Many thanks to Mardi for this installment of What’s Cooking with YOUR Kids. I love that she started a cooking club for boys!

When I watched the UK version of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution last year, I was, like many, horrified at what I was seeing.  Then, when I heard him speak in Toronto last year and received a copy of the Food Revolution Cookbook, I knew I had to go away and “pass it on”.  I am fortunate to be in a position to change little minds, working in a school with impressionable 8-12 year olds, teaching French, and I know the importance of teaching life lessons at a young age.

In January, I started “Les Petits Chefs” – an after-school cooking club for boys aged 9-12.  In the first term, we worked through  “C is for Cooking – Recipes from the Street” and the boys made a variety of dishes, both sweet and savory.  We focused a lot on the health factor, using brown instead of white rice, for example and adding a ton of dried fruits to our Rice Krispie squares for an added fibre boost.  The majority of boys in the club were 10-12 and we had a lot of insightful discussions about nutrition and dietary choices.  One of their favourite dishes, surprisingly, was the Cheesy Cauliflower and Broccoli Bake – who would have thought?

Last term I used Jamie’s Food Revolution Cookbook and had only a handful of boys join (it’s a big term for sports so many of them couldn’t do both), but we had an amazing 12 weeks.  The boys learned so much – from knife skills, to ingredient identification (!) to organizing their mise en place so the workspace would be tidy and, well, workable, these boys impressed me no end.

Bolognese Week!

We worked our way through a number of basic recipes – spaghetti bolognese, meatballs, and burgers for example.  We also branched out into some different dishes – chicken stroganoff and chicken chow mein and I showed the boys how easy it is to make your own sweet and sour dishes!  Jamie himself gave a few of our recipes a shoutout on Twitter and the boys could not have been more proud that Jamie himself knew what they were doing!

The parents were absolutely thrilled at what the boys were learning (and also what they were bringing home!) and I think one parent’s comment sums it up beautifully:

“Mardi, thank you for showing the boys that home cooking is a delicious and realistic alternative to dining out. We have looked forward to Tuesday night every week since the first week of Les Petits Chefs. We will need to adjust our dinner menu when Les Petits Chefs takes a break for the summer!”

If I have showed even a handful of boys that cooking is do-able and delicious, my mission this year is complete.  Next year? The Revolution will continue with more Petits Chefs sessions and perhaps a “pass it on” component included in the club.  Baby steps…  Rome was not built in a day and we cannot change the way people eat overnight.  But eventually, if enough people get on board, the “real food” revolution will succeed.

Mardi Michels is a full-time French teacher and part-time food blogger based in Toronto.  Her blog, eat.live.travel.write focuses on culinary adventures both near and far because she travels as often as she can!

I would love for YOU to share a story about your kids in the kitchen. I am also going to start sharing guest posts from children – sharing their perspective of a cooking or foreign food experience! This blog will be featured in Scholastic Magazine in August/September, so get your post in soon!