WEST BATH

Sandra Garson recently launched “Nana Chef,” a cooking program in the local community geared toward children, whom she calls her “cookees.”

Garson, a devout Buddhist, has shared her expertise in the culinary arts not only in Midcoast Maine, but in other U.S. cities and different parts of the world like Nepal, where she founded a cooking program called “Veggiyana” for a charity-funded school.

Garson said she began cooking and catering when she moved to Maine in 1973. After working at Captains Cook in Georgetown, she opened her own bakery and catering business called Tastewrights in Brunswick.

Following an orthopedic crisis, Garson was forced to take a hiatus with cooking, but continued to study food history and write cookbooks, including “How to Fix a Leek and Other Food from your Farmers’ Markets” and recently, “Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking” after her time in Nepal.

In the past, she was invited by the Bath Freight Shed Alliance to cook for their Farm-to-Table fundraising dinner, and just last summer, she worked with Bath Housing to help residents cook and preserve the harvest from their organic gardens.

Garson shared her thoughts on the start up of her Nana Chef program, in addition to why she enjoys cooking.

The Times Record: Why is cooking your passion?

Sandra Garson: I started as a political scientist in international relations and when I got out into the world, the first thing that hit me was how politics divided and killed people. But food — food always brought people together and nobody got hurt.

I can go anywhere in the world and immediately relate by asking someone what they eat or how they cook a particular ingredient. It never fails. Everybody on this planet brings something to the table; we are all equals in the kitchen. So cooking became my politics.

TR: Can you tell me more about the Nana Chef program?

SG: I am offering a Nana Chef summer camp to all “cookees” in Regional School Unit 5 (Freeport, Durham and Pownal) for a week at the end of June.

They will be offered basic training in safety, skill and sensing. Kids smell spices and decide which ones they want to add or not. They learn the medicinal properties of herbs and the differences in salt. They learn simple baking, artful display and fast foods like smoothies, peanut butter and pesto sauces.

TR: What was idea behind it?

SG: In 2014 and 2015, I volunteered as a chef for San Francisco Cooking Matters elementary school classes so I could test out this idea of being Nana, and it was the kids who named me Nana Chef. That’s when I decided to help all kids get skills, confidence and something to bring to the table.

The essence of the program is to bring back the universal tradition of elders passing wisdom down to the young by letting kids get familiar with kitchen art and craft, and its importance to their own survival. Now, too many mothers and grandmothers have to work and too much food is industrially processed to be nothing but fast, so kids won’t have those sublime memories to magnetize them into the kitchen as adults.

That could totally destroy cooking — humanity’s greatest accomplishment — and we can’t let our lives be decimated like that. We’re already suffering massive health and environmental crises because that’s underway.

TR: What do you hope students will learn?

SG: First, that they really can do something very, very important for themselves and the people they love. They can also learn actual skills — survival skills — that give them the confidence to take care of themselves and survive.

Everybody brings something to the table; everybody in the world cooks and eats, so they are not alone in the kitchen, but part of something huge and important that binds them to every other human on Earth as an equal.

TR: Tell me more about your YouTube channel and why you are starting that up.

SG: The idea is similar to the old Mr. Rogers’ shows — I talk directly and gently while imparting wisdom and love. I can’t do that in print, only in life. And the only way to bring it to life for kids so scattered is via a video. So to get this idea of Nana into public consciousness, I’m trying to put together a video channel.

More information about Garson’s program can be found at nana-chef.com.