"learning" news and stories

Chances are, if you're reading this blog you're something of a foodie. If you have kids, you may want them to also develop a love of food and cooking. But who has time to inculcate the next generation in the ways of the culinary world? The Young Chefs Academy has just the thing!

The organization was founded with the purpose of teaching children as young as three the basics of cooking and kitchen safety. Young Chefs Academy, started by Julie Fabing Burleson and Suzy Vinson Nettles, now has franchises in many cities. They offer classes, mini camps, and birthday parties. Each class includes kitchen safety, food handling and preparation, cooking/baking techniques, presentation, table setting and manners.

Young Chefs Academy is a great way to give your kids a safe and fun environment to learn how to cook, or at least a place to start. So if getting your kids to learn culinary basics is important to you, the Young Chefs Academy may be a smart choice. There's no time like childhood to start a child on a lifelong love of food.

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When I was about six years old, my grandmother gave me a cookbook called For Good Measure: A Cookbook for Children. Already curious about cooking, I loved this book and would often take it to bed with me in order to pore over the recipes. It was out of the this book that I learned to cook Egg in a Basket, the very first thing I made on my own.

The recipe was simple enough. Take one slice of bread and cut a hole in the center of it with a cookie cutter or glass. Heat a small pan and melt a pat of butter. When the butter gets foamy, add the slice of break and break the egg into the hole. Cook until the egg white is set and turn over gently so the other side can cook just a bit. Remove to a plate and enjoy! What the book didn't tell me, that I discovered on my own, was that it was also delicious to toast the cut out circle of bread in the pan as well, because then you had pre-buttered toast with which to mop of the last of the yolk.

I would beg to be allowed to make an Egg in a Basket before school (normally my mom said no and poured me a bowl of Cheerios) and on weekend mornings I'd ask my family if anyone was interested in having one made for them. That approach was often more successful and I'd stand at the stove in the kitchen (with parents watching close by), feeling satisfied and like the short order cook I imagined I'd be when I grew up. I still love this particular dish, both for it's simplicity and for the taste memory that sends me soaring back into my childhood.

What was the first thing you learned to cook? Do you still make it now? Who taught you how to make it?

When kids are very young, they often want to emulate what their parents are doing. For example, if Mom and Dad are preparing dinner, Junior will want to be involved. Unfortunately, while cultivating an interest in food - especially homemade food, as opposed to fast food - is a wonderful thing for a child, they can occasionally get in the way of the chef.

An easy solution is to assign your child age-appropriate tasks that they can do with little to no supervision once they have been shown how to do it in the first place. Real Simple offers a helpful list of such tasks, sorted by age, so your kids can join in the cooking process. Here are a few of their suggestions:

5 and over

• Retrieve ingredients from the pantry or refrigerator.
• Wash vegetables and fruits.
• Stir together dry ingredients.
• Smash crackers into crumbs.
• Set the table.

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