Four teams of Camp Villages teenage participants dished up some marvelous dessert flats Monday afternoon at Coconut Cove Recreation Center in the first of several such scheduled hands-on summer events.
Operations Manager for City Fire restaurants Scott Vasatka noticed the same young people were signing up, year after year, for the cooking sessions.
“Last year, we did a variety of pizzas, with a wide array of topping choices — but we decided we had to do something very different — to mix things up — so this time, we’re doing quick-bake desserts,” Vasatka said.
“There are many possible combinations of fresh ingredients on hand, which allows for a lot of creativity,” Vasatka continued. “We’re dividing the kids into teams, each guided by an assistant chef — but the youngsters make the decisions and do all the hands-on work.”
On hand was chef Angela Pullen, plus assistant chefs, Randy Gregory and Megan Horner — all from the Brownwood City Fire restaurant — plus Jordan Howard, from the Lake Sumter Landing City Fire.
Each team smeared sweet marscapone paste on their flat, followed by a variety of finely chopped fruits and nuts: apples, bananas, black- and blueberries, cherries, mangos, peaches, pears, pecans, raspberries and strawberries, etc. One team added dollops of peanut butter; another drizzled honey on their fruit. Chocolate chips and glaze were used. Two teams chose mint leaves and one melted marshmallows on top of their fruit mixture.
After each team’s dessert flat baked for about five minutes, they brought it out of the kitchen. A spokesperson chosen by each team described their ingredients to the judges — Dottie Klein, co-founder of The Villages Gourmet Club and Chef Angela Pullen. They also revealed the imaginative team names they chose: “Shortcake with a Twist,” “Very Berry,” “Le Mer du Soleil” (Sunny Sea in French) and “A Taste of Paradise.”
Kathy Dyer, from the Village of Sanibel, and Wendy Milstein, from the Village of Buttonwood, signed on as volunteers with The Villages Recreation Department. “We miss our grandkids and wanted to volunteer with Camp Villages to be around kids,” Dyer said. “I love seeing the grandparents having fun watching the kids do exciting things like this.”
“They set everything up perfectly in Camp Villages,” Milstein, who had been a special education teacher before retirement, said. “Every activity is appropriate and the right length of time for each age range — they really know what they’re doing.”
Village of Mallory Square resident Ed Koehn, who had brought his twin granddaughters, Teagan and Haley, 12, to The Villages Freshwater Fishing Club’s Camp Villages Fishing Derby last Tuesday, was present again at the cooking event — this time with his wife, Jane, and the twins’ sisters, Alayna and Paige.
“Now that they’ve learned all these chef techniques, they just might have to cook us dinner tonight,” Ed quipped.
The girls’ father, is on active duty with the U.S. Army. “Our son did two tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan,” Ed said, “and just left an assignment with Army Intelligence in Arizona. He will now be stationed at McDill in Tampa. “He was here visiting with us, and took part in the Flag Day ceremony at Veterans’ Memorial Park on Sunday.”
Jacque Bruce, whose parents live in the Village of Virginia Trace, brought her daughter, Emma, plus their cousins, Bailey Ruhl and Peyton Campbell — all age 13 — to cook. The girls had a great time, and everyone was pleasantly surprised how good the colorful dessert flats tasted.
