by Beth Dolinar, contributing writer
Fennel is a weird vegetable – maybe even an unpopular one. With its alien shape and licorice taste, it’s not something you’d expect a young child to enjoy.
John Paradise would argue otherwise.
John said, “The camp gave me the ability to try and fail, to make mistakes and not have them define me.”
“My dad made a Bolognese sauce spiked with fennel,” he said. “It was one of my favorite dishes.” Even with the strong licorice taste, and even at age five.
Paradise first brought that sophisticated palate to Camp Delicious when he was just 13. He and his cousin, Sophia Jahn, were looking for an interesting summer camp and added cooking camp to their list.
“Some of the other camps wouldn’t allow the kids to use knives,” he said. “We liked that Camp Delicious taught knife skills.” John’s experience that first year stirred up a love of cooking, and he would go on to attend Camp Delicious three more times until he aged out as a high school senior.
“I knew I liked to cook,” he said, “but I didn’t know how.”
John credits the camp’s accessible approach to kitchen skills, its lively spirit of competition, as well as the teaching staff for his eagerness to return again and again.
“I got the exposure to work with some of the better renowned chefs in the Pittsburgh area,” he said.
Right from the start, John took the skills and recipes from camp and carried them into his home kitchen, where he often cooked the family’s dinners. His best dish? Stir fry. But there were some regrettable flops.
“I was grilling out and dropped all the food,” he said, remembering a whole pack of sausages that didn’t make it.
Fumbles aside, John’s skills have earned him recognition beyond the camp or his family’s dinner table. In 2026 he was the winner of the Skills USA culinary arts competition at the Community College of Allegheny County. From there he advanced to tougher competition at the statewide contest.
This summer, John is managing the poolside grill at Saint Clair Country Club, an important job for a young man newly graduated from Upper Saint Clair High School. Soon, he will move to Hyde Park, New York, to attend the Culinary Institute of America. His career plans may lie somewhere beyond cooking: he’d like to work in food sales or become a sommelier.
“It’s a good skill to have,” he said. “Wine brings people together. Every wine tells a story. That’s what enjoying food is all about.”
How might a man who is years away from legal age even grow to understand wine?
“We’re allowed to taste, but we have to spit it out.”
He credits Camp Delicious with helping him to understand the connection between cooking and the fundamental human right to good nutrition.
“The camp taught me about feeding with dignity,” he said. “There’s more to food than eating; there’s community and building relationships.” John has volunteered providing meals for the Neighborhood Resilience Project in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, a non-profit that works to strengthen trauma affected communities.
In the five years since he first tied on a Camp Delicious apron, John has honed his palate and his skills, including knife skills.
“The key is the perfect cuts,” he said. “Everything’s supposed to look good.”
That’s not to say the cooking skills came easily.
“The camp gave me the ability to try and fail, to make mistakes and not have them define me.”
Until he heads off to New York this fall, John will be at the helm of the poolside grill at the country club. He sets the menu, which includes a new special he’s created. It lands on his palate with a taste of childhood.
“A summer citrus salad,” he said. “Made with pickled fennel.”
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About the author: Beth Dolinar is a writer, Emmy-award winning producer, and public speaker. She writes a popular column for the Washington “Observer-Reporter.” She is a contributing producer of documentary length programming for WQED-TV on a wide range of topics. Beth has a son and a daughter. She is an avid yoga devotee, cyclist and reader. Beth says she types like lightning but reads slowly — because she likes a really good sentence.
