Kid fun: Baking 101 and anthro camp!

Learning cool stuff at school
Richie Hirshen, cooking and gardening instructor at Sherwood Montessori, shared some info about the Baking 101 seminar that master bread-baker Dave Miller (pictured) conducted at the school on April 22 and 23.

“[I] arranged for sourdough guru Dave Miller to come to [the] school so fourth- through eighth-graders could be treated to a two-day baking seminar,” wrote Hirshen in an email. “The young disciples learned about the anatomy of a wheat berry, how flour is made (Dave mills his own) and the ‘two sides of fermentation’ that make sourdough more digestible and taste great because of enzymes like zymase.”

Zymase, explained Hirshen, “aids the production of gases and alcohol in the first part of the process, then acids and bacteria in the second part.”

After learning the science of bread-making, students participated in the entire two-day breadmaking process, after which they ate the still-warm bread “with organic butter, of course.”

Check out the Miller’s Bake House booth at the downtown Saturday Farmers’ Market. (Miller’s olive bread, by the way, is to die for. Just sayin’.)

Anthro camp!
Adrienne Scott, curator at Chico State’s Valene L. Smith Museum of Anthropology, recently announced the museum’s upcoming series of weekly summer-camp sessions for kids ages 5 through 11, July 8 through Aug. 1 (Monday-Thursday, 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.).

On the bill:

July 8-11: Space Adventures—Investigate the solar system and beyond.

July 15-18: Think like a Paleontologist—Explore the Mesozoic Era when dinosaurs ruled.

July 22-25: Cultures of the Americas—Learn about traditional lifeways, from Hopi to Aztec to California Indians.

July 29-Aug. 1: “Best of” Camp—A new topic each day, from Egypt to the rainforests.

Go to www.tinyurl.com/anthrocamp for more info and to download registration form. Cost is $75 per session. Registration begins May 5.

Helping our friends down south
Bob Trausch, of Chico-based Doroteia Pathways Foundation, is putting out a call for donors to help fund its latest shipment to Belize of locally donated medical equipment and supplies, office materials, refrigerators and stoves, and school and gardening supplies gathered by Enloe Foundation-sponsored Project S.A.V.E. (Salvage All Valuable Equipment).

The greatly needed supplies “will further the development of two hospitals, new and ongoing medical clinics, a senior-care center and a promising school-lunch program in the cities of Belmopan, Santa Elena, San Ignacio and Benque Viejo del Carmen,” as a donations-seeking letter penned by Trausch and two other Doroteia Pathways representatives described it.

Doroteia Pathways is seeking to raise $8,000 to send the shipment, an amount that will cover “the expenses of sending the cargo container, unloading at the port, governmental fees involved, and distribution of the goods.”

“Everybody talks about Africa” when it comes to areas in dire need of medical and educational supplies and so on, Trausch said, “and we forget about the poverty in Central America.” This is your opportunity to help.

Contact Trausch at 518-8509 or Leslie Johnson at 518-9992 to donate.