Cook Up Your Future

Since 2008, Cook Up Your Future has aimed to equip young people under the care of youth protection services with the essential skills necessary to understand cooking and food, by equipping them with skills promoting the development of food autonomy.

One program, three components

Cook Up Your Future is divided into three distinct and complementary components that each, in their own specific way, help youth to develop food autonomy.

1. Culinary kit

This starter kit, which is composed of a cookbook and several basic cooking utensils, offers an opportunity for exchange between youth workers and young people ages 15-18. It includes the necessary tools to discuss nutrition and participate in culinary activities with youth before they move on to independent life.

Visiting the grocery store with Chef Oli and La Tablée des Chefs!

2. Culinary Workshops

The goal of this component is to initiate youth ages 15-25 to cooking through a series of four blocks of five workshops each, for a total of 20 workshops. Each workshop is two hours long and offered free of charge and is facilitated by a chef-instructor who is recruited and paid by La Tablée des Chefs.

3. Employability block

This fifth block aims to offer youth who participated in the previous four blocks of culinary workshops an opportunity to engage in a preparatory training for working in the restaurant industry.

 

 

Culinary kits: revised and improved content 

Always looking to improve our program offerings, in 2022 our team worked to update our culinary kits, the goal being to offer a tool better adapted to youth’s needs. 

Our new culinary kit contains several cooking utensils, a cookbook from La Tablée des Chefs, a lunch bag, a magnetic grocery list, a set of measuring spoons and cups, a wooden spoon, and several spices to help youth add flavor to their meals. 

The grocery store is a key component in independent life, and so the new culinary kit also offers nine video capsules, hosted by Chef Oli, designed to help youth plan their visits to the supermarket. An accompanying guide, designed to help youth workers accompany the youth in using the kits, is also included in each culinary kit. 

In 2022, 5,000 culinary kits were distributed across Canada! Of these kits, 2500 were distributed to youth from indigenous communities. 

For more information on the culinary kits and how to order them, contact us at:  eduquer@tableedeschefs.org. 
 

The Employability Block: helping young people successfully enter the workforce 

Thanks to the program's culinary workshops, many young people are discovering an interest and a passion for cooking, and some of them even want to pursue this field on a professional level. That's why La Tablée des Chefs has set up an employability block alongside our culinary workshops, designed to offer young people aged 16 to 19, who have completed at least three blocks of workshops, the chance to take preparatory training for work in the restaurant industry.

The employability block is made up of five practical workshops, during which participants are paired with a chef mentor who is responsible for introducing them to the restaurant business and giving them practical work experience. The young person then has the opportunity to complete a paid internship in the restaurant industry.

Would you like to find out more about the employability block? Do you know a youth who would benefit from this experience? Write to us at eduquer@tableedeschefs.org.
 

Cook Up Your Future in schools 

The Cook Up Your Future program is also suitable for an audience at risk of school dropout, which is why we wanted to expand the impact of the program through also targeting youth with atypical educational paths.
 
Formerly only offered to youth from the DYP, the culinary workshop component is now available to youth directly in schools, particularly in classes accompanying students with special education needs as well as vocational training programs. In 2021-2022, a total of 17 schools joined this program to help their students develop autonomy and skills in the kitchen. 

To submit an application to the program for your school, contact us at eduquer@tableedeschefs.org. Hurry, spots are limited!