Funding for Iowa Ingredient is provided by
the W.T. & Edna M. Dahl Trust.
Chef Lisa LaValle of Trellis Café at the River
Center and Chef Michael LaValle of the Des Moines
Embassy Club.
For more than 100 years the Des Moines Embassy Club has
provided a place to dine, celebrate and do business.
Located in Downtown Des Moines and in
West Des Moines.
And Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.
♪♪
Look, Cook, and Eat.
It's an online magazine designed to teach people
with intellectual or learning disabilities how
to cook.
It's created by Sue Hoss, who has a sister with an
intellectual disability and a passion for serving
that community.
Sue Hoss: I got the idea from my work at a coffee
shop here in Des Moines called Plymouth Grounds
and it is a job training site for young people with
intellectual disabilities.
I learned a lot about how interested they are in
cooking and decided to take it to my business
partners with the idea of maybe we should give this
a try.
There is nothing out there like it.
Sue and her partners used their extensive experience
with food magazine publishing to come up with
a unique way to use technology rather than a
traditional cookbook to deliver recipes.
Sue: We're going to make that spinach salad.
Do you want to touch the spinach salad?
Good job.
If you've never made a spinach salad before, you
just might like this one.
Sue doesn't underestimate her audience's abilities
or interests.
Each issue has a number of menus to choose from
including panko pork chops, Chinese chicken
salad and cheeseburger pizza.
The meals are interesting, delicious, well-balanced
and they don't rely on processed food.
Look Cook and Eat guides users through the process
of making a meal from start to finish.
Every recipe set up the same way using no more
than nine ingredients and nine tools.
Ok, Angela, hit the cook button.
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Put the skillet on the stove.
Turn the burner on to medium high, 7 or 8 if
your stove has numbers.
Add the ground beef to the skillet.
That's what we're going to do.
Are you ready?
I'm ready.
Are you ready, Angela?
Yes I am.
Can you find medium high on that dial?
Ok.
Angela, do you want to put the meat in the skillet?
Okay.
Give Charlie the spoon.
Sue: It isn't intimidating and hopefully that gets them
one step further into the kitchen because the
kitchen itself can be intimidating.
There's hot things, there are sharp things and we
try to cover that stuff in a video and help encourage
them to not be afraid.
For those of you watching at home it smells amazing.
(laughter)
Sue: We've been really, really surprised
at how well these recipes have turned out.
Nine ingredients seems like not very many and
some of them have fewer than nine ingredients, but
ta da, we can make really great food without a lot
of complicated ingredients or a long list of things
and process and all that sort of thing.
I'd have you in my kitchen any time helping out.
Actually, you're doing it all. I'm the helper.
You're doing everything.
Thank you.
(laughter)
♪♪
Yep, right there.
Bravo! Very good!
Of course Sue wants her clients to like the recipes,
but what she really hopes they get out of it are
valuable skills and increased confidence that
will translate into other areas of their lives.
The great meal at the end of it all is a welcome
bonus.
Sue: We take it for granted cooking and managing in
the kitchen.
I've been in a kitchen since I was 10 years old and never
was told I couldn't do something in there and I
think that people with disabilities are sometimes
underestimated.
You know, it takes some time, it takes a little
bit of encouragement but there's no reason that
anybody with a disability could not do this type of
thing for themselves.
There's no reason at all.
Way to go! Way to go!
I'm proud of you.
♪♪
Funding for Iowa Ingredient is provided by
the W.T. & Edna M. Dahl Trust.
Chef Lisa LaValle of Trellis Café at the River
Center and Chef Michael LaValle of the Des Moines
Embassy Club.
For more than 100 years the Des Moines Embassy
Club has provided a place to dine, celebrate and do
business.
Located in Downtown Des Moines and in West Des
Moines.
And Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.