Thanksgiving Potluck lunch every year since 2006. It is our group’s special time to gather, share our favorite dishes and wish each other well for the upcoming holiday season. To add to the fun, we have been known to have some recipe competitions. Any time there are more than two Camden employees in a room, it turns into a friendly competition! We have judged the best desserts, best cookie, best deviled egg, and best chili, just to name a few. The Thanksgiving Potluck lunch is an experience and an invitation for other departments, it is the hottest ticket in town. Breaking bread with teammates across our organization brings us all closer.

2020 is a year to remember (or try and forget). It is the year everything has changed, including traditions. The COVID-19 pandemic threatened the future of the Culture Club and our annual Thanksgiving Potluck. Instead of being sad, we got creative. We figured out a way to continue our tradition AND improve it by making it bigger and better! The Camden Cookbook grew into a way to expand our Culture Club experience and invite everyone in the company to participate.

How did you gather recipes?

We invited all Camden team members nationwide to submit their favorite, tried-and-true recipes, and they delivered. It was easy, employees entered their favorite recipe directly into CreateMyCookbook.com. Hundreds of recipes were submitted by the Camden family; we now have more than 280 recipes to wreak havoc on our 2021 diet resolutions.

What makes Cooking with Camden special?

Food has always been a way for people to come together, to share their traditions and their tastes. Having a cookbook full of contributions from Camden team members connects us and allows us to share our lives with one another. The icing on the cake (pun intended), proceeds from printed versions of Cooking with Camden will be donated to the Camden Employee Relief Fund. Order your copy of Cooking with Camden for a taste of living excellence!

Next: How to Create a Family Recipe Book