Kitchen Notebook

Tamika wore many hats in the prep of chicken satay and edamame succotash, helping to skewer chicken, squeeze the lime, and chop the cilantro, and even moved on to doing the dishes. Christopher prepared the chicken and peanut sauce. The peanut butter dried up when we added the water, so Christopher and volunteer Frank Petrillo stuck with it, trying different tricks. Finally, they added a little oil and covered the peanut butter sauce. It was still very thick but Christopher devoured it. Elizabeth couldn't wait to try the colorful succotash. "This is perfect," she exclaimed.

Our conversation over dinner was our menu for next week's dinner for our guests. Our chefs are very excited for next week.

- Beth Stack,
Frank Petrillo 

After a week off due to the Thanksgiving break, our students arrived eager to get cooking. Joanna and Helen used the wood skewers just like a sewing needle and individually threaded the raw chicken tenders. The chicken was slippery and slipped out of Helen's hands more than once, but ultimately we completed the skewers.

Hiba, Naidel, and Inishka made the edamame succotash salad, and were quite confident using a chef knife to chop the vegetables. In no time we had onions, red pepper, cilantro, and parsley ready to go. The girls hovered over the pan, cooking the onions and debating when the sweating was achieved. "When they turn translucent," that's when they are done, said Hiba. These chefs are quick learners!

We all helped prepare the peanut dipping sauce. Yummy was the consensus. The colorful edamame dish looked good, but fell short on taste for our class. - Amy Steinberg,
Cindy Rappoport

Class went well as always - the kids were really curious about sauce made with peanut butter. They are more comfortable with reading the recipes and measurements and it is fun to see them divide up and get to work.

- Joan Jablonski, Rebecca Bryan