Week 12 Impressions by Lauren Haisley

The Kids’ Cookery School is a small building located in Acton, a good fifteen minute tube ride west of our home base, Gloucester Road. When you walk into the small school you are greeted by an array of colorfully painted walls covered in posters, articles, awards and cookbooks. One of the first things I noticed was the posters of celebrities who have been in to the Kids’ Cookery School. This includes the members of Steps (a British pop band that I was in love with throughout my middle school years) Ant and Dec (a well known duo that host numerous British shows), and many posters of celebrities such as the famous chef Jamie Oliver wishing everyone at the KCS well. The only person of quasi celebrity status that I have met while working at the Kids’ Cookery School is Bubbles the Wizard. He’s a character on British Nick Jr. He has a sparkly whisk, a talking frog friend, and teaches kids about cooking in shiny magenta pants. Not quite the high profile celebrity I was hoping for, but entertaining none the less.

The Kids Cookery School offers cooking classes for kids ages 3 to 19 on a sliding payment scale so that those who cannot normally afford cooking classes can send their kids to learn about cooking and nutrition at the KCS for a very reduced price. Of course the best part of my job is working with these kids. While I admit that the thought of twelve 8 year olds all learning how to cut with sharp knives at the same time slightly terrified me, I have yet to see anyone get stabbed, burnt, grated, or harmed in any other way. That’s a large part of my job, making sure the KCS’ spotless record stays that way.

Teaching kids from every age group also reminds me what hell it must have been for my teachers when I went through each of those age stages. Like when you are 8 years old and know everything there is to know about every subject, or when you are 14 and anyone over the age of 18 is lame and old. Of course all of these kids secretly love the staff at KCS, some just choose to show their love through sarcasm and pouty glares. The kids that go through the KCS are from all walks of life. After talking about multiculturalism in class so much it is wonderful to see so much diversity first hand. This diversity also comes through in the food classes make at the Kids’ Cookery School. Staple recipes include hand made pizza, kebabs, spicy rice, jacket potatoes, and different kinds of pasta. The school as hundreds of recipes to choose from and each class gets a say in the food they choose to make each week. My favorite is when they make any sort of Mexican food and I see the kids’ baffled stares at words like Guacamole, fajita, and taco.

Working at the KCS I become very aware of my Americanness whether it’s because I have no idea what a “plaster” is (it’s a band-aid) or because I pronounce kebab kebob or vitamin, vitamin. Kids are very quick to point out my strange accent. When they find out that I’m from America many kids respond with some sort of comment about their love for our fast food restaurants. They love to tell me about their experience with travel in the US and on many occasions I have been asked to name our “59 states”.

Finally, the most coveted part of my job is that every Wednesday Thursday and Friday I have two professional cooks make me lunch. I would probably have a severe protein deficiency if it were not for these three meals that often consist of very stereotypical English cuisine including meat, pie crust, and mash combined in any number of creative fashions. Of course, in order to not be total hypocrites, we eat salad everyday as well.

At the end of the day it all depends on who you work with. Washing dishes and cleaning up after a dozen four year olds who have just finished a flour fight could cause severe annoyance to a college student who gets enough of cleaning dishes in her tiny flat kitchen. But surround me with enthusiastic people singing loudly to British pop music and talking about the places I must go in two weeks when I will be forced to leave this wonderful city and venture out into the rest of Europe and I must say that I have found in the Kids’ Cookery School a niche within London’s crazy buzz that I will very sorry to leave.