At SCRF 2024, participants cook healthy meals akin to Red Riding Hood

At the 15th edition of the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, young children practised their culinary imagination with nature’s bounty aided by a fairy tale.

Sharjah: Reliving the Red Riding Hood adventure turned out to be a fun and healthy ride for children attending the cookery session titled “Little Red Riding Hood’s Nature Feast” at the 15th edition of the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival (SCRF), the largest celebration of knowledge, creativity, art and innovation of its kind in the region, now taking place in Expo Centre Sharjah.

Preparing a healthy meal in an interactive culinary experience under the guidance of chef Svetlana Kuzvetsova and eating it too was all that 6-10 year olds could ask for.

Participants explored nature’s bounty – lettuce, cucumber, yellow capsicum and cheese sandwiched in toasted bread – and wrapped them in brown paper before placing them in a basket of fruits, prunes, apricots, boiled egg and chips that they could carry home.

Some of them could not wait to dig into the delectable sandwiches they had deftly packed.

The chef explained that without good food and good health, one cannot go through the forest, which seemed to be true literally and figuratively. The dangers of unhealthy eating is like a wolf waiting to swallow and the chef was able to drive home that point to the children and their parents gathered around.

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The cookery workshop and the prospect of making one’s own food and eating it is a hugely popular programme of SCRF, going by the long queues at the venue.

The 15^th edition, which runs from May 1-12, has the theme “Once Upon a Hero”. The 12-day action-packed festival for young readers, artists and creatives as well as their families showcases millions of books including latest releases in children’s and Young Adult (YA) literature from across the globe.

SCRF 2024 is also offering the region’s largest platform for cultural and artistic appreciation with theatrical performances, culinary demonstrations, workshops in STEM, social media, music, and several exciting competitions, activities, animation events.