To The Parents

“Cooking for Kids” came about 8 years ago as a result of our love and interest in both cooking and kids and the awareness that our community was lacking in cooking programs geared towards children. Our interests and background helped us create a successful culinary school for children, which is now known as “Cooking for Kids.”

Chef Elaine Adam

Elaine lived half her life in England where she became known for her creative dinner parties and afternoon teas. Later, traveling and living all over the world piqued her interest in the cuisines of other cultures.  Elaine now has a repertoire of favorite recipes from many foreign countries. After relocating to the U.S. she started her own successful catering business and now shares her skills and expertise with our children. Recently Chef Elaine furthered her culinary education under the instruction of Chef Patrick of 'Le Cordon Bleu" in Paris.

Chef Gayle Corwin

Gayle Corwin was interested in food and cooking from a young age, and decided later to make a career of it. Gayle received her degree in Health Education with an emphasis in nutrition. She has been providing nutritional and healthy lifestyle counseling for the past 20 years working with adults, children and athletes. She has shared with them many of her recipes and helpful tips.  Gayle is a culinary school graduate and recently furthered her culinary education under the instruction of Chef Giovanni Manna in Tuscany Italy.

History

Since 2004 we have held week long cooking camps, as well as enrichment classes for the YMCA and local school districts. Through word of mouth our reputation has spread throughout the community. From this we have provided children’s birthday parties, theme parties, such as Afternoon teas and Mexican Fiestas, Girl Scout and Boy Scout merit badge classes, as well as cooking classes for “grownups” in their own homes.

Our Philosophy

Our philosophy when it comes to children and cooking is that, it is a fun and enjoyable necessity of life when approached in a “kid friendly” manner. Our classes are completely hands on. When kids are involved in the whole process from the beginning, they feel they have a vested interest in the end product. The rewards are abundant, kids gain amazing self confidence when they see a list of ingredients transformed into a complete meal. Throughout this process they gain cooking skills, knowledge of nutrition, kitchen safety, terminology, mathematics, history, cultural differences, and an extreme feeling of accomplishment. They experience the joy of being creative, the importance of team work, and the pleasure of tasting new foods and recipes that they may have shied away from. Through our experience we have found that kids can do a lot more in the kitchen than you may think. Therefore we use regular recipes and modify them to allow for more activity and “kid friendly” steps together with kitchen safety.  You will note as you go through the recipes , that any steps we feel require adult supervision such as cutting, using heat or electricity will be marked with an asterisk*.  In our book we have compiled our class and cooking camp’s favorite recipes. We realize that some families may choose to modify some of our recipes due to personal preferences, such as health issues, allergies, religious or philosophical preference.  We understand this, and stress in our own classes, the need to be flexible and how to incorporate these choices. In most cases we believe moderation is the key, and teach accordingly. Ours is not a health food cook book, but we constantly reinforce eating in a healthy manner by including all food groups and substituting when necessary.

Cooking with your child is not only a safety factor, but can be a great bonding experience.

To the kids

Cook, eat, enjoy. We hope you will enjoy this cookbook as much as we have enjoyed having you in our class. Thank you for all the wonderful experiences, and enjoyable hours that you have given us.