Calling all Grannies. Do you share your cooking and baking skills with your grandchildren?
Calling all children. Do you share your granny’s cooking and baking skills? If so you could enter a competition and possibly become the next Rising Star Young Chef of the Year.
I remember watching my granny making wheaten bread and as she floured the baking tray the sound of her wedding ring tapping the sides as she turned it round and round until it was covered. Just being with her, talking and watching gave us a remarkable bond and me an insight into the realms of culinary skills.
Granny On A Large Scale
Ann King, who is spearheading the competition, is grandmother to eleven from 13 to 22 years of age and they have all benefitted from her example, healthy eating and using imagination to produce exciting dishes; now she wants to encourage other young people to get involved in cooking and hopes the competition will encourage them to come forward with their menus to be judged later this year.
By way of example she told me how the late chef Gary Rhodes grew up in a single parent household, two sisters and a mother who was working by day. As he was first home from school it fell to him to prepare the teatime meal. He called with the butcher to pick up the meat and showed such an interest the butcher taught him about the cuts and the cooking. Celebrity chef James Martin’s granny apparently made the best Yorkshire puddings in the world and watching her in the kitchen excited his passion which resulted in him become a much loved multimillionaire television personality.
“Needs must,” Ann explained. “And children get hungry and will experiment especially if there’s no one the house till later, so it’s a good idea for their mother or grandmother to discuss safe cooking with them and making sure there are ingredients in the house they can use and so develop their skills.”
Of Ann’s eleven grandchildren there is just one girl, Megan who is 13 and shares a birthday with her granny. Like many children she specialises in scones and pancakes and learns every day, spaghetti bolognese and sausage casserole are also popular.
Experience Counts
“Older people have memories of making from local produce, shin on the bone for soup, no tins or packets, cutting up the fresh vegetables and if you have the opportunity to find a boiling foul a really special soup and, when I was growing up people joked about knowing 100 and one ways with Spam! Nothing was thrown out and budgeting was important. In those days all the family became involved in some way and we still enjoy this at family parties when everyone has to contribute a dish.”
I remember Saturday night meant me making an omelette for my dad ‘because I did it so well’ but I suspect it was to give my mum a break! My brothers and I had to take turns to bake a sandwich cake each week and so we learned and got an interest in creating. In more recent times, when my grandsons visit, the first thing is ‘granny can we make pancakes’ and like Megan, together with scones they have learned the basics and don’t need me to supervise anymore.
Up For The Challenge?
Now Ann has thrown out a challenge to young people between 10 and 16 years old on 31st July this year. She is Managing Director of Families First NI Ltd and the competition’s founder. She has dedicated herself to recognising and awarding people who make a special contribution to their community and already has established awards for doctors, nurses, mothers, fathers, teachers amongst other categories and now for the first time young people.
She’s looking for the Rising Star Young Chef of the Year 2024 and she’s busy sending information to 600 secondary schools and colleges about the competition. Young people between 10 and 16 years of age are asked to make a five minute video introducing themselves to the judges, why they have chosen their particular dish, showing how it’s prepared and where the influence for cooking came from – at home, in school or perhaps through television programmes.
Include your name and a contact number for your parents/guardian to: youngchefni@gmail.com get your video to Ann as soon as possible for preliminary judging before the finals to be held in the Titanic where their chef will demonstrate a signature dish and the finalists, perhaps 20 or so, must reproduce the dish and then under the expert eye of chief judge chef Stephen Jeffers, principal tutor at Belfast Cookery School, the winner and runners up will be announced. The prize? Ann’s tight lipped! “Still under wraps but it’s big.”
Whatever has happened to EastEnders. Perhaps it’s supposed to be a comedy but it’s not working for me. There’s no humour, outrageous story lines with bodies under the floor and every one sleeping with everyone else and now the Pastor pestering one of the parishioners . It’s now the done thing to have sex and violence in so many programmes and films. Last night SuperDad. two teenagers hope to loose their virginity at a party. Another, a TikTok star surviving an attempt on her life, a liquid Terminator hunting down a young girl. With films the majority give a warning of ‘strong’ language, scenes of a sexual nature, violence. What chance has a gentle woman looking for escape. Perhaps that’s actually what is on offer!
But seriously what chance do children have, they are being bombarded with unsavoury programmes. I can never get over Naked Attraction totally pornographic programme where men and women chose each over based on their naked bodies. Of course I’ve seen it, curiosity – one and a half times; hard to believe this is acceptable and passes whatever guidelines are in place if indeed there are any. Isn’t it strange how life is changing and no one seems to be in doing anything about it. I have talked to a couple of primary school teachers who tell me of the language and aggression in the classroom but there is no way of correcting this as, only in some places, there is no respect from the parents who apparently are behaving the same way in the playground. Nor is there anything relating to modesty with a lot of young girls, I will be unpopular saying this but women do have a responsibility to keep themselves safe – I was walking in town and two young men and a young girl were walking behind me chatting away. The boys were discussing whether they perferred women to wear jeans or dresses. “Dresses every time – easy access.” This wasn’t a joke and I wonder what the girl thought, she said nothing.
FASHIONABLE OR WHAT!
We’re advised to live one day at a time and certainly in these fearful days looking ahead is not wise if you want any peace of mind. At least the sun is shining over me at the moment, temperatures in Belfast are set to be reasonably high so I will prepare my pots for the tomatoes with the hope they will give their usual yield of tasty Ailsa Craig later in the summer. Roll On.