Fruit Salad

Week one! Yesterday we had a good time learning about each other and how to behave in a kitchen. We didn't list too many rules, but agreed that safety was paramount and that we had to all remain calm and communicate at all times. Here are the agreements we came to:

• Wash our hands before we start cooking.
• The kitchen needs to look the same when we leave as it did when we arrived.
• We need to bring our own plastic containers to take the food home.
• Be aware of other people around us.
• Act responsibly.

We also created a google doc to share a weekly plan, complete with a shopping list and recipes. Below you will find what we learned about each other after sharing a quick story about our experiences with food and in the kitchen:

Rohan - passion for cooking.  He has attempted a range of dishes for his parents.
Sophia - Loves baking and salads
India - Soups and baking.  Especially spicy bean soup
Tzur -  Pesto and eggplant pasta and meatballs
Dani - Influenced by Majorcan cooking.  Loves pancakes and has watched Junior Masterchef.
Nicholas - Helps his Dad (who is a chef).  An experienced chef.
Nikkhil - Pasta dishes are his speciality.
Han Ein - Doesn’t get much chance to cook and wants to learn some new skills.
Glen - Doesn’t cook that often but loves to cook with meat.  Cooked an Indian dish (chana masala)
Patty - The last thing she cooked was crepes. 
Angelina - She loves to follow recipes and they usually turn out ok!

Hopefully by next week, each of our chefs will have access to this blog and will share their own thoughts and experiences in the kitchen.

After we got to know each other and negotiated agreements, we began with a speed challenge relay. We were split into four groups of three and asked to complete a series of tasks in a relay style race:

1. Peel, stem, pit and cube two apples
2. Peel and prepare two oranges
3. Prepare a bunch of grapes
4. Peel and cube a mango

This proved more challenging than we thought, but we had fun in the process. After a while we gave up on the race and everyone simply got their hands dirty preparing their fruit salad.  We added more exotic fruits and tried and cutting pineapple, star fruit and more.


Here are some pictures:

The biggest lesson learned today was-- Basic skills are very important.