Children spent their morning learning how to make nutritious and delicious quesadillas, salsa, and guacamole at the “Cooking with Hayden” class held at C.H. Booth Library on Monday, August 5.

Taught by college student Hayden Fletcher, the class gave ages 7-11 the chance to get hands-on experience making their own food while under Fletcher’s guidance. Ingredients and utensils were provided, and Fletcher, alongside Children’s Librarian Alana Bennison, walked around and was ready to help out whenever somebody had a question.

Children worked in pairs to mix together various different fresh fruits and vegetables and make their own salsa. Everyone took turns putting an immersion blender into their bowl and watching it mix all the ingredients together.

While some of the kids giggled, admitting they were a little grossed out seeing the food get blended together, they were nonetheless happy when tasting their salsa.

At the end of class, the children excitedly stood in line and waited by the oven to get their quesadillas from Bennison before racing back to the table and eating what they worked hard to make.

Fletcher is a self-taught home cook. He said this week that he got into cooking through baking at a young age. As a kid, Fletcher said, he would learn from his mom’s cooking and classic shows on Food Network such as Chopped. According to the pitch for the class, Fletcher’s interest in food and cooking only grew from there. His interest has been further inspired by his travels in Spain and China.

The pandemic led Fletcher to bake and cook more, getting to the point where he would cook meals for his family.

“It was then that I started to enjoy it more than just kind of a hobby,” Fletcher said.

Nowadays, Fletcher says he mostly learns from Instagram, recipes, and cookbooks. He took that passion for cooking and baking and decided to teach the class at Booth Library after a suggestion from Bennison. She had previously tried his food and said that she knew how pleasant he was to be around, so she “knew he’d be good with kids.”

“Plus I think it makes sense for kids to see somebody else cook,” Bennison continued. “You know they see their moms and dads cook, but they might not have an older brother or an uncle or a cousin to do that, so I feel like it’s good for them to see role models that aren’t their parents.”

After hearing Bennison’s idea for the class, Fletcher said he was super excited about it despite never considering teaching cooking classes before. While he was admittedly somewhat nervous going into Monday’s 75-minute program, the nerves went away once he reminded himself how much he enjoys cooking. He ultimately had a lot of fun with it, he said.

“I hadn’t really thought about this before, but I really enjoy it and I love to kind of show other people how to cook,” Fletcher said.

As for why he chose foods like mango salsa and quesadillas filled with zucchini for the class, Fletcher said it was important to him to teach children that there are foods that can be as healthy as they are fun to eat.

“It would be really easy to do something like pizza or tacos,” Fletcher explained. “I thought about stuff that might be healthy and also kind of fun to eat. It was all about striking that balance of something that they’d want to maybe make at home and that is also good for them.”

Fletcher plans to host another “Cooking With Hayden” class in the library on Monday, August 12, at 11 am. That class, he said, will be “similarly simple, but also tasty and healthy.” The next class will have children making rice paper spring rolls out of various vegetables, fresh herbs, chicken, and a savory dipping sauce for a protein-packed lunch.

Registration for the class had filled up by August 5, but a waitlist is available in the event someone drops out before the class.

“I’m not sure about beyond that, but I’d love to come back and do something else,” Fletcher said.

Registration for the waitlist for the next “Cooking With Hayden” class, alongside other events at the library, is available on the library’s event calendar page online at chboothlibrary.org/events. Readers can also register on the waitlist for the next “Cooking With Hayden” class by contacting Children’s Librarian Alana Bennison through 203-426-3851 or abennison@chboothlibrary.org.

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.