LITTLE KITCHEN ACADEMY OPENS UP IN VAUGHAN

CULINARY LESSONS HELPING TO CHANGE KIDS' LIVES FROM SCRATCH

Business owner Caroline Irving is once again setting up shop. The former owner of the Vaughan Sky Zone is introducing Montessori-inspired culinary classes to Vaughan.

The culinary lessons will be an opportunity for kids ages three to 18 to learn not only how to cook for themselves, but also understand their relationship with food.

"We're in charge of being more of a coach for the students and leading them through our recipes and more just getting them comfortable in the kitchen, comfortable using the different tools and just feeling like they can lead themselves, really, when it comes to food and have their own choices," Little Kitchen Academy instructor Leah Consiglio said. Part of the curriculum will be introducing kids to how food is grown through a wall that's used to grow vegetables.

"We have a living food wall where they can go and get fresh herbs right off the wall and put them in their recipes," said Caroline Irving, franchise owner of Vaughan's first Little Kitchen Academy.

Noticeably absent from the kitchen are meat, poultry and seafood. The goal, instead, is to create mostly meals from food that the kids see grown in front of them.

"A lot of our children don't know where a carrot

comes from. You know, a lot of our children don't know that you can turn a chickpea into five or six different things. And we give them the opportunity to do this here and build this

wonder," said Felicity Curin, founder of Little Kitchen Academy.

Curin intends to teach kids the value of making a nutritious meal on a budget. And that starts at a

young age.

"I think about our teenagers, specifically. We have Door Dash, Skip the Dishes, Ubereats and Bandaids for this problem. You know, our children don't know you can buy a sweet potato for $0.89 and a can of black beans for $2. And you can have a really nutritious meal for two days," Curin told the Vaughan Citizen.

The recipes themselves are selected through a database and picked according to seasonal veggies and fruits, according to director Mary Anne Perri. The recipes are the same for the different age groups but scaled in difficulty, according to Consiglio. "So something like focaccia will have the dough already made for the threeto five-year-olds, but then the 9 to 12 age groups, we make the dough from scratch," she said.

According to Irving, the lessons will empower kids with important life skills where they will learn not just what to make with ingredients but technique, as well.

"Little Kitchen Academy is really the key ingredient for an independent child," said Irving.