Hey there! Lately we’ve been cooking a lot at home with Victoria.
Also, she was invited to take part in the series “Give it a try” with Rolina Naco from @real_diet.
They have prepared a great polish recipe from Victoria’s Grandmother. I used to eat this dish when I was a child and it reminds me sweet long afternoons at home with worm apples, soft gooey rice with cinnamon and vanilla. Yummy!
There are many good reasons to encourage kids in the kitchen at any age.
With young children, that early investment pays off!
Cooking is a way to talk about health. Experts say that the single most important thing you can do for your health is to cook at home.
Inviting children into the kitchen and involving them at a very young age fosters a habit that will have lifelong benefits. Also, it gives you an opportunity to discuss with a 3-year-old how fish can help make you smart (fatty acids), how “eating a rainbow” ensures that you get a wide variety of vitamins and minerals, and how eating plenty of fresh vegetables and drinking lots of water will “keep your poop from hurting when it comes out.”
Children who cook become children who taste, and sometimes eat. Involving children in the process of cooking —greatly increases the chance that they’ll actually try the finished dish. And hey, they may discover a new favorite. But cultivating a welcoming and open-minded approach to food can grow adults who approach life similarly. Arms open and mouth wide to new tastes, cultures, and attitudes.
Cooking is a way to talk about healthy ingredients. Children who have made ice cream and caramel know what is supposed to be in ice cream. They know they didn’t add any guar gum.
Cooking brings cooks of all ages closer. For better or worse, you will get to know your children, and more deeply when you cook with them. For better, you will share recipes, techniques, and anecdotes that you learned at the elbows of mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers long gone. For worse, you will huff and puff and whine and lose your patience when they accidentally spill heavy cream all over the kitchen table while preparing TIRAMISU (find our recipe here!)
They will love you anyway, teaching you, the one who’s supposed to be the grown-up, about unconditional love and ready forgiveness.
Older children may not be grateful now, but the time will come when they need to put food on the table, and it will help to know you boil the water before you dump in the pasta.
Start now, and you may reap the benefit of a child who can take over dinner once a week or once a month.
Cook and enjoy it!
