Despite all the action still underway in May, you may want to put this one your “to-do list” for June. That is, it you have a kiddo.
Let’s be extremely, painfully honest. After Memorial Day and an early summer getaway, parents are facing weeks of trying to find something to keep the youngsters busy. You can only go to the pool so many times before the household budget is in overload for sunscreen. On the other hand, how movies are munchkin friendly?
The folks at the Dallas Arboretum are teaming up with Dallas chefs Lynae Fearing, Scott Gottlich and Kent Rathbun to provide a project that is perfect for budding cooks grades 1 through 8.
Inspired by the Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden, Gardenlicious is “a healthy kids cook-off contest” at the Arboretum’s Camp House.
If you haven’t been to the Children’s Adventure Garden, you might not know that one of the highlights is the Edible Garden and that’s key to the contest. Each child chef “can select at least one ingredient that grows there to create their culinary creation (snack, dessert, entrée, etc.) that will be judged by the three Dallas chefs.
Judging will be based on healthiness, difficulty/creativity, taste/flavor, use of garden ingredients and appearance of food and presentation style of chef(s).
Finalists will present four servings of their prepared cook-off entry on stage for the judges to sample.
And since turnabout is always the most fun, Gardenlicious Chair Carol Pierce Goglia has arranged for the adult chefs to provide their own dishes for the kids to judge.
According to Carol, “With all the focus on cooking, we have also named Cecile Bonte the honorary chair of the event—not just because she led the effort in raising the millions to build the Children’s Garden as the capital campaign chairwoman, but because she is an extraordinary cook.”
While the contest doesn’t take place until Sunday, June 29, recipes must be submitted by Sunday, June 8, and that’s right around the corner.
* Photo provided by the Dallas Arboretum