July 2009
Food camp teaches kids healthy cooking
by Mary Stella Donovan
It is the inevitable dinnertime battle. The child has perfectly executed the evasive maneuvers. The fork has dragged, scraped and rearranged every item on the plate. Just when victory seems certain, an observant adult utters the most dreaded phrase of childhood: “Eat your vegetables.”
Getting a child to eat healthily can require coaxing, threats or bribery. This summer, professional chef Monica Corrado and musician Rachel Cross have a different approach. The two friends have partnered to create an interactive culinary camp that teaches kids to both cook and enjoy nutritious foods.
Working exclusively with food purchased from local farms, Corrado’s young pupils use the freshest ingredients to produce dishes that coincide with their session’s theme. However, a camper’s experience extends beyond the food. Blending cooking with arts and crafts, the program engages all the senses. Camp activities include painting aprons, decorating chef hats, writing food-related song lyrics and constructing personal recipe books. Each session concludes with a food presentation and music performance that showcases the campers’ work, both edible and inedible. “They’re going to get the information about nutrition by doing it, drawing it, reading it, eating it, singing it, and dancing it,” Cross commented. “Everything we did here was promoting a healthy lifestyle where the children were creating. In our society there is so much watching.”
By getting kids away from screens and into food, Corrado and Cross hope to positively influence how they grow. “The children are the ones who are getting short shrift with all of the garbage food out there, and its really hurting their health,” remarked Corrado, who strives to give children the tools to make informed decisions about their diets. “You talk about the basics. You talk about where food came from, you show them things that came directly from the farm, and you show them how to make things themselves. It’s about getting children involved.”
Corrado opened the first organic catering company in the Takoma area, but decided her professional goals lay elsewhere. “After five years I decided that I didn’t want to feed people as much as teach them how to cook for themselves.” She began to teach group classes and conduct private consultations. “My passion is connecting people to real food. My whole thing is real food, vibrant health. My other passion is children. So this camp was the perfect thing to put them together.” Her husband, a musician, introduced her to Cross. “We met through music, and music was the vehicle that brought us to the good food and doing the camp together,” Cross recalled.
The pair will be running two more camp sessions. A Week of Fabulously Fun Fruit will run from July 13-17, followed by The Great Vegetable Mystery on August 3-7. Corrado hopes to continue to inspire children with her message of an active, healthy lifestyle. “Be engaged in every single thing in your life. Don’t watch it. Do it.”
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