This year, we are celebrating the incredible ways food fosters connections and provides nourishment. At St Nicholas Early Education, mealtime is a cherished opportunity for our learners to bond with friends, nourish their bodies, and explore new foods.
Our Centre Cooks play a pivotal role in this, bringing their creativity, innovation, and expertise to deliver vibrant and nutritious meals for our learners. They impart valuable culinary knowledge to guide our learners in developing culinary skills and making informed decisions about healthy, balanced eating.
We are thrilled to share the St Nicholas Early Education Cookbook, a collaborative effort by our talented Centre Cook Team. With a unique inclusion from each of our Cooks, this recipe book offers a variety of delicious simple meals and snacks to make at home. We hope that this inspires cherished cooking memories with your little ones for years to come.
Food immersion experiences
Culinary skills and food immersion experiences are frequently incorporated into weekly programming across St Nicholas and our Centre Cooks are at the heart of this foundational and holistic learning. Inspiring dramatic play in the outdoor mud kitchens, growing green thumbs in the centre gardens, supporting ‘transition to school’ programming and pairing meal planning with weekly programming, our Centre Cooks are there to see our learners grow and flourish.
From time to time, you can catch our Centre Cooks on the floor, guiding our learners in owning the creation of delicious meals and snacks to enjoy. Not only does this build confidence in their ability to cook and bake but it allows our learners to have a sense of ownership in their meal programming.
Carl Clarabut, Centre Cook / Mentor
Meet Carl Clarabut, Centre Cook at St Nicholas Early Education Newcastle West and Mentor to our Centre Cook Team. Carl is passionate about sharing his expertise and empowering children to develop culinary skills and nutritional knowledge. His goal is to help them make informed choices about their health and gain the confidence to create and enjoy nutritious meals.
We are proud to share a special cooking experience featuring two of our young learners, Isla and Wyatt, guided by Carl. In this video, Carl supports Isla and Wyatt as they create a healthy and delicious fruit plate, highlighting the joy of cooking and encouraging healthy eating habits.
Thank you
Thank you to each of our Centre Cooks for your passion in all that you do to provide nutritious and creative meals for our learners, supporting them to grow and flourish and for your contributions to create resources for our families. We hope that this National Nutrition Week inspires creativity, experimentation and growth in the kitchen and at the dinner table.
In the Media: The young chefs learning to prep fresh produce for healthy eating habits
The below has been taken from The Herald.
With their aprons tied and chef hats on, the children of St Nicholas Early Education Centre, Newcastle West chopped up fruit and vegetables for a healthy start to National Nutrition Week.
In a move to promote healthy eating, centre cook and mentor Carl Clarabut has been teaching the little chefs how to wash, prepare and cut their fruit and vegetables, and the benefits to eating them.
“We get them in chef hats with their aprons and knives and set up tables to talk about where fruit and vegetables come from. Where they grow and why it’s good for them,” he said.
“Then we prepare the fruit for example, wash it, cut it, peel it – which gets them using fine motor skills,” he said.
“We might make healthy muffins where the kids mix the bowl and then I will cook them and we’ll have a chat about what the ingredients are while we eat them.”
Mr Clarabut said it allows the children to have a conversation around healthy eating habits.
“If children see people having pizza, burgers, Pepsi and Coke – they think that is normal and healthy.
“It’s important for kids to know that water and fruit is part of a stable diet and it helps you grow. I tell them ‘if you want to be good at school and grow, eating burgers isn’t going to help you. You need to have a nutritious diet.’ So, it’s important to start that early,” he said.
As part of nutrition week, St Nicholas’ Centre Cook Team have developed a cook book inspired by meals they serve at their respective St Nick’s centres.
Families can download the cookbook and carry on introducing healthy and balanced meals to their children.
National Nutrition Week is an annual awareness campaign by Nutrition Australia and runs from October 14 to 20.
