Edible Ottawa

Cultivating Cooks

• Photo by Amy Zambonin

  At Woodrooffe Avenue Elementary School in Ottawa, Mia and her fellow Grade 3 students were keen to participate in their first Cultivating Cooks workshop at which they had a chance to prepare and taste simple, nutritional recipes with professional chefs.

• Carley Schelck, and Anna March, bottom right, joined forces to create a 10-week program that takes kids through the food cycle — from understanding seedlings, harvesting a garden and reading and writing recipes to simple cooking and taste testing.

• Carley Schelck, Anna March, Shane Brown and Kyle Proulx.

• "Every culture has a dumpling," Van Dyk says, "every culture has a dough wrapped around a filling."

• With roughly 20 countries represented in any of the culinary arts programs at Longfields Davidson Heights Secondary School, asking students to bring in and present their "world in one plate," a dish that represents their culture, exposes students to cuisines outside of their own and has them recognize the similarities that exist in cooking beyond borders.