At Passion For Spices™ this year, our 14th annual Summer Around the World Cooking Camp was a great success again. We are thrilled to provide a platform for our young generation to learn about food and culture, and provide a true culinary experience. Our team at Passion for Spices™ were so happy to see the eagerness of our young chefs and their enthusiasm in learning new skill sets. We had a great group of happy campers. Please see the details below.
American Road Trip
SouthEast: Where the kids learned how to make pulled chicken, and hand pies during our workshop.
Midwest: The Children learned how to make classic Midwestern dishes like Corn Runzas, and frozen custard pies
SouthWest: where the campers learned how to how to prepare chicken burritos and salsa & chips, as well as flour tortillas during our workshop
Appalachia: Where the campers prepared Appalachian delicacies, like turkey sausage, buttermilk biscuits, and fried apples
Louisiana Creole: Where the campers prepared gumbo, red beans, and dirty rice, and Roux and Beignets during the workshop
Around the World
Italy: Where the campers made egg based pastas and Biscotti for the workshop
Morocco/North African: Where our campers prepared Shakshuka and authentic Pita and Mezze
Thailand: Where our Campers made chicken curry and some vegetable pad thai, and some Khamon Tom for the Workshop
France: Where our Campers made Ratatouille and French Pastries
India: Where our campers made Malai Kebab and parathas for our workshop
Arts and Science
Breads: Where our Campers indulged in the science of baking, by making some classic Irish Soda bread, and Mini Cinnamon Truffles, as well as Pizza from Scratch during our workshop.
Dumplings From Around the World: Our campers educated themselves in the application of dumplings, with Mongolian Buz and Periogi, as well as baking some Samosas and Chutney during our workshop.
Pies: Our Pie making class involved us making a pie dough, Shepherd’s pie, and apple dumplings, whilst putting together fruit hand pies.
Cheese: The Campers cheese class was mainly using ricotta, pancakes, with fruits and bacon bits. The accompanying workshop included ravioli with ricotta cheese.
Noodles: Our Camper applied themselves in making noodles, from fettucini noodles and Chicken Yaki Soba noodles. The workshop included pici pasta with garlic sauce.
Farm to Table
Corn: Our campers tried themselves at making corn in Corn chowder and Corn Muffins, while our workshop goers tired their hand at making various flavored popcorns.
Squash: Our campers made various configurations of squash in delectable ways, like a buttermilk squash with lentil curry and roasted zucchini. Our workshop was about the creation of zucchini chocolate cake.
Eggs: our day about eggs had our campers prepare curried deviled eggs, quiche, and madeleines. The workshop as well had other egg dishes, like meringues/Pavlova with fruit
Tomatoes: Our camper prepared NJ’s favorite vegetable, both a tomato tart, and Caprese salad. During our workshop, the campers also made sauces.
Fruits: The Seasonal fruits classes included grilled chicken with peaches, as well as a peach cobbler. The workshop as well included a peach crisp and a blueberry sorbet
Culinary Teen Competition
One of our students, Miles LoPrete, wrote an account of his experiences during our Week 5 cooking camp:
Passion For Spices has been an incredible experience for me. I have made new friends and can't recommend Passion for Spices enough! For those who might not be familiar with Passion-For-Spices, they are a Farm-To-Table Culinary school that believes in using fresh ingredients. The chefs at Passion For Spices help with personalized guidance whenever necessary, Which makes learning new recipes easy! Passion For Spices has amazing spices that you can purchase online and a cookbook and a bunch of free recipes! This class really shows people how easy it is to cook!
On the first day of the week we focused on knife skills. Chef Thomas taught us how to chop, cut, slice, and mince lots of vegetables and other ingredients such as Onions, Peppers, Garlic, tomatoes, and so much more. After cutting all the vegetables we cut chicken for the Chicken Vegetable stir fry we made, which was super delicious! The next thing we learned to make was a Corn chowder With a corn cob broth we made earlier. Overall the first day was super fun!
On the Second day of the camp we made amazing dumplings which chef Thomas taught us how to wrap the dumplings in multiple ways. With the dumplings, we made a super easy and delicious dipping sauce! The second thing we made on day 2 was two types of homemade pasta with super fresh eggs. The first type of pasta is an Egg pasta dough, which we flattened out and we made fettuccine sized noodles with it. The second type of pasta we made was semolina flour and water pasta, Which we made Orecchiette with. After all that, we made a super simple tomato sauce and everything was amazing!
On the third day of camp we started right away making Potato Gratin which is a super delicious french dish with lots of potatoes, Cream, and cheese. With this dish we learned how to use a mandolin, Overall the potato gratin was super tasty and fun to make! The second thing we made was Zucchini ratatouille with tomatoes which was delicious, And for dessert we made a fresh berry pie which tasted super good. Overall day 3 was super fun and I learned a lot!
On day four of camp we learned how to make Herb Grilled Chicken with a delicious marinate. The second thing we learned on the 4th day was how to make a super tasty Moroccan Couscous that was super flavorful with the keralan curry that May (The founder of Passion-For-Spices) sells! We also made grilled zucchini which was super delicious. Over all day 4 was some hard work but was worth it because everything was delicious!
On the last day of camp we did the Teen Cooking Competition where we served all of our parents and siblings food we made. With this competition we used all of the skills we learned over the week to make a 4 course meal! We came at 3pm to start cooking, which gave us around 3 hours to make all the food before our families came over for dinner. After we all gave each other roles for what to do in the kitchen we saw the mystery ingredients they gave us, we had decided what to make almost right away. We decided to do an all around the world theme for our courses! After lots of cooking in big batches we were all tired but super excited for the families to come and try out our food! As 6pm struck all the parents arrived. For the first course we made chicken, carrot, garlic and ginger dumplings with a super good dipping sauce. After course 1 all the food was gone because it was so good. For Course 2 we did a pasta course where we made fettuccine pasta and an amazing meat tomato sauce. Once we were done with course 2 we went straight to course 3 which consisted of Potato Gratin, Ratatouille, and a bunch of herb grilled chicken. After this course everyone was super full from all the great food we made. For the last course we did a peach crumble topped with vanilla ice cream. The teen cooking competition was super fun and it was my favorite part of the week, and I would do it again!
Overall The Teen Cooking Competition week was super fun, It was super hands on, meaning you cook a lot. I also learned a lot from Passion-For-Spices and it was super great to eat all the stuff we made. From this camp you learn new flavors, new skills and so much more, I couldn't recommend Passion-For-Spices more!
Soups, Salads, Broths: Our campers made a very well liked soups, Corn Chowder and Galangal soup for this event, as well as Cold Soba Noodle Salad. The Teens also built their skills like knife skills and basic stock making.
Starters, Homemade Pastas, and Sauces: in the spirit of the name, campers prepared a full complement of starters, with a Dumpling Assortment, Chicken Satay, and Semolina Pasta.
Sides and Desserts: Campers produced French Style Potatoes and Mediterranean Couscous with Rice to accompany any main course
Main Course: Our campers prepared the savory Roasted Spatchcocked Chicken with Classic Style Ratatouille, fit for a king. The final day, we had our annual cook off, where the camper’s parents came to sample everything that the campers had made.
Mystery Market Basket Competition: The Campers cooked a three course meal to present to friends and family.
