Transcript of our interview with Karen, COOKSMART: Parent Interview with Karen

What’s unique about the program at COOKSMART that made you want to enroll your child there?

During COVID, when I saw that COOKSMART was doing classes that were virtual and you could join in your own kitchen, I thought that was great. They continued to be virtual, which is kind of neat, because then your children get comfortable in their own kitchen and using their own appliances and tools, measuring spoons and bowls, and the stuff that you have. It's been really amazing to see the growth through the process and how much confidence my daughter now has in the kitchen after all the COOKSMART classes.

There's a lot of variety. They've recently done a couple of Indigenous workshops that are neat, having an Indigenous teacher in to do a corn soup. There was a really neat video about how they used to make it traditionally over the fire, and then we got to make our own slightly more modern version at home with frozen corn. It was really neat learning some of those teachings about the First Nations and where they lived and what kind of ingredients they would use in their cooking.

It's been really cool that people can join virtually from different places. A friend mentioned that COOKSMART had been doing a birthday party, and there were people joining from Germany and people from all over the United States and people from all over Canada. Whereas if it was live in person, you obviously wouldn't be able to do that.

Was this your child’s first experience with camp?

It was her first experience with the COOKSMART staff. She did not do a camp per se. I knew in the summer there were day camps, obviously still virtual. Her friend actually signed up for one and did it, which is great.

We've been doing the sessions that are like the weekly sessions. So the dinner cooking club she's done, and the brunch one is coming up. We've done a few one-off ones as well with Indigenous cooking, and there was a strawberry one in the summer. Some of them are very family-oriented, and they say that you definitely need an adult supervising and assisting in the background.

Sometimes everyone's in the kitchen involved for some of the dinner ones that needed a lot of chopping, and that's kind of fun too. At the end, you have dinner together as a family already made, and everyone's been kind of part of it, and that's great.

Was there any change or noticeable personal growth you saw in your child after time at COOKSMART?

It's been huge, actually. My daughter has always helped with baking and stuff with her grandma. I always assumed that she could do stuff in the kitchen, but then through the first couple classes of COOKSMART, I was like, "Oh wow, you know what? She's always assisting and she's chatting and she's doing it, and she's really not paying all that much attention about what I'm doing as I'm putting things in and out of the oven." She's not very confident doing a lot of things independently.

Kathy, who runs COOKSMART, really builds the students' skills different from other cooking classes we've taken together, even some family ones where the kids are just kind of assembling a recipe. Kathy really teaches them about how to build flavours into things. She always encourages the kids at a certain point to taste it and to taste using a spoon with different parts of your tongue and taste whether it's bitter or sweet or salty. She talks about all those flavours and then how to add it and how to adjust it so that you like it.

Now she's very conscious of that when we are making foods together, that she's like, "Hmm, we want to balance the flavours. Do we have something that's a little salty, something that gives it a little bit of sweetness, etc.?" That's really neat.

Seeing her skills, even with a knife and confidence chopping up vegetables and being able to peel and chop carrots or peel and chop onions and all that stuff, she can now do it confidently. She is comfortable now taking things in and out of the oven. Kathy shows them, "Stand back, use two hands, open the oven, stand back a sec because the heat will come out, then you use your two hands to put it in." She really walks them through step by step how to do it, and that lets them build confidence and feel like chefs in the kitchen.

If you hadn’t sent your child to COOKSMART, what’s the most important personal growth that she would’ve missed out on?

Definitely self-confidence. It's really nice to see her working in the kitchen and being really excited about cooking and baking now, because we used to really just do baking together. She was never part of cooking main courses so much. She might help a little bit, but mainly she would be setting the table as her job, and we'd be doing the main entrees or the main courses.

Now she's excited about helping to cook, and she looks forward to future classes, and she loves when the new session comes out. She looks down the COOKSMART stuff and says, "Ooh, I want to do this! They're doing some Mexican entree that we've never made before. Let's try it." I think the confidence in the kitchen and the excitement about cooking would not have happened without COOKSMART and participating in that.

How can a parent support their child to get the most out of COOKSMART  camp?

Definitely look over the recipes first and look over the offerings with your child and choose what would be a good fit for you, for your schedule, and for your family, with what recipes appeal, whether you want to do a brunch one or a cooking club or baking club. There's some after-school baking ones too, with desserts that are fun. Once you register, you're sent a list of everything that you need. You can personalize it and make it your own, but having the ingredients there means that your child is ready to go and excited with whatever he or she is going to use in their cooking experience that day.

We tend to get things out beforehand. She's always super excited, like half an hour before we're getting all the ingredients out of the cupboard and laying them out on the table so she can manage everything. She is good to go once she's got her list of materials out and her list of ingredients out. Then she joins on the iPad, and Kathy walks her through the whole experience.

It depends on the age of your child, of course. If your child is younger and needs some more assistance, then there's always that disclaimer that parent assistance might be needed for certain steps of the process and encouragement. It's really neat to see the students progress over a course of six weeks to see what they can do independently at the end that they weren't able to do at all with any confidence at the beginning.

What does your child say about COOKSMART camp, either to you or that you may have heard them say to friends or others?

She's always eager to share what she's learning from COOKSMART. She's always excited to share the recipes, and she wanted to invite other friends to join with the brunch club. For the dinner cooking class as well, she wanted to reach out, particularly during the spring wave of COVID when schools were shut down and she wasn't seeing her friends anymore. Some of her other friends were able to join, and it was great because they could see each other online and then kind of compare notes with how their meal was going or their baking was turning out. It was a great way to foster connections and creativity together when they weren't seeing each other at school because of COVID.

After the Indigenous cooking as well, she shared with both sets of grandparents when we were with them at lunch. She was like, "Did you know that Indigenous people could go out hunting and only have three to five kernels of corn, and that would be their sustenance for the day because the corn they grew was very robust? Like five kernels of corn, can you imagine, for a whole day?" She loves sharing what she's learned and then, of course, taking pictures and sharing those as well and saying, "I made a stir-fry. Look at how amazing it was. It was so exciting."

It's great for us too because it encourages us to try new recipes that we would normally not. Part of it is really, I think, COOKSMART, because my daughter's involved now with cooking things. At least once a week we have a cooking class that we're doing something with COOKSMART, which gives us a new recipe to try. Most of those then become keepers that we want to include in our regular rotation of recipes. We're trying a whole bunch of different things that we wouldn't have otherwise tried and enjoyed. So it's great as a family as well.

Transcript of our interview with Yunjae, COOKSMART: Parent Interview with Yunjae Jung

What’s unique about COOKSMART camp?

One thing I really like about COOKSMART is that the kids have a chance to cook with the food, with the vegetables. In general, she's been a picky eater, especially when it comes to vegetables. So they get to choose different colours, like rainbow colours, right? The teacher makes the experience really fun.

One day my daughter was talking about, "Oh, today I had a kale chip." Kale chip? Which I was not aware of, right? So we did the same recipe. We made the kale chips at home too, and they taste good, you know? Of course, it's good for kids to try different types of food, and when they make it, they eat it because they did make it, you know?

How did you know that COOKSMART camp was the right fit?

She started talking about nutrition. So when she mentioned, "Okay, this is good because it has vitamin B and C and then D. And then what can I eat?" It increased her awareness and interest.

That also encouraged me as well. So it's not only her change in nutrition, but the whole family, you know, because when there is a kid's interest to eat healthier food, then the parents get encouraged too. I think it's really helpful for the kids in general, and fun too.

Was there any noticeable personal growth in your child after time at COOKSMART?

It expanded the group of foods that she's eating. When kids are picky eaters, they have a hard time with the whole movement, you know? And since then, I don't have to worry because it's so good.

How can a parent support their child to get the most out of COOKSMART camps?

I think, most importantly, setting the atmosphere. For example, "What did you learn today?" Or, "You learned something cool today, but I didn't learn, so can you teach me? Can you teach me how to bake cookies? Can you teach me how to make kale chips? Can you teach me how to make tacos?"

Simple things, but they do it again, you know, if they're willing to. And then if the parents are willing to learn, I think that helps a lot.

What does your child say about COOKSMART camp?

She went to summer camp, but she kept asking, "Do they have winter camp too? Do they have spring camp too?" They just show how excited she is. And sometimes she asked me, "Do not pick me up too early," because she does have fun.

Any final thoughts on COOKSMART camp?

I'm just happy that I found this program. This is the best thing I ever tried this year.

It was really good. And we are going to take a PA Day camp soon, too. I'm really expecting to send her to spring camp as well.