What’s cooking in the county?

   What’s cooking? There can be plenty of answers to that question. Just ask any of the kids who have taken a cooking class at the Young Chef’s Academy.

   The night I visited, nine middle and high school students were washing their hands as they prepared to make TGIF’s Brushetta Chicken Pasta and Applebee’s Blondie Brownies.

   Head chef, Joel Puckett asked the young men and women if anyone knew anything about cooking.

   “All I can do is preheat the oven,” volunteered Martin Sicard, a junior at Brookwood High School.

   “Everyone gets jobs to do, so that can be your first one,” said Chef Joel.

   As they prepared ingredients for the bruschetta, Chef Joel pointed out different kinds of tomatoes and showed why roma tomatoes worked best in this recipe. The junior chefs chopped tomatoes, snipped basil, sliced garlic cloves and ground fresh pepper for the marinade.

   While this mixture blended in the refrigerator, Chef Joel started on the brownies. He scooped up a cup of flour, leveled it with a knife and asked, “Is this one cup?”

   “No, it has air pockets. You need to tap it to get the air out,” said Mr. All-I-can-do-is-preheat-the-oven.

   As the evening progressed, these young chefs applied their math and science skills to measuring and mixing ingredients.

   They expanded their vocabulary as well. And so did I. Did you know that when Emeril pre-measures all his ingredients into little bowls that there’s a name for that?

   “Mise en place,” Chef Joel said several times, asking everyone to repeat this French term for having everything ready in advance.

   Young Chef’s Academy, which has locations in Lawrenceville, Buford and Duluth, caters to all levels of cooks.

   For teens there is ethnic cooking, which involves study of geography and foreign cultures. For pre-schoolers a lot of science is included. In an afternoon class I saw Shavonne Westcott, a graduate of New England Culinary Institute teach four-year-olds how to make a tornado in a bottle with oil and water.

   For home schoolers, the science of cooking is emphasized in children’s classes such as the science of eggs, bread, sugar and seasonings. 

   Lorraine Reymond, the owner of the Lawrenceville Young Chef’s Academy says she loves offering classes where parents and their children can cook together with all the utensils and ingredients are at their fingertips. Everyone can have fun together and not worry about cleaning up.

   Future classes include Planning a Halloween Party, Gift Giving Recipes, Cookie Exchange and Super Bowl Snacks.

   Reymond also offers team building events for corporations, where workers can get to know each other while cooking together, then use the facility for a business meeting.

   If you’d like to more about what’s cooking - or why the oven might be pre-heating - visit www.youngchefsacademy.com . 

093007

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