Lessons In More Than Lasagna, Trying out new tools in a Phoenix House class

By Carissa Katz

"Half of cooking is damage control," Keren Saks told a group of teenagers gathered around a stainless steel table in the Phoenix House kitchen two weeks ago.

It was the first cooking class for most of them, but Ms. Saks let no hands lay idle. The menu for the day was pasta salad, "B.L.T." salad from the original Loaves and Fishes cookbook, and blueberry cake. Everyone would have a role in preparing the meal.

As she read out the cake recipe, Ms. Saks shared some morsels of culinary knowledge with her seven students. "All-purpose flour is what you should always buy. Don't go for the fancy label; go for the generic stuff," she said.

Later, she said, "Butter, something about butter: Always buy unsalted butter if you're cooking. Salt is what's used to preserve and sometimes flavor butter." And "Do not put oil into your pasta water. It will keep any sauce you make from sticking to your pasta."

She explained the difference between dry measure and wet measure and demonstrated how to level off a measuring spoon, seed a tomato, and sharpen a knife.

The lessons of cooking can mimic those of life, Ms. Saks said another day. "If you follow a set of rules, if you do this and this and this, you get that," she said. "If you follow a recipe, in the end you get something that you want."

The residents of Phoenix House, a drug and alcohol treatment program in Wainscott, are all under 21. They were arrested on charges of possession or worse, and given the choice between nine months to a year and a half at a rehabilitation facility or more time in jail. To watch them in the kitchen learning how to chop onions and sift flour on a Monday afternoon, you would never guess at the events that led them there.

After a cooking class on Monday, a few of the residents shared their stories.

"My parents used to fight a lot. It was hard for me to concentrate in school. I got kicked out of school a couple of times, then I had a home tutor. The highest grade I completed was grade 10," said Gary, who, at 20, is one of the oldest residents.

"A lot of people come here to avoid going to jail. Now, I'm starting to go along with it, to get help for myself," he said. "I've been on the wrong track for like five years. Every time I got arrested it was because I was drunk doing something stupid."

"I did heroin," said Jordan. "They were offering me five to seven or a year in rehab."

"I've been drinking since the fifth grade," Shawn said. "I started smoking weed in eighth and ninth grade. In 10th grade, I decided to skate drunk. I cracked my skull and that was it." The doctors gave him Vicodin for the pain. He liked it and soon was using harder drugs.

For Justin it was "drinking beer and liquor, weed, coke, ecstasy."

"The stories, they come out during the class as they get more comfortable with me," Ms. Saks said. "It's terrifying what these kids went through."

In the kitchen they are just young people earnestly trying to do a good job at something that is mostly new to them.

Ms. Saks, who worked for many years as a professional caterer, is not trying to turn her students into chefs. She wants them to feel comfortable in the kitchen, to try something new, and to have fun, because so much of the rest of their time at Phoenix House is spent learning hard lessons.

"It's a nurturing experience," she said of the class. "The one word I always hear eventually from every kid in the class is 'mom.' Somewhere along the line that word shows up. 'My mom does this, my mom does that.' "

It is not hard to sense their neediness, she said. One student even took to calling her "Mom."

Ms. Saks said that many of those who have passed through her classes since she started them in January have attention deficit disorders. Getting a class to work together to make meat loaf or lasagna or cheesecake can be "like herding fish," she said.

But as each session progresses, the students gain confidence in the kitchen, and become more focused. "By the tenth or eleventh class, you see them lighten up. They know how to do stuff. It's hands-on, so it's instant gratification. At the end they have something that they've created, something they can be proud of."

In the first class of a new session two weeks ago, Ms. Saks broke the students into two groups and directed one to work on a pasta salad and another on a B.L.T. salad.

Before handing Gary a knife to cut lettuce, she offered a little lettuce wisdom. "Anything you wouldn't want to eat, take off. If it feels like shoe leather, if it looks like shoe leather, throw it out."

Justin joined the group late, but it was clear that he knew his way around a kitchen. As he deftly chopped onions, Ms. Saks asked him, "What do you like to cook?"

"Linguine and white clam sauce," he said, adding that his grandmother taught him to chop onions. "My family cooks all the time. My mom cooks, my grandmother cooks."

Ms. Saks instructed him to watch over the pasta water, then asked Andrew to sharpen a knife and help Shawn chop dill. Across the room, Danielle cooked bacon, even though she said she wasn't "good at it."

"That's a perfect reason to do it," Ms. Saks said.

Midway through the class, another resident, Tiara, wandered into the kitchen to sample and help. Ms. Saks said later that Tiara had already taken two sessions of the cooking class.

By 5:15, when the cake was nearly done, the salads finished, and it was almost time to eat, Ms. Saks realized that she had forgotten the cake topping and had to improvise, thus providing another kitchen lesson: Be ready to think on your feet.

After each class, the students eat the meal they have prepared. At the end of a six-week session, they review all the recipes they have learned and make dinner for the whole house.

"Remember the rule," Ms. Saks reminds her students before they sit down to eat. "You don't have to love it, but you do have to try it."

Some had their doubts, but by the second week, they all agreed that the first two meals were a success.

When Ms. Saks first worked as a volunteer at Phoenix House in Brooklyn 10 years ago, she was asked to develop an adult cooking class.

"It was completely different than this, much more hard core (I had grandmothers who were addicted to crack), but earnest - truck drivers separating eggs." She was hired to work at the Wainscott facility in January.

"I'm passionate about teaching these kids," she said. "I hope they get as much out of it as I often do."

For many of her students, the classes are a refuge and a treat.

"It's fun. It takes you away from the house," Jordan said. Plus, he added, the food he eats the rest of the week is "one step up from jail food."

Asked if they were learning anything they could use outside of the kitchen, the students thought for a minute. "Concentration, and you've always got to be aware of things," Jordan said.

"A lot of patience," Shawn added.

"If you mess up, it's going to lead to a lot of other things," Andrew said.

"It's another tool in your toolbox," Ms. Saks said, as she listened to them answer.

"Whether they cook again or not, they know how to, and they will never be a stranger in the kitchen," she said. She urges the students to try new things and to be confident in their new skills, a lesson well suited to their broader experience at Phoenix House.

"I always say, 'What's the point of being here if you're not going to try something new?' "