Attention chefs,” said camp counselor Chef Jessica Bickford to the kitchen full of apron-clad young cooks.
“This is parsley. I want everyone to take a whiff and tell me what it smells like.”
“It smells like…wet leaves!” replied a blond girl as she sniffed the green ingredient.
School is out for the summer, but at Young Chefs Academy, kids are getting a different kind of education — one that they can actually eat.
Young Chefs Academy, a Texas-based company that gives cooking lessons to kids, has opened in Waterford Towers on Alafaya Trail. The new franchise is one of about 120 stores nationwide and the 13th store to open in Florida. During the summer months, Young Chefs Academy offers a summer camp that is a tasty mixture of learning and fun.
“This week was French week,” said Elizabeth Stewart, owner of Young Chefs Academy. “So we taught them about different French foods and a little bit about the country.” For the month of June, each week was themed with a different cultural cuisine — American, French and Italian. In July, the camp will take on an Olympics theme in honor of the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.
The camps are open to kids from ages 3-14. At the Academy they learn about different ingredients, foods and the basics of cooking and cleaning up. “I was just shocked at how young they are and how interested they are in cooking,” Stewart said. “They want to be like the next Bobby Flay.”
Each camp consists of a three-hour sessions on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The camps are divided into two groups, each with their own colorfully decorated kitchen. Older kids are in one kitchen and the younger group cooks in the other. “We separate them and let the older kids do some more advanced variations of the dishes,” Stewart said.
Both groups are guided by two teachers each, who read off recipes and sneak in a little math and science whenever they can. “We do all of these educational-type things within the summer camp without the kids really recognizing it,” Stewart said.
“We go over the different measurements and the equivalents, how to divide the recipes between everyone in the class.”
In addition to inserting facts and education into the cooking curriculum, everything the kids make is from scratch. And, to put the cherry on top of a fun-filled day, the kids get to take home the recipes they made at the Academy—and a little more confidence in the kitchen.
Young Chefs Academy also runs workshops, birthday parties and will host field trips during the school year.
The first workshop the Academy offered was on Mother’s Day. The young chefs made a meal of breadsticks and minestrone soup for their moms.
“The kids thought it was really cool to be able to do something like that for their moms,” Stewart said. “The kids are so proud of everything they do, it never ceases to amaze me.”
