EatSavvy Blog

Topic —  Kids in the Kitchen

Kiddie Culinary Training

February 09, 2010
Robyn Burnett

Pocket

My husband and I are complete foodies—we love to cook and create a multitude of recipes from the everyday (pizza) to the exotic (foul mudammas). When our little girl was born, we weren’t sure how our unusual diet would work for her young palate, but she constantly surprised us by being intrigued by sophisticated flavours—forget the carrots and ham, she wanted the lamb Harira soup.

Now that she’s getting close to two years of age, she’s becoming interested in how we prepare the food. She wanders into the kitchen and raises her arms, insisting on seeing what is on the counter and learning the ingredients. As a consequence, I’ve begun my ‘Kiddie Culinary Training’.

First we started with cookie cutters and play dough (before graduating to real dough). Then, we tried dressing a pita pizza together with the prepared ingredients of cheese, pepperoni and mushroom slices (we haven’t graduated to the sauce part yet). My attempts at getting her to mix up a liquid mixture with a wooden spoon ended up a bit messy, but she waved it around with great flourish! But my favourite moments in the kitchen with Ally include making her fruit smoothies. She puts the fruit into the little magic bullet blender container, then I add the juice and yogurt and together, we do the blender dance (not unlike a full body wiggle—see below) to make that sound less scary and event lots of fun.

How did you introduce your kids to cooking?