Teach a kid to cook: 180 students, 35 schools, 70 volunteers

We're back in the kitchen!

This week, 70 volunteers will be firing up stoves in 35 schools across the region to teach more than 180 students how to cook simple, healthy, inexpensive meals for themselves and their families, as My Daughter's Kitchen cooking program begins its eighth season.

More than 20 new volunteers and substitutes signed on this fall to cook in urban schools in Philadelphia and Camden as the program, which began with lessons for my own daughter, continues to expand.

For the next eight weeks, we will be teaching kids how to prepare nutritious versions of dishes like mushroom Bolognese, rosemary chicken drumsticks, and sweet potato fries while showing them how to measure, peel, chop, sauté, and roast. The hands-on lessons are taught after school in cafeteria kitchens and just about any space we can find that has a stove and a sink.

Most of the students are fifth graders, 10-year-olds just old enough to handle a knife, read a recipe, and follow instructions. But as the program has grown, we've welcomed middle and high school students, at their schools' request.

This year, I'll be teaching a group of med students at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. Because so much of modern disease is rooted in poor eating, diet has increasingly become a part of the conversations that doctors must have with their patients.

The future doctors need to be able to "speak in more detail about how to eat well," said Douglas Reifler, associate dean for student affairs and professor of medicine. "They also need to practice taking care of themselves."

So, as in all the other classes, we will be preparing a meal and sitting down to share it. It will be interesting to learn about the kinds of foods these time-stressed students normally eat, and hear their ideas on how to change unhealthy eating patterns.

I'll be chronicling the experiences of these students, as well as those from the other schools, for the eight weeks.

From the start, our mission has been to provide easy, affordable alternatives to unhealthy fast foods and takeout for everyone, but especially for families in neighborhoods where diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are epidemic, diseases that often are the result of poor diet. Along the way, we try to demonstrate how easy, delicious, and fun healthy cooking can be. All of the recipes are designed to feed a family of six for about $20 or less.

At the request of some volunteers, we are repeating some of the most popular recipes: fish tacos and Abruzzese lentil soup.

And as the volunteers paged through their recipe binders at our kickoff meeting the other day, I was heartened to see they know the recipes as well as I do.

"I'm so excited for the fish tacos," said Maureen Barrett, who cooks at La Salle Academy. She had been following the series in the newspaper before she started volunteering, and the fish taco recipe was one she cut out, made at home, and loved.

Soon after that, she and Mariann Owens approached Sister Jeanne McGowan to suggest teaching a class at La Salle. They have been happily volunteering for the last three years.

It continues to encourage me that so many readers write in every month to say how much they love the program, to ask whether they can volunteer, or to suggest a school where we might expand.

And that's precisely how we've grown, from the first lessons with my daughter in 2011 to our first school in spring 2013. We've added five schools every spring and fall semester since.

A world of thanks to Maddy Booth and Chelsea Schmidt and the entire staff of Vetri Community Partnership. As our partners, they bring constant support, extraordinary organizational skill, and financial backup. Without them, this program would not be possible.

We are so appreciative for the donation of high-quality kitchen equipment from Oxo for the last three years. The best testament to its products is that none of them has yet needed to be replaced. Ravitz ShopRite has donated the food for all of our schools in Camden, which this fall number 10. And Subaru of America is also supporting the Camden program.

To all the people at this newspaper who have supported this initiative from the start, I am so thankful.

Finally, it comes back to the readers of this column. A heartfelt thank-you to those who have stepped up to volunteer. As a community, you have demonstrated how a simple meal can make a difference in the lives of so many children.

I am so grateful to those of you who have taken the time to write a note of encouragement, and to the hundreds of you who have donated to the cause. We have raised $67,000 since the program began, most of it from readers like you. The depth of your generosity is humbling.

mfitzgerald@phillynews.com.