When the former East Suburban YMCA in Plum kicked a massive renovation campaign in December 2009, most of the planned amenities focused on fun ways to exercise. There’d be a six-lane, indoor lap pool and spinning studio, along with a 5,000-square-foot fitness center full of state-of-the-art equipment. But an area dedicated to helping members make better choices about how to fuel their bodies before and after workouts?
That wasn’t on the drawing board until Kristy Sampson Rodriguez got involved.
One of the cornerstones of her family’s The Sampson Foundation, which was donating $1.25 million in support of the expansion, is educating adults and children on the benefits of healthy eating. As a certified holistic health coach and yoga instructor specializing in prenatal and postpartum wellness, she, too, is passionate about good nutrition. So she asked administrators, have you ever thought about a teaching kitchen?
They hadn’t, but agreed it was a great idea. Especially after securing $225,000 in additional funding in 2011 from the private Eden Hall Foundation to pay for it. Completed in November 2014, it’s a beauty.
Outfitted with a six-burner Vulcan commercial range, stainless appliances and a 12-foot-long island that comfortably seats six with plenty of room for chopping, mixing and slicing, it’s an inviting and functional space for kids and adults to learn how to make, say, fresh fruit smoothies or turn flour, sugar, yeast and water into a loaf of crusty focaccia.
What really makes the 1,300-square-foot space in the rechristened Sampson Family YMCA special is its provenance. It’s the only teaching kitchen in Pennsylvania that operates as part of the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative. It also was the first community-based organization to join the national initiative cooked up by The Culinary Institute of America and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to promote healthy living.
Located on the first floor next to a kindergarten room, the kitchen is run by Beth Kurtz Taylor of Penn Township, a self-taught cook and graduate of Chatham University’s Master of Arts in Food Studies program. Along with nutrition education, it offers private and group cooking classes to kids and adults. And no, you don’t have to belong to the YMCA to sign up for one. (Though non-members pay more.)
Classes are tailored to specific audiences (kids, preteens, seniors and special needs) and are small enough that everyone gets personal attention and hands-on experience — no more than six kids at a time, and eight to 10 adults. One week might find students exploring how to sneak more vegetables into their diet, the next how to sharpen knives or dish up healthful appetizers.
Ms. Taylor also has introduced students to new cuisines through popular cookbooks, including Israeli food from Michael Solomonov’s “Zahav.” A class on March 10 will feature recipes from "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” the 2018 James Beard General Cookbook of the Year.
During the growing season, fresh herbs are plucked from five raised beds outside that are composted with scraps from the kitchen, along with tomatoes, cucumbers, salad greens and strawberries.
The kitchen has proved to be so popular, Ms. Taylor said, that classes usually sell out as soon as the calendar is posted. Many students are repeat customers.
Thirteen-year-old Maria Goldstein, a seventh grader at St. John the Baptist in Plum, has taken more than a half-dozen classes. She was at it once again on a recent Wednesday, learning how to make a sheet cake pizza from scratch and dress a spinach salad with vinaigrette and candied pecans.
“I like trying new things,” she said, pointing to the nuts as a prime example. The class had taken turns toasting, flipping and then caramelizing the meaty kernels in brown sugar, and she was super-surprised they tasted so good. And Ms. Taylor, she said, “is a lot of fun.”
Her classmate Maggie Messina, also 13, nodded in agreement.
Cookie Laufer, a retired school teacher from Penn Hills, is another that’s taken multiple classes in an effort to boost her culinary skills. Not that she’s a horrible cook, but with her son, Brent, working as a chef at Rolling Rock Country Club in Ligonier, “I want to sharpen up and get new ideas,” she said.
One of her favorites, she said, a four-week class offered in partnership with Penn State Extension on the Mediterranean diet, which is known to enhance longevity and has other health benefits.
For kids to smell and handle food on their own, Ms. Taylor said, “is really enticing.” It also helps plant the seed for a lifetime of healthy eating.
At last week’s pizza class, students were fascinated to see how yeast comes alive with the addition of a little sugar. “And that’s what makes the crust rise,” she told them.
They also learned what “shaggy dough” looks like as they practiced their dough-kneading skills, and how it turns smooth and elastic when you keep folding it over and over.
The girls also chopped fruit and learned how to pulse it with yogurt and juice into smoothies, and shook together vinaigrette in a jar for salad.
Ms. Taylor worked for a variety of organizations with special populations, including Children’s Hospital and The Caring Place, after earning a degree in child development from the University of Pittsburgh. She didn’t consider a career in food until after her husband, Mark, died of liver disease in 2006 and she was forced to “reevaluate.”
In 2011, she enrolled in Chatham’s food studies program, which had just gotten off the ground. She has led food tours at Pittsburgh Tours & More and ‘Burg Bits & Bites, done freelance food writing and worked as a Pampered Chef consultant for a hot minute.
She also is an instructor for 412 Food Rescue’s Cooking Matters food education courses that teach parents and caregivers with limited food budgets to shop for and cook healthy meals.
The kitchen is not just a local service, but has become a national model. Administrators say the YMCA has been able to share its model for success with the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative, helping more people have access to teaching kitchens across the country.
Gretchen McKay: gmckay@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1419 or on Twitter @gtmckay.
First Published: February 27, 2019, 12:00 p.m.
