The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
A hot start
Summer cooking camps lead to lifelong skills and for some, a culinary career
Not too many 8-year-olds know how sausage is made.
However, that’s a skill those attending a cooking camp at the Loretta Paganini School of Cooking in Chester Township will learn on the first day. Eight cooking camps for kids and teens are available this summer, and sign-up has been brisk for all of them.
In a three-hour timeframe, that June 11-to-14 cooking camp class for 7to 11-year-olds will make breakfast on the first camp day, and then campers will sit down to eat it. The handson experience will teach the kids how to identify ingredients and measure them as they make home fries, sausage, baked blueberry French toast, an omelet and apple-cinnamon waffles with whipped cream.
Lunch, dinner and snacks will follow on subsequent days, with classes convening in the professional kitchens at the International Culinary Arts & Sciences Institute, the nearby affiliate operation where training takes place during the school year for professional chefs.
Cooking camps are on the schedule for both kids and teens all three summer months at the Paganini School, and many of the skills learned will last a lifetime. Early in all of the threehour sessions, knife skills are taught, although the way they’re taught varies with the student’s age.
“Most of those attending the teen cooking camps I teach already are focused on learning to cook, or they wouldn’t be in camp,” said ICASI Education Director Tim McCoy, who leads two cooking camps for teens in this year’s program.
“When we set up, teens find their knives at their stations,” the chef said. “But we give knives one at a time to the younger students, and they get a lot of emphasis on safety from the beginning.”
Loretta Paganini began the popular cooking camps many years ago, partially to fill a gap left in public education by budget cuts.
“For many kids, this is the only place they can learn lifelong kitchen skills,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to learn to prepare healthy meals, taste new ingredients and make new friends in a relaxed environment close to home.”
The camps access the talents of Paganini’s chefs who teach adults in the professional classes at ICASI.
McCoy leads two foursession camps directed at youth 12 through 17. A third camp for 12- to 17-year-olds is framed around baking skills. It meets June 25 to 28. The remaining four camps, which also meet for four sessions Monday through Thursday, are aimed at children 7 through 11.
“We see many of the same kids year after year,” Paganini said.
The camps, each of which is limited to 12 students, fill up quickly.
“I’ve known some of these kids since they were 7, and they are now in high school,” McCoy said.
Delicious Meals is the focus June 11 for the first camp, and typically kids come home and cook family meals during the summer with recipes they’ve learned.
McCoy, who is one of this area’s experts in Asian and other ethnic cuisines, still gets excited about his Teens Around the World cooking camp.
“Each day we go to a different country,” he said. “I explain what ingredients are there and how the cuisine developed. Then we make a meal and eat it.”
That camp, set for 10 a.m. July 9 through 12, is one of the most popular camps. Structured for 12- to 17-yearolds, it’s the experience that put Echo Bedwell on the road to choosing cooking as a profession. She’s now an ICASI student.
France will be focus for the first day, with this menu: fougasse bread with herbed butter; soup au Pistou; Nicoise salad with tuna, potatoes and green beans; chicken Provencal with black olives, tomatoes and herbs; and peach tarts tati with French vanilla ice cream.
On July 10, the teen class will journey to Mexico and prepare a fiestastyle meal of tostada with refried beans, Chihuahua cheese and shredded lettuce; chicken Flautas with cilantro cream; hard-shell Baja fish taco with cabbage slaw and Jalapeno remoulade; soft-shell chicken fajitas with grilled peppers; and fried churros with caramel sauce.
Food visits to Italy and Tokyo will follow.
Camps all are limited to 12 students, and two chefs are in each session.
Science-minded teens might enjoy McCoy’s July 16-to-19 Food Lab camp, which explores the how and why fats carry flavor, why sweets appeal and how protein is needed. A baking class for teens is June 25 to 28, with making everything from quick breads to scones, cream puffs to ice cream on the agenda.
Kids 7 to 11 might choose the Cleveland Sports cooking camp, in which they wear their favorite team’s jersey and prepare team favorites, such as spinach salad with strawberries. It’s July 30 through Aug. 2.
Favorite kid foods, such as chicken tenders, spaghetti and meatballs potato pancakes and sliders, are the focus of a cooking camp set for June 18 through 21 and also aimed at 7- to 11-year-olds.
A July 23-to-26 camp is aimed at active 7- to 11-yearolds, with part of each session spent outdoors when weather permits. Foods prepared are framed around locales such as island, ocean, desert and jungle. Monkey bread is the forte in the jungle session.
An Aug. 6-to-9 camp takes its cue from foods favored by kids with a menu that includes pizza and burgers.
Teen camps cost $255, while camps for kids are $225. Campers learn as they prepare the dishes then eat them in a lunch at the end of each camp day. Sessions begin at 10 a.m. each day and conclude at 1 p.m.
Many campers attend more than one session and return year after year. Register at 440-729-1110.
These tasty bites from the 2015 France summer cooking camp class offered by the Loretta Paganini School of Cooking became a family favorite for many campers.