Steam hovered in the air from the marinated chicken resting on the plastic cutting board.
Moments earlier, Eleina Buruca, 13, and Saabirah Muhammad, 17, learned to cut large chicken breasts in half with a chef’s knife and use tongs to spread the meat so it could cook thoroughly in an oil-coated pan.
The girls cooked the meal alongside about a dozen other teenagers in Northeast Washington on a recent evening.
They belong to a program designed to teach young people nutrition and cooking skills, and to open the door to a culinary career.
“I like the cooking,” Eleina said when asked about her favorite part of the class.
“I like the eating,” Saabirah chimed in with a smile.
The six-week Culinary Choice program is put on by MedStar Family Choice D.C., which coordinates care for Medicaid beneficiaries within the District, and Food Jonezi, a local nutrition services and culinary experiences practice.
Many enrollees live in food deserts, areas lacking access to affordable, nutritious food, said Jocelyn Chisholm Carter, MedStar Family Choice D.C.’s president. Culinary Choice equips teens and young adults, and in turn the whole family, with how to prepare meals with items that may be available to them in a healthy way.
Taught by chefs and dietitians, youths learn how to count calories and calculate proteins, the difference between julienne and dice knife cuts, and more.
The course exposes them to different areas of food services and gives them the option to earn a ServSafe certificate to enter roles in the industry, said Charmaine Jones, CEO and founder of Food Jonezi, including a paid apprenticeship with her company.
“Believe it or not, teens love to cook, and they want to cook,” Jones said. “But how many D.C. teens that come from underserved communities actually work with an executive chef?”
Culinary Choice began last year and is open to young people — ages 13 to 21 — who are enrolled in MedStar Family Choice D.C., as a benefit part of health plans, Chisholm Carter said. Participants are provided transportation to and from the MedStar Family Choice D.C. community wellness center, located in the heart of Ward 7 on Minnesota Avenue NE, for the two-hour class.
Xavier Russell, assistant vice president of growth and member experience at MedStar Family Choice D.C., said the program is geared toward teens to help them develop skills while young that will empower them for a lifetime.
“A lot of times their ceiling is what they see day-to-day,” Russell said. “We want them to pick up those healthy habits.”
Students say the program also offers a safe outlet away from any trouble.
On a recent Thursday, a handful of teens took their seats in a multipurpose room inside the wellness center just before 5 p.m.
Gerwayne Tucker, 16, was in the front row.
Teens submit an application and undergo an interview process to participate. Gerwayne said he was “petrified to even touch a stove” before joining the program — a feeling driven by a fear of making mistakes.
But he realized that having the ability to cook could be helpful once he goes to college, he said.
Now, after a few weeks in the class, Gerwayne knows how to handle tools in the kitchen. He cooks more food on his own, such as carne asada.
“It felt nice to come out of that shell,” he said.
Beyond culinary techniques, he also has learned the importance of getting to places on time: “When you’ve got to be there at a certain time to do something, and get some knowledge, you’ve got to be there,” he said.
Across the room from where Tucker sat, tables lined with burners, bowls, pans, tongs and fire extinguishers awaited the group of young cooks.
Papers decked the table with recipes for banana pudding with vanilla wafers and whipped cream, as well as chicken, black bean and corn quesadillas, their dishes for Week 4 of the course.
But before they could start on the meals, the teens first took a test on carbohydrates and calculated their daily carb intake. Some stared intently at the slideshow on a screen; others shouted numbers aloud.
Around 5:30 p.m., it was time to get cooking. The teens wasted no time after a brief bathroom break to pair up or head to a cooking station solo.
Putting on gloves, they poured vanilla extract and cinnamon into a bowl with other ingredients needed to make whipped cream and grabbed hold of a whisk.
“We want to make Z’s,” executive chef Jourdan A. Davis, who goes by “Chef Red Beard,” said as he walked past each station. “We’re not whisking, we’re aerating.”
Davis says he enjoys seeing the look on the group’s faces when the science of cooking turns a liquid into a solid.
Once each student had prepared the layers of whipped cream, crumbled vanilla wafers, pudding and bananas, Davis took the desserts to a fridge to set and chill.
The group cleaned their stations, competing for a prize at the end of class for who was the tidiest.
Next, they moved to the main course, marinating the chicken breasts in a spicy chipotle sauce. They ripped cilantro and mixed corn and beans into freshly cut peppers in a bowl off to the side, avoiding any cross contamination.
Lidya Eshetu, 15, assembled her quesadilla in a pan, laden with a tortilla, cooked chicken, shredded cheese and the bean, corn and pepper mixture.
The back of Lidya’s shirt, which all participants wore, read, “No sugar no salt.”
It’s Food Jonezi’s tagline for their recipes, which contain no added sugar or salt. Jones, Food Jonezi’s founder, said she wants the students to enjoy their cultural foods but in a healthier way that prevents chronic diseases.
Lidya’s grandmother has high blood pressure and can’t eat any added salt in her food, she said. The recipes she has learned at Culinary Choice can help.
As the group cooked, some of the quesadillas burned slightly, while one had to be remade with a new tortilla as it had too much filling. None of that stopped the teens from finishing their work.
Janiya Smallwood, 16, began thinking of how she would plate her meal.
The brighter, thicker white sour cream would go on top of the quesadilla, she said, contrasting nicely with the darker, smaller garnish of the cilantro.
She won a phone stand for having the cleanest station, too.
As the class returned to their seats and ate their food, they completed the same test that was given before class. It’s to see how they’re learning, said Sidelle Haynes, who instructed alongside Davis.
Throughout the program, the teens learn plenty of recipes: from ramen to a Caribbean chicken kebab and beyond.
But their final class involves a twist: a mystery basket with no recipe.
The next cohort won’t begin until the spring, Jones said, after organizers learned last year that the fall months prove to be busier for youths, making it difficult for them to arrive on time.
After completing the program, participants can go on to work with Food Jonezi alongside chefs at events throughout communities in the District.
Aubree’ Tonic, 15, who joined the first Culinary Choice cohort after her mom spotted the program on social media, is one of those junior chefs. At the recent class, she floated around the room and helped tidy things throughout the class as the teens cooked.
Aubree’ quipped that her class didn’t have the matching hats she saw these teens wearing.
Culinary Choice has affected her life “in the best way possible,” she said. Though she’s been in the kitchen since she was 3 years old, she now sees a career as a chef in reach.
“We actually want to have careers,” Aubree’ said of teens. “We actually want to push through … and go and do something nice with our lives.”
The post These teens are cooking up a new future for themselves appeared first on Washington Post.
