My entry into the Power House Creatives Contest - Memories Caught on Camera

This is my entry into the Power House Creatives Contest, “Memories Caught on Camera” put forth by the ever awesomesauce @zord189. Before I get started, here’s the basic deets on the contest…

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words so let’s see if you can share a picture and also write a thousand words with it. Muahahha, JUST KIDDING!!! Not that many words, but if you can, why not. Well, this contest is a photo contest. A simple one at that. You just need to pick one or two photo and tell us the story behind that photo. I would love to get to know each one of you more so this would be a good step towards that. It could be something funny, memorable, precious, or sad, whichever you want. If your heart tells you to share that photo, then send in your entry! 🙂

Contest : Memories caught on camera

Criteria :
1. You must include the the MAIN photo to write about.
2. You may use other photos to tell your story better.
3. Your post must have more than 350 words.
4. Come up with your own fancy title.
5. The photo must be your own.

Now, for my entry called…

That time I was a Culinary Arts teacher

Yes folks, believe it or not, I had a short stint of teaching the fine art of cooking to a class of about a dozen students. Me, the person who (as my family is fond of reminding me) once said, “I have a great spaghetti sauce recipe. First, you start with a jar of Ragu…”

via GIPHY

How did I manage such a prestigious position, you ask? Well, it helped that all of my students were under the age of 5…

via GIPHY

Bit of backstory – hubby & I decided before we even had kids that we wanted to homeschool them for at least the first few years. Part of the reason was because I’d briefly considered becoming a teacher myself, after my original life plan to get a degree in psychology & hang my own “Psychiatric Help; 5 Cents sign fell to the wayside (a story for another day).

Fast forward to Spring 2005. At that time, our three kidlets were ages 10, 8, and 5, and we belonged to a few different local homeschool groups. Some were strictly for playing & socializing, but some were set up as co-ops, where parents volunteered to teach different classes once a week during the traditional school year. It was an amazing opportunity to pool our resources, support each other, and learn while having fun.

While all the groups we belonged to were secular (non-religious), it just so happened we typically met in churches. Turns out many of them in the area had great facilities for their Sunday School teachings and such, and they often had times during the week that the space was unoccupied. For this particular group, a couple of our members belonged to that church’s congregation, so we had access to the basement of a building that had 5 or 6 class rooms, a lounge, and a large common area. It was beyond perfect, except for one thing – it didn’t have a functional kitchen.

We’d been spoiled in our previous space, and had access to one that was like a restaurant kitchen. One of our mothers was an amazing cook, and she’d had a couple of classes for the older (ten to teens) kids, and we’d hope to be able to offer another one. I’m not sure who originally came up with this alternate idea, but at our meeting to set classes, we decided to have a Lil Chefs class for our younger kids, and use things like toaster ovens and hot plates (under the control of adults, of course) when necessary.

I offered to take the class, because while I wasn’t the chef that Mrs G was, I knew I could handle toddler snacks! I came up with a list of things like, Edible Fire, Rice Cake Snowmen, English Muffin Pizza, a Walking Salad… a conglomeration of ideas pulled from our Girl Scout troop, the parent’s suggestions, and of course, the interwebz.

I even put together a recipe book for each kid to take home at the end of the semester. Hubby took this picture for me, and I used it (without the smiley faces, of course) as the cover of our Lil Chef’s Cook Book.

Oh, and yes, that adorable little one in the bottom left corner is my youngest (who is now 19 years old!), and she said it was okay to use this picture online.

Thanks for taking this little meander down memory lane with me! And many thanks to @zord189 for giving me the excuse to reminisce! Maybe some day soon, if anyone’s interested, I’ll do a followup post with scans of the pages of our recipe book to share.

Thanks for stopping by!

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