Recipe Selection
One of our dedicated enrichment instructors aids a young chef in selecting a recipe to be created the following week! In this photo, the recipe selection occurred in the corner of the cooking space during the structured Cooking Crew time, with the guidance of the art mentor. Despite this, we have found that recipe selection also works very well when it occurs outside of Cooking Crew time at another point throughout the week, with the guidance of another faculty member. Therefore, there is flexibility with when recipe selection occurs, but is highly important and must occur each week.
In consideration of the importance of recipe selection, since it requires Thinking Ahead to ensure that all aspects of each recipe are feasible for Cooking Crew, a slideshow is available here that provides the finer points of recipe selection, as well as some tools for aiding young chefs in how to select an appropriate recipe.
Recipe selection should be passed on to the administration person responsible for revising recipes in a form that looks something like this:
After revision, the recipes are input into a template like the one below.
Artist Mentor
As with all structured stations, the art mentor keeps a sign-in and sign-out sheet, along with scores for each student.
Due to differing preferences amongst both mentors and students, it is important that all mentors are willing to be creative and try new things. At UNI we say- Try it on! The slide, located here, includes just a few examples of what can be done during the art period.
After the construction of the chosen creative piece, the art mentor must score the pieces and pass on the scoring sheet to the appropriate administrative person so that the points can be added to the weekly totals.
Journalist Mentor
As with the artistic mentor, the journalism mentor has complete creative license to explore different journalistic opportunities with the young chefs. Innovation is key, so journalism needn’t be limited to food reviews, cafeteria commentary, and the likes, but can expand to many other areas that can be thought of.
The young chefs write the Cookbooks themselves, and earn points for drafting different features- such as a school food review or peer interview.
Much like the other mentors, the journalist mentor is responsible for using the following sheet to sign students both into and out of his/her station, as well as providing individual scores (“spirit score”) to each student that participates.
Moreover, for completed pieces the journalist mentor is responsible for providing an overall score, which is then added to the total score for the team of the young journalist. Therefore, it is vital that all scoring sheets are turned in to the appropriate administration person so that all necessary points are added each week.
Food Facts
Before, this activity was completed under the supervision of the journalist mentor, however any available mentor should be able to help with this activity, which can be completed in a variety of ways. Selecting the best way for both the mentor and the young chef is the most important variable in this equation.
One way Food Facts can be completed is by discovering the caloric information that is in one serving through simple math. The sheet that can be filled out if Food Facts is completed this way is the following:
For those more artistically inclined, Food Facts may resemble more of the following:
The main point of Food Facts is so that the young chef who completes the task is better able to discuss the nutritional merits of each dish his/her team is composing, and can pass on the most relevant information to other team members. This way, not only is each team member able to educate the younger snack consumers about the nutritional quality of the dish, but are also able to discuss it amongst themselves and with their cooking mentors to begin a more honest discussion of the food consumed by the chefs on a regular basis, especially outside of Cooking Crew.
Some final aid can be located in this powerpoint document.
Documentarian
The documentarian has many outlets to utilize, but the main objectives here are to collaborate with the students to create archival information, documentation of best practices, and community outreach. Therefore, outlets like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter can be used, filming to create tutorials for both students and mentors alike, and maintaining photographs in an organized only collaborative database are all important to specific programs, but may not all be relevant to each program. It is important for the documentarian to be able to determine which components will be best utilized and to put in effort to maintain those areas.
Just like the other mentors, documentarian must keep a sign-in and sign-out sheet that contains individual scores for each student. This must be turned into the appropriate administration person at the conclusion of each Cooking Crew.
Other ideas and pointers are located here. Moreover, some already-created tutorials can be viewed in the Videos tab under Cooking Crew, or by clicking here.
