Summer starts with a BANG!

Last week was one busy week here at Brainfood! Not only did we bring a group of Brainfood program graduates to the White House but we also started our 6-week Brainfood Summer Institute on Monday June 28th. This year’s summer program is a bit different than previous summers. We decided to have our program in the afternoon to help accommodate youth who may have other commitments or responsibilities in the morning. Youth will attend Brainfood from 1pm - 4pm each afternoon and our curriculum will have a similar design to our after school program – lots of hands-on cooking and experiential learning!

After many weeks of planning our summer staff were so excited to meet our 19 high school aged students on Monday afternoon. We started our program with a BANG! On Day 1, we set our group expectations - the key to Brainfood's success, learned how to measure the "Brainfood way" and how to read a recipe. Our participants picked up all the new skills and vocabulary really quickly and by the end of the afternoon we had made dozens of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (a Brainfood first day tradition).

Over the first week our students mastered baking and working with different types of dough. By the end of the week we had made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes with cinnamon icing, strawberry cupcakes, baked mac & cheese, sweet potato biscuits, cheddar biscuits and pizza (including the dough) from scratch.

We have an exciting summer ahead here at Brainfood so check back for our weekly updates! 

-Amy