Knife skills

A few months ago, I signed up to volunteer for an after school program called Common Threads. For those who have never heard of it (which is nearly everyone I know), it's a program that teaches inner city children how to cook within the context of cultural education (food from a different country each week) and nutrition.

The program was founded by Art Smith - Oprah's former private chef. Many of you may know about it from Top Chef Chicago.

Food and cooking for others is a really important part of my life. I also love kids and have been looking for a way to get more involved now that we seem to be settling in to life in Chicago(land area).

Due to its Bravo publicity, I had to go through an interview, get fingerprinted and wait my turn for a new round of classes to begin. (Good news... I passed!)

With classes starting in a couple of weeks, it was time for our training session. The majority of the session was spent going over curriculum, expectations and rules. However, the most interesting portion was knife skills. I LOVE to chop and know how to do it correctly, so that part of the lesson was review. However, when we got to the "how to handle knives around inner city kids" portion, I started paying attention.

Before I go any further, these are 8- and 9-year-old children. They signed up for the program because they want to. The biggest concern is that they don't chop off their own fingers.

However, there were some things I, being from a small farm town, wouldn't have necessarily considered. For instance, these kids get nervous when they see other kids with knives. So it's a class rule to announce that you have a knife if you are behind someone (I imagine it to be similar to riding on the bike path; except you yell "knife back here," rather than "passing left.") The second thing is that, under no circumstances, are the kids ever to take the knife away from the cutting board or hold it up in the air.

I am assured that nothing has ever happened. And I don't, in any way, feel threatened. My husband, however, is convinced I am going to get "knifed" and put pepper spray in my purse.