Students busy attending kitchen lessons during vacations

KOZHIKODE: Goodbye to computers and internet games; it is now  time to bake some cake. A group of 16 children are enjoying their vacation  at celebrity chef Abida Rasheed’s kitchen. Abida has opened her kitchen and house at Malikkadavu here to these kids to  give them cooking tips during the summer  camp she is conducting.

Abida says that  she intends to teach them the basic lessons on food and kitchen. “Parents are scared that their kids will cut their fingers if they take a knife or burn their hands if they make tea. Children have to suffer tiny injuries to overcome painful experiences in their life later and it starts  from my kitchen,’ she says.

Abida  also trains them to be strong persons in  life. She says everyone should learn making food regardless of gender. On the  last day of the batch’s classes,  they prepared banana cake, carrot shake and chocolate cookies to serve the inmates of St. Vicncent’s orphanage in the city.  “We serve  food to the  orphanages around the city. We believe that everyone has the right to eat good food,’’ Abida Rasheed explains her motives.

“I learnt to make pasta and fried rice, we even prepared Kerala parotta and fried chicken,’’ says Sarah Mariam, a ninth standard student of  St.Joseph’s Anglo-Indian School.  “It was difficult to make parotta, but we managed to make authentic ones,’’ added another participant,  Diya Madhav. They pupils say that their parents were surprised to watch them baking cakes.

Each batch has a firewood kithen day and uses traditional kitchen utensils on that day. “Most of the kids are not familiar with stone grinders or firewood kitchen and here they can have first-hand experience,’’ Abida says.  The second batch will start next week.