The Lewis County Extension Office collaborated with the Lewis County Youth Services Center and the Family Resource Centers to Offer a 7-week cooking class called Cooking with Friends.   Cooking is a life skill that everyone needs so they can prepare food for themselves and when they get older for their families.  

The 4-H Agent, the Family Resource Center coordinator, and Youth Services Center coordinator teamed together to promote the program and to provide supplies for each of the seven lessons.   The lessons came from the 4-H project Cooking 101, 202, and 303.  There were 14 youth that signed up to participate in the cooking class and all participants stayed in the program till the last lesson.   Because of COVID only two lessons were in person.  The other five lessons were done through zoom meetings.  The first meeting was in person and this is when the participants picked up supplies for the next two meetings.  The fourth meeting was in person and this was when participants picked up supplies for lessons 5 and 6.  For our last lesson, the participants provided their own supplies.  

Success of the program was measured by the youth responding to questions to a survey through SurveyMonkey.   There were 11 participants that responded to the survey.  Each participant that responded to the survey indicated they had made at least one recipe a second time after they made it during the class and ten survey participant taught someone else something they learned during the cooking class.   Results were as follows:  

-Waffles were made a total of 32 times after the participants were taught how to make them

-Potato soup was made 7 times total by participants after learning how to make it

- The Breakfast Sundae was made 25 times by participants after they leaned to make it

-Mexican Layered Dip was made 15 times after the initial lesson

-Peanut Butter Cookies were made 15 times after the initial lesson

-Fajitas were made 19 times after the initial lesson with one parent telling the 4-H agent that they had never used fajita seasoning until this lesson but that they really liked it and would continue using it.   

-Spaghetti and meat sauce was made 19 times total after the initial lesson.  

These totals do not include the day they made the recipe during the lesson.

The lessons the participants taught others

-One participant taught another person how to make waffles

-One participant taught someone how to cut an onion and the reason why you cut it the way you do.

-One participant taught someone how to check to see if a plate is microwave safe

-One taught someone how to set the table, how to make Mexican Layer Dip and how to make waffles

-One participant taught someone how to make potato soup

-One participant taught someone how to stir fry chicken

-Two participants taught a parent how to make fajitas

-One participant taught someone how to make waffles and how to crack an egg

-One participant taught someone how to make peanut butter cookies.  Many participants had never had homemade peanut butter cookies and they really liked them and continued to make them.