Youth aged 9-to-14 will learn to prepare a nutritious meal they will share, as well as a different healthy school lunch to take home each week, in a new 6-class cooking series offered by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County (CCE-Tompkins). 

Classes will be held from 4:00-6:00pm on Sundays, November 3, 10 & 17, and December 1 & 8 in the CCE-Tompkins teaching kitchen at 615 Willow Avenue in Ithaca.  A final class on December 15 will run from 4:00-7:00pm and include a “family dinner” at which youth participants may be joined by adult parents or guardians to enjoy together the meal they’ve learned to prepare in class.

“The kitchen can sometimes feel like the realm of adults where kids feel like they are just in the way,” says Josh Dolan, Kitchen Manager and Community & School Garden Specialist at CCE-Tompkins. “Learning to cook is a great way for teens and tweens to boost their self-confidence and self-reliance, be more helpful to busy parents and have more fun at home,” he continued. 

Teaching young people to garden and prepare food is a passion for both Dolan and class co-instructor Kaela Klapan, a Nutrition Educator with CCE’s SNAP Education Program.  A former cook at Ithaca’s noted ABC Café, Dolan offered a similar “Seed to Table” gardening and cooking series for youth in 2014, and in 2011 coordinated an “Iron Chef” competition for youth in Northside Ithaca as part of the Gardens for Humanity Project, both offered through CCE-Tompkins. Klapan, who studied Public Health at Ithaca College and managed the campus organic garden, has worked on several local farms and is an enthusiastic home cook.  Both bring strong backgrounds in gardening and agriculture awareness to the planned nutrition and cooking lessons.

Youth may choose to enroll in one or more classes or the entire series. 
Cost: $20-$50/class self-determined sliding scale pay what you can afford, or $120-$240/series includes Sunday dinner + 1 packed lunch!  To register, please visit this form, provide your contact information and some registration details, and indicate how you wish to pay for this class/series: https://forms.gle/tsfxhUJxDj9YJ4Ag9 . 

Questions? contact Josh Dolan at jd285@cornell.edu or call Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County at (607) 272-2292.