Cooking Light Subscription: Kids Cookbook

Kids Cookbook

One night a week, 11-year-old Michael Jansa makes dinner for his family of five. Another night, it's the turn of his nine-year-old sister, Anne. For the past year and a half, each Portland, Oregon preteen has had the once-a-week job of planning the family meal, cooking it with Mom and cleaning up afterward. Sound too good to be true? Not to Fran Henry-Jansa, who started teaching her kids to cook when she decided to go back to work last fall. "We're a family, and we all have to work together. I'm a great believer in kids pulling their weight." Not that Michael cares about that. He's just surprised and delighted by his new ability. "For a person like me who likes sports, I never thought cooking would be fun," says the sixth grader who makes spaghetti, barbecued chicken, corn bread (from a mix) and--his specialty--mashed potatoes. In his attempt to speed up his chores, he even discovered a quicker way to make mashed potatoes by baking them, scooping out the insides and then mashing them. And in the process he discovered a delicious by-product: baked potato skins. There's nothing new about children learning to cook. What's new is how they are learning. They used to be taught by their mothers, as the Jansa children were. But now that so many mothers are working, professionals are increasingly taking over the task. Educators do it because they believe cooking is a skill that helps children read, do math and organize their work logically.