In these tough times for all of us, there are few jobs for teens and even fewer for “tweens.”

I recall my eldest child bemoaning the fact that she was bored and not old enough to get a “real summer job.” She must have been around 12 at the time, and baby-sitting was not what she had in mind.

Brother Steve had dibs on the lawn mowing, and nothing else seemed suitable. Somehow we came up with the idea of her holding “cooking classes” (in MY kitchen) for the younger neighborhood kids.

Last summer I was reminded of this when some young friends of mine took cooking classes at First Baptist Family Life Center.

Do you think that CCC stands for Columbia Civic Center? Maybe Civilian Conservation Corps, or even Child Care Center? All wrong.

To the families on St. Andrews Drive in Orangeburg back in the early 70s, it stood for CINDY’S COOKING CLASSES.

Cindy got busy hand-lettering her information on 5- by 7-inch index cards: CCC at the top with “Cindy’s Cooking Classes” underneath, followed by times, dates, price and place. She delivered the cards to all the homes on the street in which resided children of ages who would be able to do the simple lessons she planned. There were sister Mary Beth, Rachel and Benny (yes, the boys were delighted to come), Vivian and Lawton, Katherine and Elizabeth, Lisa – quite enough for a normal family kitchen, particularly when brother Steve and his friend Randy dropped in to kibitz, generally near the end of a session to grab a treat!

While there were city-organized playground activities at the nearby school, the moms were delighted to have the kids occupied for another couple of hours during the week, especially when they knew I’d be supervising. I think Cindy started out teaching them to boil eggs; she started instructing on safety at the stove and safety with hot water. At another lesson, they learned to scramble the eggs. Of course, eating what was cooked was part of the lesson as well as cleanup. They got to take some of the results home with them.

Some of the recipes she used were my “quick and easy” fixes. All just required melting or boiling some ingredients on top of the stove before adding other items. The muffins and lemon squares were saved for a later lesson since they involved oven baking, but the kids loved patting the stiff dough into the baking pan for the first step and mixing the eggs, lemon and sugar for the second baking.

I’ll share her recipe for Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies with you.

In a saucepan on an eye of the stove, melt 1 stick of margarine; add ½ cup milk, 2 cups sugar and ½ cup cocoa; boil for 1 minute, stirring. Take off heat and add 1 teaspoon vanilla; stir in 3 cups minute oatmeal and 1 cup chopped nuts. Drop by teaspoonsful onto waxed paper. Makes 3-4 dozen.

T&D Columnist Iris Arant-Kittrell can be reached by e-mail at arant@mindspring.com.

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