Cincy food bank also trains upcoming cooks

CINCINNATI (AP) — Two-thirds of the Freestore Foodbank’s new administration building, in the 1100 block of Central Parkway, is dedicated to its culinary-arts training program for at-risk, low-income people.

Now into its ninth year, Cincinnati Cooks, which has placed almost 500 of its 650 graduates in food-related jobs, is poised for more growth.

The plan is to increase its daily production from 800 meals at 15 Kids Cafe sites for low-income children to 2,000 meals at 22 locations. Wednesday’s menu of chicken and rice, vegetable medley and fruit was the first prepared and shipped from the new kitchen, which program manager Dennis Coksie called a “stainless-steel palace.”

The additional space should help the program increase its number of participants, too.

“We’re here for Cooks,” said John Young, Freestore president and chief executive. “This place gives us room to grow.”

People weren’t tripping over one another in the new Rosenthal Community Kitchen, as was the case at Cincinnati Cooks’ former home, Queen City Vocational Center on Ezzard Charles Drive, where the lease had expired.

Three groups of students, volunteers and staff worked in three areas. Students in the newest of overlapping classes sharpened their knives skills by cutting and chopping vegetables. Other students, now in their sixth week of a 10-week program, prepared lunch for the Kids Cafe sites.

Angel Allen and Nate Coleman scooped, drained and poured the mix of corn, green beans and lima beans into trays, covering them with aluminum foil and sliding them into thermal cases for delivery.

Wednesday was Allen’s first in the kitchen, after weeks of classroom work learning terms and food safety. A single mother of two children, Allen, 44, spent 20 years working as a nursing assistant. She wants to go into catering or restaurant management.

Across the room, other students prepared lunch for students and staff and dressed the serving line — turkey and wild-game tacos, mashed and roasted potatoes, green beans.

Graduates receive a set of knives and chef uniform for graduation.About 50 percent of the food prepared in the program is donated, but all of the food used for catering events is purchased, much of it from local vendors and growers, including those at nearby Findlay Market.