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recommendations
You've asked and we're telling.
Here are our recommendations for a small number of cookbooks and tools that we believe help support kids in the kitchen.
*Affiliate links included below. This has no impact on our recommendations. Thank you for supporting our work!
foundational cookbooks
Kid Chef Everyday, by Colleen Kennedy, was a big part of our lives in 2023. This was my son's first cook-through challenge, 70 recipes that gently and deliciously stretched his kitchen skills to a new level of competency. Highly recommended for folks looking to tempt (or assign) some tasty tutorials to their kids! The best parts? One recipe per page, introductory modules tied to recipes and a range of meals from salsa to caprese sandwich to fudge.
The Complete Cookbook for Teen Chefs by America's Test Kitchen is our 2024 cook-through challenge for the 12 yo. We've got colorful food photos, a range of exciting recipes, culturally diverse and the perfect length: ~70 recipes again. The ATK style is also right up our alley: questioning, methodical, looking for the best possible final product. This book is not any more challenging than Kid Chef Everyday, just expanding the repertoire. Making good progress here!
themed cookbooks
Thank you authors of Dungeons and Dragons Heroes Feast for creating a cookbook that truly appeals to my kid! At last, recipes are put in some meaningful context, like what you'd eat in Ravenloft with orcs and 3rd level wizards. Highly recommend this fantastical, poetic, imagination capturing culinary journey for those into role playing games. We've probably made half of the recipes out of here just because they sounded cool and it turns out they taste great, too.
You knew this was coming. Heroes Feast 2 ("the search for more money" my 12 yo would quote from Spaceballs.) Flavors of the Multiverse is as much as a D&D adventure as it is a cookbook. Still working our way through it and amazing so far.
My Pokemon Cookbook is a wacky book, which aligns perfectly with the Pokemon world. If you have a pokemon lover, you know exactly what I mean. This book bizarrely matches food to different pokemon based on color, texture, name . . . fascinating. Recipes range from spring rolls (styled after Breloom) to parfaits (layered like Crustle, grandma loved this one). Bizarre and fun and delicious.
We need many more comic book cookbooks in our lives! Let's Make Ramen" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Let's Make Ramen takes a complicated and infinitely variable dish and inspires and educates us into action in the kitchen. Our favorite thing in this book is the marinated eggs, Ajitsuke Tamago. These have become a household staple! We've made amazing ramen on a monthly basis thanks to this book.
equipment
Safety first! My kids love Grill Armor Gloves. They love the incredible videos of the gloves reaching into flames and they love that the gloves go all the way up their forearms. They are rated to 932F (!) and come in a range of colors. We don't have many kitchen tools we recommend but this is one we can't live without.
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