(WSVN) – Kids are cooking up some fun in this 7Spotlight, and they’re also learning important lessons along the way. 7’s Heather Walker shows us how.
Chef D: “I’m Chef D. How ya’ll doing today?”
Kids: “Good!”
Chef D is welcoming his latest group of future cooks.
Chef D: “Welcome to ‘Kids Can Cook.’
Miami Chef Dario Stephen created the “Kids Can Cook” program to teach children how to make healthy and delicious food.
Samiah: “Now, because of Chef D, I can cook.”
Heather Walker: “That’s amazing! How does that make you feel?”
Samiah: “I feel great and I feel excited.”
You can feel the energy when Samiah and the rest of the kids put on their aprons and chef hats to start preparing the food.
Chef D: “You want to huuuh (making a sound). You want that bread to be like a sponge, and then you want to flip it over, and when you pick it up, it’s like, ‘Oh goodness,’ and then oh yeah.”
On the menu today: French toast.
Chef D: “Let it drip, let it drip, one, two, skip a few 99, 100”
It’s a simple recipe.
Chef D: “Higher, higher, all right.”
With only a few ingredients.
Chef D: “Little bit more, thank you.”
For Chef D, this group of students is extra special because these kids are experiencing homelessness.
His goal is to make sure they leave with much more than a meal.
Chef D: “What I see them taking away a lot of times is confidence.”
Confidence that comes from learning to cook a dish successfully.
It’s not just about cooking; it’s about embarking on an adventure.
Chef D likes to use recipes that introduce his students to new places.
Chef D: “Just like with reading, I try to take them with food to different places. So you can experience India because we just made this Indian dish.”
These classes instill a love for cooking in some of the kids.
Lanardo: “I love making it.”
Heather Walker: “Why do you love making it?”
Lanardo: “Because I want to be a chef.”
And they all love how Chef D cooks up a fun time…
LJ: “He’s really nice.”
Lanardo: “He’s very funny.”
…While learning.
Esther: “So he was making Captain Crunch Chicken, and he said, ‘When you get into a pool, do you jump in the pool or do you walk down the stairs? You walk down the stairs so you don’t splash anyone,’ so we put it in the thing and then we let it go.”
For Chef D, it’s about passing his passion onto the next generation.
Chef D: “A lot of people want to focus on health and nutrition. That’s important, but my angle is to get them to fall in love with cooking. And as they fall in love with cooking, it’s going to correct some of the practices they have with eating processed foods, because they are cooking or eating out, and eating fast food because they are cooking.”
He hopes the lessons he’s serving up will last a lifetime.
Heather Walker 7News.
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