Weeks 1-2 at Brainfood Columbia Heights

Before and after photos of the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies by Binni Chadda

Part 1: Cookies and Chaos on Opening Day
As apparent by the date of this late post, the opening day of Brainfood at Columbia Heights has come and gone. The only excuse I can offer for this early neglect for our new blog is that the first two weeks of After School program at Brainfood, while invariably exciting, are thoroughly exhausting. This was perhaps the only downside to the beginning of the after school program. The chaos, the hilarity, and the uniqueness of the first day of class completely sapped my ability to write about it . Half an hour after the students had left, I was still buzzing around the kitchen, draining the last sinks, and babbling enthusiastically and incoherently to Kris about what happened in class. Her advice: “You sound really excited, so just make sure you remember to turn the stoves off before you leave”.

This is what happens after months of picking recipes, planning icebreakers for the first day, restocking the kitchen for the last time. The anticipation builds for the first day of class. And then the planning stops, and you wait in the kitchen, class agenda taped up and in clear view, hoping that students will arrive without knowing that they will. It’s a very humbling moment.

Then all at once, students arrive, class begins, and months of planning are suddenly realized over the Name Game Group Juggle and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Out come the whisks and scrapers and the time-weathered mixing bowls, followed by bags of chocolate chips and old fashioned rolled oats. First time encounters with measuring cups and spoons give way to intense concentration as groups of students meticulously re-measure out their ingredients, using the flat edge of a butter knife to level off the excess. Butter, eggs, milk, and then cookie dough emerges. The recipe calls this process “gently combining” wet and dry ingredients, but the reality was a little closer to a brisk and authoritative whisking. (I wondered if someone had warned the students that the dough might defy their efforts). 5:50, and cookies were on the cooling rack. A quick closing, followed by near-silent inhalation of the goods, and the students were out the door, leaving in their wake little more than a trail of crumbs.