Cooking Club

Cooking is something I really enjoy doing but I don’t talk about it a lot. The DP is a wholesome programme which encourages its students to study, participate in events and take part in service. When I got the chance to lead a club, I took the opportunity and ensured that I lead a club which, I loved teaching. After a long talk with two of my classmates we decided to start “The Cooking Club” or “Health & Nutrition Club”. Our main idea is to teach underprivileged children how to cook foods that we commonly eat. This food is quick to make, doesn’t cost a lot to create and is easy to cook at home!

Our first cook was the eggless pancakes. I never knew that we could make such a dish but I was about to try something new. We gave them smalls tasks for this lesson as we were still trying to understand how far we can let the kids use the equipment in the kitchen. We made the batter and took turns to cook them into pancakes, we had to handle the gas because we had to maintain safety at all times with the children. One mistake I made was to let the pancake cook on one side and put pieces of chocolate on the other. Once the pancake was flipped the chocolate started to burn because the heat from the pan was too high. For next time, I should really follow the recipe because it has all the steps and a great man once said patience is virtue. I was in a hurry and thus made a mistake. Cooking isn’t something one can rush it is something that takes its own time.

For one of the very successful lessons that we conducted we taught the children how to cook pizza. I taught them how to make the base for the pizza. I am not very good at this because I haven’t cooked a lot of pizza’s before so working on this skill during lesson time was really helpful as I was improving my own skills. We told the kids to make 3 different pizza bases and whilst they were doing this the other group of kids worked on grating the cheese and cutting the veggies that would go on the pizza. Overall, there was an equal participation throughout this cook and this worked really well because everyone was very happy. Once everything was prepared for the cook, we took the 3 bases and spilt the kids into different groups again so that they could decorate their own pizza. After they were done cooking and the pizza was put in the oven, we used the idol time to give the children the recipes for the other dished that we had cooked before. When the pizzas came back cooked they looked really delicious the first step of the cook was successful because the pizza looked really nice. When it got down to the taste of the pizza it was marvelous and it felt really nice to see the kids get excited over something that they cooked so well.

Overall, there has been a lot of learning that I have done through this club. It has made me a great communicator as I have had to speak with the kids in marathi and hindi. This helps me practice and enhance my language skills. Furthermore, my critical thinking, organizational and cooking skills have made vast improvements. This is because I learn from the mistakes that made during this lesson and try not to repeat the same mistakes in the next lesson. I am very glad to be a part of this club as it is fun, exhilarating and dynamic!

By- Parth Salwan