Around the World Cooking Club

This is by far one of Sophia's favorite activities each month. William attends the club with her and he seems to enjoy it, but it is definitely Sophia's "THING". This month the focus was on Thai food, I even stayed and helped some! The kids made spring rolls, rice, stir fried veggies, broiled grapefruit and a banana dessert. The only bad thing was that my clothes and skin REEKED of Thai food (heavy on garlic and fish sauce) the rest of the day, to the point that someone asked me "what is that smell" when I entered a local small business!

In case you are interested in the details, here is one of the first emails about the group, send by our fearless leader Kim:

We do have enough interest to form an Around the World Cooking Club. Here are very preliminary details - and I am, of course, open to suggestions, changes etc.

The premise: Meet once a month (Sept - May) to cook a meal from a pre-determined country - a different country would be featured each month. My thought is that we would make an appetizer, a main dish, a side dish and a dessert each month. The kids who participate would be divided into "cooking teams" and each team would prepare one of the items listed above. The teams would alternate, so each group would make at least two main dishes, two appetizers (etc.) over the course of the year. What do you think - did you envision another plan that might work better?

How do we decide what countries? We'll put this up for vote at our first meeting. I'm thinking for the first meeting, we'll either visit Mexico or Italy, and we can travel from there.

When: This is up for a vote, the only day we can't meet is on Wednesdays - we could work this in once a month on any other day. Time of day is also up for vote: lunchtime (10:30 - 12:30) - or early afternoon (1 - 3) everyone eats lunch first and then samples what was cooked during club.

Where: My original plan was to host this at my house (Eastgate area). This is still the case but I do have a few other options that I'm exploring, I'll let you know if they pan out. Another option would be to float the club from house to house - if that's preferable to other members. Again, I'm happy to host it here monthly.

Cost: Please give feedback. I've thought of two options, the first is that everyone pitches in a family fee... The option I like better is that each family pitches in an ingredient or two monthly based on what we are making. What do you think?

Please let me know what other questions you have - this club will be kid-led, I'll be here for help and any supervision issues, but I really would love for the kids to do the decision making and the cooking. Each month we will decide what the next month will be - I'll provide some recipes and the kids can go from there.

Hope you'll still join us - and please let me know if you have any questions.