Young Chefs

Now that the holidays are over our young chefs program is in full swing again. Every Friday, the youth from Tyler Square and the Family Shelter gather together at the Family Shelter kitchen to mash, cut, dice, fry, beat, measure, and of course eat a meal that they prepared. Before the New Year, our rhyme and reason to young chefs was to experience food from the past. We had Indian fry bread, Settler’s food, and tried to use food that was in season as many had to in the past because it was the only food available. One of the favorites from last year was an apple cobbler. We had some great volunteers from the University of Washington Tacoma to help us out and the mascot even decided chip in, although the mascot definitely ate more than its share. This semester we’ve changed courses and will be trying foods from different cultures. We decided that this will open up some more opportunities to explore the endless possibilities of food. This past Friday we made coco rice and egg rolls. The kids did everything from cooking the beef to rolling the egg rolls to loading the dish washer. Some of the older kids were great for taking on the difficult role of frying the egg rolls. It was a messy job as the kitchen was already really hot on top of the steaming peanut oil. Many of the kids also took advantage of the crosswords and computer games available in-between jobs. It was a great team effort to pull all the components together for the meal. Time wasn’t really on our side as we started out, but as usual, we still had a little time to enjoy the fruits of our labor before everyone had to go. I had four egg rolls myself and way too much rice. In fact, we made so much food that we were able to share it for dinner with everyone from the Family Shelter.