Hands-on approach introduces potential future chefs to cooking

Ellie Brent, 4, and William Catlin, 2, play with a tub of mashed potatoes at the Cooking with Dad event Saturday morning, Feb. 25, 2017, at the Eudora Technical Training Center. The EHS culinary arts class had the event to teach children food is fun.

Sitting in front of a plastic tub of mashed potatoes on the floor of the Eudora-De Soto Technical Education Center at Eudora High School, William Catlin, 2, displayed a creative approach to food-handling.

“He likes throwing stuff,” said his father John Catlin, of Lawrence, as he watched his son throw fistfuls of mashed potatoes against the side of the tub.

That was the whole point of the Cooking with Dad morning being held at the center, said culinary arts student Jamie Dalsing.

“The idea is to get the children involved with the different textures and get them to play with food,” she said. “Kids are always told not to play with their food. It’s kind of fun to let them do things new.”

In addition to the mashed potato tub, children were encouraged to feel around in a vat for gobs of starch and water, which dissolved in their hands; mix flour for waffles; roll and cut out cookies; and stack the french fries they didn’t snack on into forts.

Eudora-De Soto culinary arts instructor Jack Low said the hands-on fun had a larger goal in mind.

“It’s teaching children cooking is fun, and something they can start when they are young,” he said.

The children received fresh cookies and waffles his culinary arts students prepared at the end of the morning’s activities, Low said.

There was another serious aspect of the morning that prompted Gabriel Brent to drive from Lawrence for the event with his daughters Ellie, 4, and Aria, 6.

“My family lives in Eudora, so I drove over,” he said. “I heard it was a Daddy-and-me day.”

That was the intent of Dads of Douglas County, which worked with Low to offer the event.

“One of our members knows Chef Low,” Brent said. “This is the second year for this event. We try to do something every month to get kids out with their fathers.”