SMALL STEPS COOKING: We're excited to start blogging!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

We're excited to start blogging!

Finally, we're going to blog! We started this blog a year and a half ago, as you can see from the one and only entry from 5/08, but it never got off the ground. I should say, I started that blog before Christy and I even partnered up to start Small Steps Cooking. Christy shouldn't have to shoulder any blame for that. But now that we are officially a business, Christy and I want to use this blog as a way to connect with the children and young adults we teach, their parents and the many, many, many family members, friends and fans across the globe who want to vigilantly follow us here. We promise to mention you all when we receive our Academy Award for Best Picture...oh, that was another food blog. I digress.

We hope that this blog will supplement our classes because, as much as we'd love to, we cannot cover everything we want to teach in a 1-1/2 hour or 2 hour class. Information about the health benefits of a key ingredient flies about the kitchen while the students are chopping, slicing, roasting and whipping, all the while, we keep an eye on the clock to make sure our dishes are ready on time, just as a chef in a restaurant kitchen would do. We also include a great deal of interesting historical, cultural and nutritional facts about ingredients on our recipes but again, the question becomes when to find the time to digest it (pun intended)! We hope that this blog becomes the go-to place for adults and kids alike who want to go beyond the classroom-kitchen and cook from the many other recipes we offer or who want more information about food, health and what we call food politics (i.e., what are our legislatures doing about food safety, school lunch programs, bio-engineered foods, and many other issues which affect our right to clean, sustainable and nutrient-dense food).

We especially invite kids to post comments or questions on our blog related to food and health. The computer is the new generation's pencil and paper. We hope you will engage in our discussions about wholesome cooking and eating. Perhaps there is a food you love but know isn't good for you? Maybe we can offer suggestions as to how to make it better for you by exchanging the unhealthy ingredients for healthier alternatives. Just a thought...

In sum, we are excited for this new venue. We hope you will share this experience with us.

Marirose and Christy

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ABOUT US

Their vision for Small Steps Cooking began to simmer after Chefs Marirose Piciucco and Christy Kovacs met in Natural Culinary Arts School in Berkeley, CA. Their discussions in the kitchen centered around how mothers and grandmothers in other cultures pass down food wisdom and traditional recipes to their children and grandchildren while in the U.S., parents no longer had time to cook a meal for dinner. "Here, the kitchen is often used just to microwave or reheat a dish rather than to create a tradition of home-cooked meals. We realized that as fewer families had time to cook nourishing meals, children became increasingly less aware of the sources of our food and its impact on our Earth, how food nourishes body and soul and how to prepare even the simplest of meals, a vital life-skill." And with research confirming that time spent in the kitchen means healthier eating habits, Marirose and Christy decided that the time had come for Small Steps Cooking.

Currently, Small Steps cooking offers after-school classes at various lower and middle schools in the East Bay, either at the school or in Marirose's state-of-the-art kitchen in Rockridge. For more information about our offerings, visit us at Small Steps Cooking.

CHEF MARIROSE

Marirose is a certified natural chef, a nutrition educator and a mom. She founded Small Steps Cooking as a result of her passion for cooking, her love for teaching and her commitment to making positive change. Marirose has been a regular volunteer at Three Stone Hearth, a community supported kitchen in Berkeley and Operation Frontline, a national organization dedicated to inspiring and educating families to make healthy meals on a limited budget. Through Small Steps Cooking, Marirose believes that she can teach both children and adults to learn how to eat for their health, for the health of our planet and for the pure joy of creating and eating a beautiful and delicious meal. In addition to offering cooking classes, Marirose offers nutrition workshops which can be tailored for any client, school, organization or business. Marirose can be reached at chefmrp@smallstepscooking.com.

CHEF CHRISTY

Christy Kovacs developed her interest in food education while studying anthropology at UC Berkeley and learning about the intimate relationship that indigenous cultures have with their food sources. She hopes that by teaching kids and adults to cook healthy, sustainable food, we can work towards becoming a more conscientious generation of eaters that feel reconnected to the food that nourishes us. Christy studied holistic cooking and has worked for various catering companies in the Bay Area. She has also been a regular volunteer at Three Stone Hearth.
You can reach Christy at chefchristy@smallstepscooking.com.

SMALL STEPS COOKING