Cooking up a storm

DENISE RIDEOUT

Five teenage boys buzz around a kitchen, some dicing green peppers or slicing pieces of fruit, while two of the other young cooks are up to their elbows in a gooey mixture of chocolate and Rice Krispies.

On tonight’s menu is mini-pizzas, fruit salad and power bars. And the students in the cooking class are eager to whip up the food because there’s a treat at the end: the teenagers get to taste-test their concoctions.

The taste-tests are clearly the favourite part of the night for the cooks, who are taking part in the cooking classes offered at the Makkuuttukkivik youth centre.

Every Tuesday evening, the kitchen in the youth centre, located in the Arctic Winter Games complex, is full of young aspiring cooks anxious to learn how to make fun, healthy meals.

Standing at a large counter, 14-year-old George Innuaraq picks grapes from their stems, tossing them into a bowl that’s quickly filling up with colourful fruits.

When the cooking instructors aren’t looking, Innuraraq pops a few of the grapes into his mouth.

Alongside him, Mosesie Arlooktoo slices pears into bite-size pieces. Cooking instructor Christina Ross then takes the knife and shows Arlooktoo how to chop an apple to avoid the core and seeds. Arlooktoo puts the chopped fruit into the bowl and pours in some sour cream, creating tonight’s fruit salad.

The fruit dessert is one of the healthy snacks that the cooking instructors are promoting. A key part of the cooking classes is teaching young people how to make meals that are nutritious.

The Nunavut Food Guide is posted on the kitchen wall and the instructors point to it often as they pick up the different ingredients for this evening’s meal.

“We’re encouraging a healthy lifestyle,” explains instructor Amy Elgersma. After each meal, Elgersma talks with the young cooks about nutrition and the food groups.

She gets them to figure out how the food they prepared fits in with the food groups. Pointing to the power bars, Elgersma asks: “What’s good for you in there?” hoping to evoke a response that mentions the healthy nuts or sunflower seeds.

But one young cook blurts out “chocolate,” making the rest of them burst into laughter.

The cooking program, which began this spring, runs in five-week sessions, taking in six students at a time. The cooking classes are funded by the Royal Bank of Canada, which donated money to jump-start several programs at the youth centre.

Elgersma, one of the cooking instructors and a youth coordinator for the City of Iqaluit, said there was a real need to offer healthy food choices at the youth centre.

“There were a lot of kids coming in from opening to closing and they weren’t eating much, other than a chocolate bar,” she said.
Now, cooking students get a mix of learning about nutrition to how to prepare food to actually getting a healthy meal to eat.

“We’re teaching them how to handle food, how to prepare food on their own, to read labels and to cut vegetables,” Elgersma added, as she watches over the crew who are slicing green peppers to add to their pizzas.

“I wanted to learn to cook,” says Aqpik Sagiatook, 14, who is stirring a pot of butter and corn syrup on the stovetop. Later, he’ll add Rice Krispies, chocolate, nuts and sunflowers seeds to the mixture and mold it into power bars.

So far, students in previous cooking classes have made everything from chicken fajitas to spicy beef to baked apple desserts. After each class, the students go home with recipes for the meals they’ve just made.

Some of the students say they plan to whip up the meals at home for their families. Others already see themselves as seasoned cooks. “Sometimes I cook boiled caribou and fried fish,” George Innuaraq says.

Next week, the young cooks will try baking some delicious desserts. But they’re all salivating at the idea of making juicy caribou burgers and sweet-tasting milkshakes.

“The favorite is caribou burgers. Caribou burgers and chocolate milkshakes are always a big request,” Elgersma says.