Want your kids to eat their veggies? Teach them how to cook them.

Rosemarie Perla believes there's no better way to get kids excited about food, and she has the experience to prove it.

A psychologist and executive coach by trade, Ms. Perla teaches a free cooking class for kids once a month between May and October at Whole Foods Market in East Liberty. Parents drop off their children for the 90-minute class and get a chance to do their grocery shopping or just to relax with a cup of coffee.

Meanwhile, in a conference room tricked out with portable burners, the kids learn how to make a simple dish with a little help from Ms. Perla and Barrie Mars, a professionally trained cook.

As kids arrived yesterday at the temporary kitchen, some were excited about the chance to chop, cook and eat. Seated around a conference table with each place marked by a brightly colored plastic cutting board, they introduced themselves and shared a goal for the class.

A few weren't immediately enthusiastic, at least not about the prospect of making pasta with vegetables.

"I want to make chocolate cupcakes and throw them against the wall to see if they stick," declared Sylvia Sterling-Angus, 9, of Shadyside, with a grin.

"Some people do that with pasta," offered Jordan Speranzo, 13, though he clearly didn't recommend it.

Sylvia may have started out wanting to toss cupcakes, but she was seduced by a block of 2-year old Parmigiano-Reggiano. "This cheese smells really good," she sighed, all thoughts of chocolate forgotten.

The class is co-sponsored by Slow Food Pittsburgh, which supports local and sustainable agriculture. Ms. Perla did take a few moments to discuss the difference between conventionally and organically grown vegetables and to suggest that her students look for locally grown foods.

But once they began selecting vegetables for their pasta dish from the store's produce section, no one was too obsessed with checking labels.

Sylvia's sister, Sophia Sterling-Angus, 12, carefully considered red, yellow and orange bell peppers before settling on the red as her favorite, while Jordan and Neil MacLachlan, 10, inspected packages of herbs, leaving with sage and marjoram. They made a colorful parade back to the classroom, bearing, among other things, two heads of broccoli, an onion, a long green-and-white leek, a head of cauliflower and a daikon radish.

Back in the classroom, they first washed their vegetables in a bowl of water with a splash of apple cider vinegar. Then, Ms. Mars demonstrated proper knife skills, showing her attentive students how to hold a knife --"like you're shaking someone's hand" --and how to make a claw with the hand holding the vegetables to prevent the knife from catching stray fingers.

Matthew Dambrosia, 8, of New Kensington, wasn't thrilled when his cucumber wound up being used by the group for knife practice, but he gave it up gracefully.

As the students cut with universal enthusiasm and varying degrees of skill, Ms. Perla sauteed garlic in extra-virgin olive oil. "It smells so yummy," a student exclaimed.

Matthew helped cut his older sister Emily's cauliflower. Kristen Meades, 9, of the Hill District, worked carefully, separating broccoli into small, even florets.

Their places cleaned and the table set, the cooks looked on eagerly as Ms. Perla dished up the pasta, proud of what they'd made. They proclaimed it "delicious," moments before it was time to leave.

Once again they made a lovely spectacle as they dispersed into the store, each one carrying home a tomato plant donated by a local farm.