Kids Cooking

My kids all love to cook.  I love this photo of Scott's birthday pie earlier this week...complete with chubby, "helping", blueberry-filling-slicked hand.  That's how most endeavors in the kitchen usually end around here:  at least one child gleefully covered in some sort of yumminess. 

In our house cooking actually has two categories:  'baking with Mama' and 'making concoctions'.  I think they like category two much more.  It consists of asking me for any available ingredients (aka:  anything that I have enough of and that is cheap enough to part with in large quantities without a promised outcome....in other words, maple syrup is never a concoction ingredient and salt always is).  Often these concoctions (which always do get baked, by the way) are too quirky smelling or looking to actually try (though I suspectthat Wendy does try them all) but a few have been suprisingly tasty.   My kids are constantly begging to make concoctions and while I always want to say yes to such creative endeavors I must admit that I'm probably 50/50 on acquiescing.  

This said, I was very charmed by this story of 5-year-old Chef Julian:

http://www.oregonlive.com:80/portland/index.ssf/2008/12/post_2.html

And on that order let me share my daughter's new project of learning to cook ("like you, Mama!") complete with recipe cards: