After nearly three decades of cooking, including traveling the world as a private chef to some of the world’s most rich and powerful, celebrity Chef Eduardo Garcia – better known to some as the “Bionic Chef” because of his prosthetic arm – has learned the star ingredient to any recipe.
“The most important ingredient you can have is care,” said Garcia, recounting what he told students during a visit to a Los Angeles Unified School District campus on Tuesday, April 23.
The celebrity chef and host of Magnolia Network’s “Big Sky Kitchen with Eduardo Garcia” was in town to participate in events with Common Threads, a national nonprofit that uses nutrition education to promote healthy eating and community health. Garcia sits on the nonprofit’s national board.
Garcia and Linda Novick O’Keefe, co-founder and CEO of Common Threads, dropped by the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies in Tarzana to observe students in a Kitchen Clinic run by the nonprofit. The day’s menu included fish tacos, Spanish rice, coleslaw and chocolate chip cookie dough hummus.
Kitchen Clinic is a program that engages high schoolers in hands-on cooking and nutrition education. Over 10 weeks, students try out new recipes, learn about the medicinal properties in certain foods and hear from health professionals ranging from doulas to psychiatrists, cardiologists and gastroenterologists to better understand the relationship between foods and one’s overall health.
“It’s wonderful to see these kids understand how important it is to be intentional with what their choices are and ensuring that they really are cooking and eating and making healthy choices for themselves and their families,” said Novick O’Keefe.
“The imprint of our health is directly related to what we eat and drink,” she said.
About half the participants go on to serve as chef instructor assistants, co-teaching cooking classes to elementary students, as part of a 30-hour paid…
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