Laveah Rodgers peered through the oven door, then turned excitedly to exclaim to the adults gathered around a nearby table.
“Look! They raised!” she said “Ours grew up so high!”
Rodgers, 12, talked about the bread in the oven, which she made with the help of Eileen Pewitt, 60, co-leader of a youth cooking class at Central Ohio Youth for Christ’s City Life Center in Franklinton.
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The program, Youth Cooks, has been around for about 12 years and Pewitt has volunteered to run it since she graduated culinary school in 2014, a second adventure for her after being a nurse for several years and then raising her. own children.
The City Life Center has several after-school programs for youth in the area and aims to reach children in need with the gospel. Pewitt’s goal is also to teach children the skills they will one day use at home and possibly even at work.
The class in which Rodgers learned how to bake bread was the fourth in a six-week session on the basics of cooking. But Pewitt and her co-leader, Carrie Roccos, hope to expand the class with a second six-week session that goes beyond the basics.
“I hope we find some kids who are really interested so we can introduce them to some of the contacts we have,” Pewitt said. “We want to do it with kids who are interested, capable, and want to do it.”
Pewitt said she hopes to show the kids the possibilities of cooking.
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‘I never know how much they take, but it doesn’t matter. For those who want to take it, they will,” she said.
She knows that some children who come to class – about six per lesson – can have chaotic family lives.
“If they can come in here and have 10 minutes in the kitchen, … that’s the blessing of it,” she said. “It’s so nice to see them just being kids.”
Pewitt said she hopes learning how to cook and then enjoying the food they make gives the young people a sense of peace and opens their minds.
“It’s the little things that can make the world a little bit bigger for the kids,” she said after sharing an anecdote about taking students to a farm a few years ago, where they picked their own strawberries. “None of them had ever seen strawberries on the truss. … It was great for me; They loved it. They were like, ‘Can you eat this?'”
That childlike wonderment is what Pewitt hopes the kids experience, because she knows many may need to grow up quickly.
Ann Partlow, the center’s after-school director, said she hopes the same and she enjoys seeing children happy and come to life as they learn to cook in the program.
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“It’s just not an opportunity you get often,” Partlow said of the cooking class. “You learn to cook from your family when they teach you or culinary school.”
Pewitt teaches the kids the basics of cooking, such as measuring ingredients, knife skills, cooking methods and more.
As she helped Laveah measure out the yeast for the bread and put it in the bowl, she danced a little.
“It’s like a person,” Pewitt said of the yeast. “It likes to be warm and it likes to be crowded.”
She poured warm water with the yeast.
“So that will wake it up,” she said.
While the bread was baking, Pewitt showed Laveah how to make a butter board full of different toppings, and the girl tried garlic and a tomato while she prepared it. She wasn’t a fan of either, but loved the tangerine jelly Pewitt brought for the plate as well.
It was Laveah’s turn to do a little dancing as she stared at the finished loaf.
“Ooh, I can’t wait to eat it,” she said.
“Food always tastes better when you make it yourself,” Pewitt replied.
dking@dispatch.com
@DanaeKing
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