🥣 Dinner Club Around-the-World Term 1 Grade 7+

A one and half  hour, fun-filled cooking class just right for the highschool age group running from 4:00-5:30 pm for 7 weeks. Each week follows a fun, new country theme so that we learn about different cuisines and children go home with a portion of the meal they made themselves. We learn to use a wide variety of kitchen skills and equipment, foster kitchen independence, decipher recipes and meet like-minded chefs.

 Please note 

• Any food allergies should be checked with Karen prior to booking.
• These are inclusive classes but other specific NDIS classes (smaller class sizes and less hectic) are on offer so do check in with Karen to find the right fit.
• The lessons are stand-up classes to replicate being a chef but a stool is available for additional physical needs.
• Behaviour expectations; kind, respectful, safe and inclusive.

Wednesdays 4:00-5:30 pm 7 weeks

Weekly Menu Term 1 2025

Week 1: 12th Feb Mississippi Morsels

Week 2: 19th Feb Greek Taverna

Week 3:  26th Feb South African Safari

Week 4: 5th Mar Toscano Treats

Week 5: 12th Mar Filipino Favourites

Week 6: 19th Mar Aloha

Week 7: 26th Mar Where in the World?

Reviews:

I have loved each and every week of my Dinner Club Wednesdays. The recipes were well suited to our capabilities as well as delicious. I have loved recreating the meals I have learned to prepare at home for my family, and they are all very impressed!

Thank you Karen! I have loved learning from you for the past 7 weeks and can’t wait to learn more in the future! Term 4 2020

I’m 10 and I’ve just done my 4th term. It's a amazing place to learn how to cook and meet new people. I’ve learnt that cooking isn’t always easy but I need to share the jobs. I also got chef of the term by being voted on 2 weeks for chef of the week. How it works is at the end of the lesson you pick someone who you think did really well that lesson, then you count up your votes and the person with the most gets chef of the week. Thank you Karen I had heaps of fun cooking and learning heaps from you Term 3 participant 2019

I am passionate about cooking and also keeping healthy. Cooking has always brought me joy, satisfaction and fulfilled a personal need for creativity. I left primary school teaching and began my own cooking business while living in London (2002-2010) because I wanted to share my skills and love of cooking with others.

Originally, I was providing practical kids’ cookery parties, and this evolved into teaching about healthy food, mostly in primary schools.

During this time, School Dinners hit the headlines because they were exposed as having poor nutritional value. This exposure brought further interest from schools that realised practical healthy food experiences needed to be held in order for early intervention in children’s health to occur.

I travelled widely, demonstrating and setting up practical experiences to teach basic cookery skills and provide food experiences for children, parents and teachers in greater London, employed by local councils, the NHS and individual schools. Teaching and demonstrating cooking was the most rewarding time of my working years. Some of the range of cooking experiences I was involved in have been;

• Facilitating cooking workshops for parents in the London Borough of Brent (2009-10)
  This was a collaboration between the local council and the NHS. It focussed on tackling childhood obesity by providing weekly cooking sessions for parents. Parents were involved in cooking meals that were healthy, budget-friendly as well as ethnically and religiously inclusive.
• Teacher Training workshops (2004-2009)
  These cooking workshops were run to inspire and present easy ideas for teachers to incorporate food and cooking within a classroom setting.
• In-school Cooking Workshops (2003-2009)
  These were the most popular workshops and I ran them within the classroom setting and brought in all of the cooking equipment and ingredients. They were themed on Healthy Lunchboxes, Healthy Breakfasts and Healthy Snacks. In this format of hour-long sessions, I was cooking and demonstrating with up to 120 children per day.

I left London in 2010 to raise my young family back in Australia. As a passionate home cook, I love to involve my children now in the kitchen and prepare most of our meals from scratch, always learning new recipes and cooking techniques.