Cooking up independence in special kitchen course
One of the only special needs cooking courses in New Zealand is giving students the skills they need to fly the coop. Carly Gooch reports.
Rita Yosef has been teaching cooking for years, but a parent’s request led her to find a special calling in the industry. Yosef was approached, seven years ago, by the mother of a non-verbal autistic woman.
The mum said her daughter didn’t want to go into the kitchen, didn’t want to help and refused to do everything, Yosef said.
Would you take her in as a cooking student? the mum asked.
Yosef didn’t hesitate.
“I don’t care about the disability, I just want to teach.”
Three months after starting at Yosef’s My Home Chef, the mum was blown away by her daughter’s change.
“You won’t believe it,” she told Yosef. “I walked into the kitchen; dinner was cooked, the kitchen was clean, the table set.”
It was that experience that saw Yosef specialise in teaching cooking to people who are neurodiverse, or have physical or mental challenges.
“I believe that everybody can cook.” The one-on-one funded classes are held at Yosef’s home, or for people who use wheelchairs, at their own home, with each programme tailored to the student’s abilities.
Over the 90 minutes to two-hour lesson, students are led through two to three recipes before taking the finished dishes home to share with family.
The course tackles every aspect of food, including cost, what to buy at the supermarket, and how to use it, as well as health and safety, cleaning up after cooking and knife skills.
They’re skills that translate to other parts of life too, not just cooking.
“It’s very therapeutic, very quiet, very relaxing; we put music on and have a lot of fun.
“It’s for their whole wellbeing.”
The three tutors at My Home Chef are trained chefs who have their own challenges, but that enabled them to relate to the students and understand how their brains worked, Yosef said.
One has high functioning autism, and another has ADHD.
“All those attributes, they’re benefits ... not a disability.
“They understand the students because they have the same condition, or ... understand how the brain functions. It makes it easier to communicate, and they know how to teach them.”
Aron Harris is on the autistic spectrum and has been a student with My Home Chef for more than two years.
A recent session had him cooking three different pasta meals in two hours, including chicken scallopini with artichokes, chicken zucchini with meatballs, and prawn spaghetti.
“He is unbelievable,” Yosef said. “He has a very good skill for cooking.”
Many people on the spectrum were very focused, particular and accurate - perfect attributes for cooking, she said.
The aim of her business, which she considered a social enterprise, was to prepare students to go out into the community.
“I want to kick them out so they will be able to go into the wide world and contribute to society. They have so much potential, they need to use that.”
And it’s these capabilities that gives students’ parents confidence that their children will be able to leave home.
Most parents worried about their children’s future, Yosef said.
Do you have an innovative business? Emailcarly.gooch@stuff.co.nz
“But the minute we give them a life skill, [the parents] think, ‘It’s going to be OK’.”
Do you have an innovative business? Email carly.gooch@stuff.co.nz.