A cooking program with a different culinary focus each week for local high school students kicked off on Tuesday at the Quercus Beechworth Neighbourhood House. The Beechworth Young Cooks program is to be run over four weeks at four different places by volunteers. Beechworth mums Jessica Tilley and Sonya Northridge have daughters taking part in the program. Jessica said the cooking program is a great opportunity for local young people to develop independent skills and to build further connections in their local community. Sonya said kids are eager to learn new skills at a younger age. “It gives them a big head start if they’re in a regional community and then have to compete with other young people from bigger areas as they get older,” she said. “They may not necessarily go to bigger regional areas to study at university or TAFE as many courses are offered online and can help the local community with skills gained to work in food service and hospitality. “It sets them up for when they’re working as well.” Sonya said a great feature of the Quercus workshops is having older and experienced volunteers mixing with the young people which means inter-generational interaction and connection. Founder of the program Liz Suhr said volunteer and leader of the session Julia Prior used to teach cooking in Melbourne. “She is amazing and we’re very lucky to have her,” she said. Julia said Sichuan Chinese pork was on the menu for this week’s program. “We're making miso tofu and vegetable options so they can learn how to cook up something in five minutes after school that has some vegetables and protein,” she said. Julia also said the program was an excellent idea. “My husband and I have discussed about teaching kids to cook giving them good habits later on in life and I am very inspired by this program," she said. Liz said the program has been running for around one and a half years, originally run by past CWA members with Quercus taking it on after the former Beechworth CWA ceased running. “We’ve held 12 sessions over the time it’s been running,” she said. Participants learn to cook, enjoy a meal together and gain skills such as knife techniques, food safety, cooking protein, dough-making and meal planning.
