Volunteer Spotlight: Dawn Claybrooks

Tell me about yourself and/family

I am the baby of my parents’ 4 children. I have always cooked with my mom she has been the inspiration for my current culinary career.

Why did you get into the culinary world?

I began my culinary career due to becoming severely bored with my current automotive job. I wanted to live my dream as opposed to living someone else’s dream. I love food as well as health awareness and with my mother getting older I wanted to help her to eat healthier, and live longer

You are my one-time demo queen (or rockstar as Ariana would say). What makes you enjoy demos so much?

I enjoy demos because it gives me the chance to teach people that may not normally think eating healthy can taste good.

What led you to Cooking Matters?

There was a demo done by Cooking Matters at my job a couple years ago and I inquired about getting to do cooking demos. The guy that was doing the demo was very uncooperative so I took to the internet and googled Cooking Matters and met Dorothy Hernandez and she helped me to begin my Cooking Matters volunteering. I have been a volunteer since March 2012 and I have done 2 of the 6 week classes (at the same time): 1 class on Tuesday a families class and a kids class on Wednesday with Tamara Landazuri and it was a totally awesome experience. (Dawn has also done almost all of the one-time events we have had this summer- Vani)

Do you have a highlight from a Cooking Matters class?

At the end of my CM kids class the graduation ceremony, as the students received their chef hats, they requested that I sign their hats and it was so awesome to me that those children wanted me to be a part of their ceremony. I shed so many tears that day (tears of joy of course).

What do you do in your spare time?

I am currently trying to create recipes for a cook book that I plan to write in the future while I build a catering business and continue to volunteer for Cooking Matters.

Do you have a cheap healthy recipe you can share with us?

Pineapple Salsa

Ingredients:
1 Pineapple medium diced
1 Jalepeno pepper (or to taste)
1 Red bell peper
1/2 Tbs. Honey

Directions:
Peel & dice pineapple.
Finely dice jalepeno pepper removing seeds and veins (unless you want it really hot).
Medium dice red bell pepper.
Mix all fruits and veggies together in a bowl, then add honey and chill.

I like to use and organic blue corn chip to eat with this salsa

The total cost to buy the ingredients isabout $6, which ends up being about 63 cents per serving.

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