Ages 13 – 15
A 2-week summer program for students entering grades 8-10 focusing on the culinary arts.
Take professional chefs, add students passionate about cooking, and mix them all together in our professional kitchens. Sounds like a recipe made in culinary heaven. Bring your appetite and your sense of adventure — you’re the next EXPLO Chef.
VideoEXPLO Chef VideoCook With the Best
Learning to cook, plate, and present multi-course meals, from appetizer to dessert, is what students do when they attend the EXPLO Chef Focus Program outside of Boston, Massachusetts.
This summer, come cook with critically acclaimed chef Jerome Picca, former owner of the renowned Small Plates Restaurant in Cambridge, MA and Chef Manager at Harvard University. You'll sauté, simmer, and slice; you'll bake, bread, and blend. In our fully stocked commercial kitchen, you will create an assortment of dishes and desserts, learning how to splash them with spice and serve them with style.
- Practice fruit and vegetable cutting techniques using zesters, paring knives, microplanes, vertical peelers, and other professional tools
- Identify and create the 5 taste sensations
- Learn culinary tricks — like determining internal temperature by touch and telling the difference between fresh and old seafood
- Explore food history by preparing dishes from ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, and Early American traditions
- Pair complementary ingredients and flavors
- Learn how to sauté, sear, sweat, and simmer on the stove and how to roast and braise in the oven
- Use flavoring agents — fresh herbs, spices, edible flowers — to create your own soups and sauces (or anything else you can think of)
- Study the chemistry of food: leavening agents, reactive agents, protein bonding, and caramelization
- Learn the baking and pastry arts by making yeast breads, quick breads, unleavened breads, and pastries
- Master classic and contemporary plate presentation
