Elora Mill chef Dacha Markovic visits Salem kindergarten class

SALEM – s students in Tessa Heffernan’s class at Salem Public School get to learn about food and connect with community through hands-on experiences. 

Elora Mill chef Dacha Markovic recently visited the class to make ice cream outdoors with the students.   

“We brainstormed questions during literacy time that we wanted to ask him when he was in our classroom,” Heffernan told the Advertiser. 

The children wanted to know how to stay safe in the kitchen, how to keep their hands clean when cracking eggs, what Chef Dacha loved to cook the most, and how he became interested in being a chef. 

Markovic said cooking with his family as a young child was a big part of why he became a chef.  

Students got the chance to smell vanilla from vanilla beans, hear about the ingredients in the ice cream, gather snow to fill the bucket, churn the ice cream, and then finish the dish off with the variety of toppings that Markovic brought, including ruby chocolate, which was a first for everyone to try. 

“It was a very neat learning experience for students to get to be a part of making the ice cream, but more importantly, to be able to connect with a chef from our local community,” Heffernan said. 

“Dacha took lots of time to answer questions and connect with the kids.  

“We hope to be able to continue this partnership with the Elora Mill in the future and we were so grateful for Dacha being generous with his time to visit us.” 

It’s one of many food-themed activities in which the kindergarten class has partaken in this year. 

They’ve visited the bakery at Geddes Street Market, made pumpkin tarts for Halloween and had a family visit to share their tradition of making fried donuts. 

During a graphing unit around Valentine’s Day the students found the most popular choice for a Valentine’s treat was chocolate-dipped pretzels, so they made those as a class the day prior to enjoying a Valentine’s party.  

“We made and enjoyed pancakes as a class as well,” Heffernan said. 

Last week the students made chicken noodle soup and students got to measure and chop ingredients “with some child-friendly knives we purchased as part of our grant.” 

The projects were funded by a $500 provincial experiential learning grant.   

“We look forward to lots more cooking in the months to come as well as a couple more visits out in the community,” Heffernan said.