Can cooking classes heal the political divide? A new season of My Daughter's Kitchen launches

Learning to cook dinner is not a terribly difficult task. The basics can be picked up pretty quickly with little more than a willingness to keep trying.

Yet the process of teaching a group of children to master a simple meal can resonate in so many ways I never imagined when I started teaching 10-year-olds to cook four years ago.

Not only do the children learn skills such as how to chop onions, peel carrots, and scramble eggs, they learn that some dishes appeal to some and not to others. They learn how to respect different cuisines, and, more importantly, how to respect each other. They learn how to work as a team and how to keep an open mind.

Could cooking classes be the key to easing the political divide in Washington and around the country? It certainly couldn't hurt.

This spring, some 80 volunteers will be teaching about 200 children how to cook healthy, inexpensive dinners for themselves and their families in 39 urban schools throughout the region, as My Daughter's Kitchen cooking program, which began with lessons for my own daughter, continues to expand.

Most classes are in Philadelphia and Camden, although we also have a school in Norristown, and this semester, we are welcoming a location in Chester, Chester Eastside Ministries. Other new locations include the Gesu School in Philadelphia, and the Neighborhood Center in Camden, an afterschool program, where I will be teaching.

From the start, our goal has been to provide easy, affordable alternatives to unhealthy fast food and takeout for everyone, but especially for families in neighborhoods where diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are epidemic, diseases that often are the result of a poor diet. Along the way, we try to demonstrate how easy, delicious, and fun healthy cooking can be. Each of the recipes is designed to feed a family of six for about $20 or less.

In this, our ninth season, we'll be teaching kids how to make nutritious versions of meals like tortellini salad with zucchini and peas, Moroccan chicken couscous, and roasted green beans.

For me, the greatest joy is seeing how much the children enjoy the process, the touching of a fresh tomato or a stalk of rhubarb, the transformation of raw ingredients into a beautiful dinner, and then the sitting down to share the results.

What seems like a chore in the early weeks becomes a ritual. "Why do we need to put that cloth on the table?" in the first week, becomes "Where is the tablecloth?" as the weeks wear on.

At Urban Promise School in Camden, one group of children became so enchanted with the setting of the table they told their teachers they were preparing the table for the Obamas to come to dinner, said volunteer Maureen Dodson.

For, Cheryl Pfeiffer, another volunteer, her joy has been watching her students not only learn about nutrition, but develop social skills as well.

"I've watched them learn how to work with each other (including people they didn't want to work with early in the program)," she said. She also said she realized how many of the little things in her life she took for granted. "On a personal note, I'm coming face to face with levels of poverty I'd only read about before," she said.

Katie Rhodes, another volunteer, said what keeps her coming back is "seeing the pride in a child's mastery of mincing a garlic clove, slicing perfect banana coins, making quick, accurate math calculations to adapt quantities of a recipe," she said. "That and the hugs I get from returning students."

Since we started, volunteers in schools across the city and across the river have taught 910 children, prepared 868 home-cooked meals, and logged more than 5,500 volunteer hours. More than $80,000 has been donated to support this endeavor. Our most sincere thanks to all who have contributed and who continue to give.

Of course, none of this would be remotely possible without the Vetri Community Partnership, which manages the  program, scouting new locations, coordinating volunteers, assembling the hundreds of cookbooks, and  even stepping in to teach a class in a pinch.

My continued thanks to Marc Vetri and Jeff Benjamin, who said yes when I approached them about a partnership, and for the entire staff at VCP, especially Maddy Booth and Chelsea Schmidt, who somehow fix every problem that comes up, including buying groceries for a class in an emergency!

Another lovely, but unexpected, aspect of the program is the mother and daughter connection that started with my own daughter and that lives on, not only in the name of the program, but in the volunteers.

A mother-daughter team, Jill and Paige Durovsik, joined us as new volunteers for the  spring, and  Romy Gelles and her mother, Renee, started their third semester volunteering with MDK at Jane Addams Place, a women's shelter in West Philly, part of Lutheran Settlement House. Many mothers participate with the children in the cooking classes.

"These children, who have often lived in various shelters, bring an infectious level of enthusiasm and inquiry about food and cooking as well as life that I have never encountered," said Romy.

Lisa Krader, one of our most veteran volunteers, said she feels a connection to both her mother and her daughters through the program.

"When I volunteer with the students, I feel as though the cooking techniques (mostly taught to me by my mother) that I taught my daughters can continue," she said. "Many of the students have so much to say about their own mother's cooking techniques and I, in turn, learn from them. It is enriching, and not what I expected at all."