Cooking with Kids

I love to cook and I’m pretty good at it. I’m not a gourmet cook but I know how to put together a meal that is both visually pleasing and good to eat. When my kids were small there were a lot of “kid things” I didn’t feel comfortable doing such as wrestling on the floor and going down water slides. I decided to engage them in things I enjoyed doing when choosing something we could do together; like cooking. They both loved to be involved in the kitchen to stir, pour, add ingredients and taste in the process. I realized so much learning took place everytime we baked something . We had to measure, talk about the ingredients, read the recipes, watch how our cakes and muffins grew after we put them in the oven and they had to learn to co-operate with the process. Today my sixteen year old son does very well for himself in the kitchen and has become famous in our family for his perfect sunny-side up eggs with bacon, not to mention his BLT’s. My daughter and I spend a lot of time in the kitchen together. She often helps me prepare dinner and we frequently look through cookbooks together and chat about what looks good.

Today I learned about a really fun thing do with your kids around cooking. If you live in the San Francisco area check out “Kids Culinary Adventures”. Their website is: www.kidsculinaryadventures.com. Their aim is to teach all the academic principles through adventures in cooking. If you don’t live in the area check out the site anyway because they have great plans for expansion.