One of the first things they teach you in cooking school is Mise En Place. Everything needs to be in its place, ready to go to make the cooking process easier and orderly. The school year was to start in September and I had 2 months to create my mise-en-place for the semester. My friend told me I had 2 classes a week from September – January, she would buy all the ingredients and had equipment, but no kitchen. I now had to figure out not only what to cook, what to teach, and how to make it without a proper kitchen. There were induction burners, toaster ovens, microwaves and assortment of other plug-in appliances but no traditional oven or cooktop. I started doing loads of research on creating kid-friendly recipes that could also be made in under an hour and a half. After a while I had compiled loads of recipes thinking I had to do 2 different ones per week since I had 2 classes. When I told my friend this she said I’d over done it – typical of me anyway; and all I needed was the same one for both classes, and all I could think of was relief because I was starting to feel overwhelmed and out of ideas.
Remember I had never taught cooking to anyone let alone kids. I’m used to using big equipment, sharp knives, loads of ingredients, but with kids all of this went out the window! I had never seen a kid friendly knife, let alone know they existed. Rules – no nuts, no meat but turkey and chicken are fine; nothing served too hot, ugh! Make it easy, but delicious; entertaining but educational. Research and more research and I spoke to other friends who ran kids cooking classes. I had never cooked on a portable induction burner so I went out and got one — who knew now you needed separate pots, pans and implements — I do now! I was getting all my mise-en-place in place as Day 1 quickly approached.
I went to the school to look at the space – a teacher’s lounge which would become my kitchen classroom. I looked at the closet filled with kid friendly implements, loads of ingredients and all the portable plug-in-able appliances. Now I was ready, ready to organize my mise-en-place, my recipes, ingredients and my plan of action. All that was missing were the kids – would I be ready for that? Each class had 14 kids, wow. Class 1 were the “older kids” grades 2-5; Class 2 were the “littles” grades K-2. You better have your mise-en-place set I’d say to myself or this will be a disaster! Forging ahead, I never looked back; never thought twice and just decided to make a go of this new opportunity. Worst case scenario, I’d hate it, be overrun by little feet, and have food thrown at me. Best case was I’d love it, get high-fives and occasional hugs; and guess what I do! My mise-en-place was now in place and I am Cooking for joy.
