It was targeted to kids, teaching healthy cooking: basic cooking skills plus kitchen safety and where food comes.

If you have children, look for kids’ cooking classes in your area. You’ll do yourself a favor: Fun classes lead to childrens’ empowerment, independence and responsibility for what they eat. Plus, they’ll be able to make their own simple meals, and you won’t have to spend time teaching them. They’ll be more enthusiastic in a group of other kids, where it becomes “play.”

And, they may grow up with a penchant for cooking the family meals.

Chef Toni’s healthy buffet worked beautifully for both children and adults, and reminded us that we too should eschew the fattening cheese plate for equally delightful, yet good-for-you foods. The menu included easy recipes:

• Kiwi lemonade, kiwi puree mixed with lemon juice and water

Instead of a bread-based canape, try fruit:
Here, watermelon topped with tabbouleh and
crumbled feta and a chive “bow.” Photo courtesy Watermelon.org.

• Hint flavored, unsweetened water (a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week)
• Stuffed eggs filled with spinach creamed with milk, instead of a cholesterol-filled deviled yolk
• Cucumber in thick slices topped with taramosalata, Greek caviar spread made with olive oil and lemon juice
• Guacamole (which is caloric, but nutrient-rich) and corn chips (which are whole grain)
• Watermelon salad: cubes of melon with shredded basil, and queso blanco substituting for the traditional feta cheese (which can be too potent a flavor for kids)
• Grape and walnut salad: halved green and red grapes with walnut halves and a light yogurt dressing
• Large, flat ravioli with scalloped edges atop skewers, covered with pesto
• Fruit skewers: melon, pineapple and grapes
• A heaping platter of red and green grapes
• Pineapple flowers, cut from pineapple slices with a large cookie cutter, placed on skewers and anchored in a box of wheat grass (really beautiful!)
• Cupcakes by Melissa, single-bite tiny cupcakes that allow you to enjoy a small bite or two of different flavors instead of eating a regular cupcake or two

Kids must really like a certain color of green food. They lapped up the guacamole, hard-cooked egg halves filled with spinach and kiwi lemonade and the grapes, plus the ravioli and fruit skewers, and left the rest to the grown-ups.