Cutting to the Root of Food

 Day one of 4-H Jr. Chef Academy was literally a cut above other Summer opportunities.  Our campers started our day learning knife skills with Mrs. Janice, the Family Consumer Science Agent with the Robeson County Cooperative Extension Office.  As part of that they practiced by chopping items for  lunch.  Our lunch was made of salad, homemade ranch dressing, spaghetti with homemade sauce, and garlic cheese bread.  Our campers got to make every part of it and it was awesome.  

While our campers were taking turns in the kitchen they also had the opportunity to work on some other activities.  This week we have two interns from the Robeson County Health Department who are joining us.  Today we talked about my plate with them.  We learned about vegetables, fruits, and grains and the different parts of the plant (which we found out is pretty much all parts) that we can eat.  We even planned our own nutritious meal as part of the activity.

After getting a chance to do both activities our campers hung out in the auditorium and learned about food careers by playing a matching game.  They drew cards that had different careers then had to find the other people With the same cards.  The catch was we couldn't  Show or cards or name our career.  We had to describe what the career did to find the other matches.

After our morning fun it was time to settle in for our lunch.  It was fabulous if we do say so ourselves.  After all of that what could we do to too if off?  We weren't done mixing things up yet.

We started the afternoon by meeting with Christina of Christina's Cafe.  She has a fashionably sensible apparel that Does not quite work for someone that cooks for a living, or even for fun.  She taught us about food safety and we had fun learning about her simple rules that let us avoid what could be some bad germs.

  After lunch we split up into two groups and practiced our chopping skills with Mrs. Janice.  This time we each made our own individual salads that we will eat with our picnic lunch tomorrow.  Those of us who were in the auditorium work on our Food Network competition.  We watched a kid baker competition to get and idea of the competition we will be Taking a part of this week and how to think about what we're making.  We are really excited and can't wait until we get our recipes and partners on Wednesday.

Our fun wasn't over.  We met with Mrs. Tamika Who showed us our germs and taught us how to wash our hands.  We also learned about eating proper portions and about how to get up and move.   We even got to help design our own whole grain snack of popcorn.  It was awesome.  

At the end of the day we played our favorite game, the silent game as parents came to pick us up.  All in all we packed a lot of fun, and learning, into one day.  We are looking forward to tomorrow which should be utterly fantastic.