Hot, Humid, Hungry?

Stuff we eat when it is too hot to cook

We don't have air-conditioning, so when temps and humidity hit the high notes it is nice to pull together a cheese plate and salad (combine cool shrimps, avocado, and Kalamata olives for a fun combo.  Throw in some fresh herbs if you have the energy).

Tonight the kids from our Operation Frontline class graduate.  Once a week for six weeks a nutritionist, a chef, and I spent two hours with a group of students in Minneapolis.  Each week they spent half of class learning about nutrition, and half of class cooking (and eating) a healthy recipe.  My job is to keep everyone corralled, and to enforce wise kitchen behavior (no running around boiling water, for example, and no grabbing knives by the blades).  We began this session with 15 enthusiastic 8-12 year olds, and as of last week we were down to seven.  

I worried that this drop in attendance meant that we weren't successful, until a conversation I had after class with one of the girls who asked me if we could return to the center to do another cooking class.  Then, as kids waited for their parents to retrieve them they divided time between playing video games and talking over one another to tell me tales of cooking at home with their families using recipes and techniques learned in class.  Small (not always too quiet) successes are just as important as big loud ones.

All cultures, all ages connect over food.