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Welcome To The Kitchen Oasis

Lucy Gellman | July 16th, 2019

Welcome To The Kitchen Oasis

Education & Youth  |  Nadine Nelson  |  WNHH  |  Culinary Arts

 

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Nadine Nelson with her daughter Soleil earlier this month. “Food is a wonderful way in which to look at math, to look at art, to look at science, in a very organic way that is not intimidating, and that’s also really fun, and really engaging and hands-on,” she said. Lucy Gellman Photo. 

New Haven’s kids might already know what happens when they mix flour, eggs, butter, chocolate chips and baking soda. Or when they blend water and glycerin for big, swollen bubbles with rainbows stretching across the sides.

But what about when baking powder replaces the baking soda? Or when the glycerin gets an added kick from sugar? Or when vinegar and lemon juice turn words on a page into secret, disappearing messages?

That’s the idea behind the Kids Kitchen Oasis Summer Food and S.T.E.A.M Lab, rolling into New Haven for four weeks in early August. Led by Global Local Gourmet Founder and Director Nadine Nelson, the lab is designed for students from ages 7 to 13, with classes that begin August 5 and end August 30. It focuses on S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) learning through cooking and gardening, an approach that Nelson is excited to bring to a younger audience.

“I’d love to be able to see kids be able to have home economics experiences,” she said on a recent episode of WNHH Community Radio’s “Kitchen Sync” program. “Food is a wonderful way in which to look at math, to look at art, to look at science, in a very organic way that is not intimidating, and that’s also really fun, and really engaging and hands-on.”

For Nelson, the program is both brand new and part of a wheelhouse she’s been building for years. Trained as an English teacher at Tufts University, she spent years designing interdisciplinary curricula and teaching other teachers, integrating Boston’s art museums and cultural institutions into her lesson plans.

In New Haven, she has brought that same approach to the culinary arts, partnering with the New Haven Free Public Library, Artspace New Haven and the Ely Center for Contemporary Art to bridge food, spirituality, and art making. She has also focused on culinary storytelling through Stir The Pot, a semi-monthly potluck focused on food justice and community building.

She said she sees the lab as an extension of that programming, designed particularly for younger New Haveners. In addition to experiments in the kitchen that range from chocolate chip cookies to risotto, students will be exploring several of the New Haven Land Trust’s community gardens, studying what it means to grow food from seed, cooking with guest chefs and visiting some of New Haven’s art museums.

She also intends to use food as a platform for cross-cultural dialogue, a technique she has already implemented with her Harvest Mandala projects among others.

“I want people who are interested in S.T.E.A.M. and technology and all that kind of stuff, but … a more human side, ” she said. “It’s not only going to be about cooking, gardening, and S.T.E.A.M., but also manners, and hospitality, and learning how to be able to say things in different languages.”

“A lot of the foods that we eat, they’re French names, they’re Arabic names,” she continued. “So it provides a lot of opportunities in which to talk about culture, to talk about the world, to talk about the world that’s in New Haven right here.”

In part, that curriculum is also inspired by her own childhood. As a kid, Nelson grew up visiting family in Jamaica, where there was only one television for the whole house, and kids were encouraged to go outside and learn from the land. She can remember her mom and aunts talking about playing in the dirt, harvesting plants and cooking in an open field.

“Our lives weren’t fixated around machines,” she said. “I want to be able to engage kids [in that way]. We’ll be doing a garden for the fall. I want to show kids that … in their basic kitchen, they can create scientifically.”

In its first iteration, the program operates on a sliding scale, with scholarships and work trade options available. Nelson said it’s a way of leveling the economic playing field: as a student at Hamden Hall, she took care of the animals and plants in the school’s biology lab. Now, she wants to pass it on to the community in which she is rooted and raising her own daughter.

“You know, I want people to know about cooking—but it’s not competing on MasterChef Kids,” she said. “It’s about having fun, it’s being able to cook some recipes for you and your family, and do some things that [are] applicable at home. And to have the sense of curiosity to ignite that.”

To find out more about the Kids Kitchen Oasis Summer Food and S.T.E.A.M Lab, visit Global Local Gourmet’s website and listen to the audio above. This piece is made possible through the Arts Paper's content sharing partnership with WNHH Community Radio and its longstanding news affiliate, the New Haven Independent.