Jr. Chef Extradonaires

   

  It's hard to believe that today is the last day for our Jr. Chef Day Campers.  We have tried to give them all sorts of challenges along the way and like a group of smart and dedicated young people they have risen to our challenges.  Today we are focused on taste testing, team building, and of course cooking up something special.  Today our challenge word is goodbye, although most of our youth don't want to say it, we are practicing for the end of this grand adventure.

  After listening to some of the conversations we decided we needed to work on a little team building.  So we refocused energies and asked our youth to write their name on a piece of paper.  We went ahead and added our adults and volunteers names to paper and proceeded to pass them around the group.  Each person was tasked with writing something positive about that person that no one else had written.  When teh youth got done we collected everything and gave it to our adults to write on as the day progressed.  After being reminded of all the positive things about our team it was a little easier to sit down and tackle the Sourdough Challenge.

  At this point we split into two groups one headed to the kitchen the other to the tables to work out sourdough challenges.  Our youth collected their data and the big talk was about the aroma of their starters.  I had brought in my starter and the youth said the smell was much tamer so we talked about how and why that happens and what they can do at home to make that happen for them.  They said they are excited about taking home their starter and hope that parents will let them make bread our other fun things as a result. 

After smelling our starter it was time to taste test.  Interestingly enough our youth felt that their sense of smell greatly impacted their sense of taste so they ballparked ways to clean the aroma from their starter so that they could better taste the breads we bought yesterday.  Today our youth got to sample: german pumpernickel; sourdough; warmed potato, cheddar, and chive, rolls; and cinnamon swirl bread.  They all recognized the pumpernickel from a famous chain steak house but this fresh bread was much different then the small loaves that they get from that chain.  Their favorites were tied between the dinner rolls and the cinnamon swirl bread.  All of them said the texture of the fresh bread was much different than store bought and they started creating ideas for tasty butters to put on them.

In the meantime in the kitchen our youth were prepping for lunch.  Today we had a taco bar.  So ground beef needed to be seasoned and cooked, chicken needed to be heated, and toppings needed to be chopped.  We had chips and flour tortillas so when it came time for lunch our youth could make soft tacos, burritos, fajitas, quesadillas taco salads or other fun things all made to order (because they are the chefs).  Lunch went over very well and our youth had a great time in the kitchen today.

After lunch we had a little downtime and then got our papers back from the beginning of the day with our names on them.  Everyone took a little time to see what folks read about them and some needed to know if statements were positive or negative.  For example is spontaneous, drink spitting funny, too crazy are those positives, negatives?  After exploring what folks thought and in some cases the person who wrote it saying why they wrote it spontaneous was because the person can act bravely in all instances.  Drink spitting funny was saying something so calmly and so funny that it was unexpected and made a person almost spit their drink out of their mouth when it hit them.  Too crazy was next level fun and craziness and too means more so too crazy.  All meant in a positive way and sometimes we need to learn to accept things in the manner in which they were intended rather than read into things.  A lesson we need everyday in life.

Our chefs had one more chance in the kitchen to make masterpieces.  Today is ice cream bar day and our chefs made their own ice cream sundaes.  they had vanilla ice cream, sprinkles, sauces that included chocolate, carmel, butterscotch, and strawberry, not to mention whipped cream.  The made some masterful desserts/snacks and apparently they were all delicious because they didn't last long.

Our last activity of the day involved live animals.  I know that seems a little shocking.  However tomorrow is our animal science program animal give out and 4-H members who sign up get to pickup their chickens, rabbits, and goats that will be shown at the fair.  That means our chickens arrived at the post office today and we had to pick them up and unpack them for tomorrow.  That also meant our 4-H members got the chance to touch, hold and learn about Rhode Island Red Chickens and about our animal science program.  I think they enjoyed this unexpected development in the day.

By the end of the day we had a slideshow and just enjoyed some time with our friends, old and new and talked about upcoming Summer Fun Camps.  We want to give a big thank you to all the staff and volunteers who helped out with this camp.  Also a shout out to former 4-H Agent Dave Welch who owns US Cellular for his donation of drawstring bags and water bottles for our youth.  It was the perfect thing to take our starter and cookbooks home with us.  We so appreciate your kindness to our 4-H youth.  We hope to see everyone soon.

To see the photos from today please click this link.