Wow!

What a great first class! I am looking forward to getting to know all of your wonderful, active, and highly engaged children better as our first session (the first of many to come!) progresses.

We used every minute of our two hours making fresh pasta, peanut butter sauce, and a banana and pear salad. I am so proud of this group for challenging their taste buds with some new (five spice powder) and strong (copious amounts of garlic and ginger) flavors. Not everyone liked everything, but they tried everything and were happy creating some new things.

I'm just guessing here, but I think they liked making their own pasta the best. As we rolled each piece thinner and thinner their exclamations of disbelief grew louder and louder. They simply could not believe their eyes as the pasta sheets got longer and longer. Their expressions had us giggling as each one came through the line with his or her pasta. They were equally fascinated when the sheets were cut into individual pieces of spaghetti. The final cooked products weren't perfect (we had some serious spaghetti balls going on!), but the children were so proud of their work it really didn't matter.

With this age group we'll be doing as much individual work as possible. For example, the pasta was their own from start to finish. They made their own dough ball, rolled and cut their own spaghetti, and each batch was cooked off individually, so they knew that the pasta they were eating and/or took home was their own creation. It means so much to children this age to have ownership of their work. Doing it this way also allows them to add or take away ingredients at their discretion, which means they're more likely to taste what they've made. They also learn that each ingredient plays a role in the final product, so if they leave out a spice and the dish tastes bland they might be more willing to put it in the next time. In the end with these kids it's not as much about a perfect final product as it is about the process. Seriously, what could be better than squishing an egg into a pile of flour with your bare hands? Every kid should know how slimy an egg feels when it slides through their fingers, or how delicately soft and light flour is before it gets together with the egg and becomes a shaggy mess of dough. And now all of them know that pasta doesn't just magically appear on supermarket shelves in cardboard boxes. They know it's a delightfully simple thing to make now, too.

And don't be surprised if they suddenly start asking for a pasta rolling machine for their birthday….

Best quote of the day: "I used to think I hated seaweed salad until I ate it and now I LOVE seaweed salad! Also? Today I ate my very first pear."

I can't wait until next week!

Many thanks to Nichole for her help in the kitchen and to Sandi for taking a slew of wonderful photographs. (More about those in a later post.)

Have a great week and cook on!