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Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Jean Wallace, Jacqueline Pan and Natasha Washington prepare a Chinese noodle salad during a 'Real Cooking for Teens' class offered through Chez Shiraz Culinary Resources in Sunnyvale.

Class sets teens loose in the kitchen

Chinese noodle salad replaces peanut butter

By Justin Berton

Parsley or cilantro? That is the question for five teenage students huddled around a kitchen table in Sunnyvale, where their teacher, Jane Becktel, shows them not just how to slap together a PB and J on the fly, but how to prepare a Chinese noodle salad with peanut-lime vinaigrette.

Colin Knipe, 13, nibbled on the parsley and guessed cilantro.

After Becktel corrected her student, Knipe playfully exclaimed, "I can't wait to go home and tell my mom she's been cooking with the wrong stuff."

Becktel has been teaching friends how to cook since 1974, but this summer, "The Cooking Coach," as she is known in foodie circles, is taking on a greater challenge with a class called "Real Cooking for Teens." Becktel will teach small groups of "gastronomically inclined teens" throughout the summer, and send profits to a Palo Alto ballet school, L'Ecole de Danse. The ballet school of 35 students is heavy on talent, Becktel said, but a little light on the funds needed for costumes and set designs.

Like ballet classes, the cooking courses can also teach summertime-intoxicated teenagers a little about grace and style, too.

"It's a bit alarming when a teenager tells you that they cook 'from scratch' and you find out that it's opening ramen packages for lunch and macaroni-and-cheese boxes for dinner," Becktel said.

Becktel grew up in Australia, where she learned to cook standing alongside amateur and professional chefs. Since moving to Sunnyvale in 1979 with her two children and husband, she admits that she has used them for "numerous culinary experiments."

Now she is the owner-instructor of Chez Shiraz Culinary Resources, located in her Sunnyvale home, where she teaches individuals and small groups the art of cooking.

The difference between teaching adults and teenagers, Becktel has learned, is a huge one.

"They pick it up way faster than the grownups I teach because they have comparatively uncluttered minds," she said.

Participation in her teen classes is also a big factor in shortening the learning curve. As the students prepared the salad, which was just one of three dishes for the day, each student took turns grating the ginger, tossing the noodles, juicing the limes and measuring the ingredients.

The only thing they are not allowed to do is use the knives.

"I do all the cutting," Becktel said. "These are lethal weapons," she added, then confessed, "and I'm under huge parental pressure to have that policy changed, too."

Despite their parents' requests, it looked as if the kids didn't feel like they were missing out on much.

As the peanut butter-colored lime vinaigrette poured slowly onto the Chinese noodles, the students couldn't help but notice its color and consistency was a bit suspicious.

"Do you have a dog?" one student cracked, which sent the others into fits of the giggles.

"Yes, yes," Becktel said as she laughed along with her students, "the gross-out factor is very big with the teens."

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, June 24, 1998.
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