Jamie Oliver’s Cook Smart Program at the Teaching Kitchen @ Stanford is a groundbreaking cooking education program for Stanford students launched by Residential & Dining Enterprises Stanford Dining and the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation. The program, the first of its kind in the nation, is aimed at inspiring change through food education. R&DE Stanford Dining believes that food knowledge and cooking skills are the keys to improving health, promoting sufficiency and sustainability, and broadening worldviews.

The nine-week program began in October. Students learned about healthy eating and the fundamentals of cooking delicious meals, while gaining confidence in cooking for themselves and others. Each eight-student class met once a week, with the first class focusing on basic kitchen and knife skills, and subsequent classes building upon those elements until students had mastered core cooking skills. The chefs use produce grown in the organic dining hall gardens and on the O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm, and the students learn core sustainability concepts such as seasonality, choosing humanely raised products, and how to cook delicious, plant-forward meals.