Kristin Brodeur has her own kitchen for the first time and wants to brush up her cooking skills.
Stephanie Barton wants to learn some new, nutritious recipes.
Tianjiao Dai knows how to cook Chinese food but wants to learn her way around an American kitchen.
And Sidian Lan just wants to learn to cook something “awesome and edible.”
They’re all in the right place at Good Eats, a free class that provides a crash course in college cooking that goes way beyond Ramen.
The four-week class aims to teach students basic kitchen skills and how to plan healthy menus on a budget. It is a project of Students Promoting Information about Nutrition, or SPIN, a student organization that works in association with Health Services. Jen DeZenzo, a junior nutrition major and one of the coordinators of the class, said that the course is free and offered once a semester. The class is full but will be offered again in the spring. Because of space constraints, the class can only accommodate 15 students at a time.
“It’s a really basic class,” DeZenzo said. “Most people come in without any cooking skills at all.”
After a brief introduction, the 15 students donned aprons, washed their hands and headed for the kitchen, where Stillings Executive Chef Brian Place was waiting to teach them some basics. Place gave a demonstration of proper knife skills, showing the safe and efficient way to chop carrots, cucumbers, garlic, parsley, other vegetables and seasonings.
“If you’re serious about cooking, you have to go out and get yourself a good knife,” Place said, laughing as his audience began to cry from the onions he was slicing.
After the demo, it was time for students to try out the skills they had learned.
“This year is the first time I’m cooking for myself,” said senior Brodeur as she carefully chopped carrots. “So, I thought this was a good time to learn.”
Like several other students in the course, Dai, a first year graduate student from China, heard about the class from the Office of International Students and Scholars.
“I know how to cook Chinese food,” she said as she extracted the seeds from a cucumber. “But this sounded like fun and I wanted to learn about American food, too.”
Jen DeZenzo said that in following weeks the class will explore whole grains and main dishes, and will culminate in an open kitchen that will challenge students to use what they have learned to make a dish to share with their classmates.
Each week, participants receive recipes and tips for healthy eating. The recipes are all vegetarian, simple, and inexpensive to prepare.
“The point is to teach them how to cook a well-rounded meal on a budget.” DeZenzo said.
The three coordinators of the class are DeZenzo, senior Tina Tiernan, and junior Lauren Dustin. They are all peer advisors with SPIN, and got involved with Good Eats because they want UNH students to know it’s possible to eat both nutritiously and inexpensively.
The vegetables the students used to practice their new skills were combined into a salad. One group also made garlic bread seasoned with minced garlic, rosemary and olive oil, while another made a salad dressing out of olive oil, red wine vinegar, rosemary and thyme.
After the lesson, students came together to enjoy what they had created, sitting down to a simple dinner of salad, garlic bread and local apple cider.
Freshman Lan, who is from China and lives in Greece, was puzzled over a word on one of his handouts.
“What’s a stove?” he asked, while the class enjoyed the meal they had prepared.
His classmates explained.
“Look at that,” said Lan, smiling and reaching for the garlic bread. “I learned something."
