The
Milton Conquest
Boys Club recently took cooking one step further when a group of boys
completed a three week advanced cooking class held at the the Longos
Loft in Milton, Ontario. Under the supervision of Marvin Duarte, the
club president, and the professional expertise of Chef Mike Killop,
the boys were shown how to create some advanced culinary gems, both
sweet and savoury, and very attractive to boot.
They
learned how to make short pastry, and how to use a rolling pin for
more than a weapon or plaything. They pounded chicken breasts with a
mallet on the way to concocting a delicious chicken parmesan, and
cooked up a wonderful tomato mushroom risotto from scratch.
But
aside from learning how to prepare and cook, the boys were shown how
to avoid waste. For example, they used left over dough to make
pinwheel cookies, and they managed to reincorporate leftover tomato
sauce into a tomato vinaigrette. They also placed all the chicken
bones, and pieces of vegetables into a large pot and cooked up a
wonderful chicken broth so that all the boys could take a container
home with them. Chef Mike told the boys that it was not good enough
to say, “I don't eat this,” and that it is very important to try
things out, and that this too could avoid waste in the long run
because fussy eating often leads to more discarded food.
And
they also learned how to share, because all the prepared food was
served up for lunch at the end of the class. For graduation day, the
boys got to invite their parents to lunch, and as Chef Mike told
them, this was a great opportunity to say thank you to them, and show
appreciation for all the cooking they do at home.
And
as their graduation certificate certifies, each boy who completed the
Family Culinary Community program learned “the importance of food
in that it provides nourishment, strength, and a way to connect to
one another.”
For
the final class, Chef Mike cranked up the work load and the
concentration factor and asked the boys to work by a time line, as
they would in a real restaurant kitchen. In other words, they were
asked to be more realistic because of the pressure facing them, since
their hungry guests would soon be arriving for lunch. This was an
essential lesson for the boys because anyone who has cooked for a
group of people knows that it is very important to know how to deal
with the anxiety which results from the pressure of cooking to a
schedule.
However,
this was far from a “Hell's Kitchen” atmosphere. Chef Mike was a
living example of the virtue of patience, always maintaining his
composure in front of his apprentice chefs who varied in age from 8
to 15.
But
above all else, this advanced cooking class showed the boys that food
is sacred, that cooking is a privilege, and that the kitchen is a
very special place indeed, because it is the working area which can
feed the poor and the hungry.
As
Saint Basil the Great said in the 4th
century, the bread which we all possess belongs to the hungry. That
indeed emphasizes the sacredness of cooking, and the need
to avoid waste and all forms of greed.
