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The “This Year…” series looks back at lessons learned in the past year of YL. It will feature several posts and guest posts.

Here is one from my friend Tanita from Tucson, AZ…

Kids like to cook together–weird thing I learned after I invited 4-5 kids to come over and cook dinner together on a Monday night when there wasn’t YL and 16 kids showed up. They learned how to peel a potato, slice vegetables, sauté, and all sorts of cooking stuff that none of them had ever done before. The kids LOVED it, guys and girls put on my aprons and followed a recipe and made dinner & dessert. But they loved the "family" home feeling of making and eating dinner together. They begged to do it again. I suggest you find a recipe that has a lot of prep to give kids something to do, cutting veggies, preparing spices, etc.

The next time I invited kids over to cook again, 25 kids showed up…that was a little crazy…

SO, Top Chef club was the most popular club we had over the year…there were sandwich stations set up with different supplies provided, and then teams of 4-5 kids had to create a sandwich that was judged by a couple leaders.

PS… If you have things you learned this year, email me! smcgever (at) yahoo.com or find me on Facebook.