Dangerous Minds in the Kitchen

For the last month, I've been volunteering for Operation Frontline, a nonprofit that puts on cooking and nutrition classes for various disadvantaged populations. I contacted them several months ago because it seemed like something right up my alley, and after talking with the Operation Frontline rep, I agreed to do a six week program teaching teenagers how to cook, and also to host the class in our kitchen at Generous Servings. I was excited about this--I love teaching teens to cook, and it seemed like this volunteer opportunity was exactly the type of thing we've been looking for to put the "generous" in Generous Servings.

The teens for my class were recruited from a group at the local United Way that is composed of kids in foster care who are learning life skills that will help with their imminent emancipation (how bizarre to use that term to refer to getting out of foster care--these kids aren't slaves!). I had a meeting with various people involved with the group to discuss the particular needs of this population, and it became clear that there was some skepticism about whether I could handle working with these kids. In an attempt to impress upon me the severity of the potential behavioral issues of these teens, one person said, "It's going to be like 'Dangerous Minds' in the kitchen," which immediately became a joke around Generous Servings. Jill and I even rented "Dangerous Minds" the night before my first class so that I could get warmed up. Now we refer to the class as Dangerous Minds, as in, "I've got Cooking Basics on Sunday, Herbs and Spices on Tuesday, and Dangerous Minds on Wednesday."

Despite the dire warnings, none of the teens has attempted to stab me with a chef's knife yet. In fact, they are incredibly well-behaved. It actually makes me sad, because I think they've had all the normal teen boundary-pushing tendencies beaten out of them. They raise their hands to talk, even when we're just sitting around the dining table, they call me "Miss", and one of them showed me her hands for my approval after she washed them. A few of them are not really interested in the cooking, but the majority are really into it, which is fun. We're working from a curriculum set by the program, which also incorporates nutrition lessons (there's a volunteer nutrition educator who does that part), so all the recipes are "lite". That part is kind of annoying, since I think fat-free cheese is about the grossest thing on the planet, but I'm surviving. So far we've made pizzas (with whole wheat crust, which doesn't work, in case you're wondering), macaroni and cheese with low-fat everything and whole wheat pasta, fruit smoothies, and vegetable chili and buckwheat pancakes (both my recipes, which came out fantastic). I hope the kids are having fun--it's hard to tell with these kids, but I think they're getting something out of it. If nothing else, they have a darn good pancake recipe.