Kitchen a classroom for menu of skills
Children learn how to become young chefs after school
By JILANE BURLEY / Special to The News Journal
12/26/2004
Six-year-old Lowell Konyk likely has some new household responsibilities these days.
Luckily, they'll involve chocolate.
Lowell and his 12-year-old brother, Walter, recently attended a cooking class at Celebrity Kitchens. Recognizing the educational, team-building, and fun benefits of teaching kids to cook, co-owners Cindy Weiner and Angela Martinez open their cooking classes each month to children. It's a trend that parents, educators, even the Food Network are embracing.
"Not all kids can play an instrument," Weiner said. "But in the kitchen, they're all equal."
Samuel Sigmund, 9, of Penny Hill, already had some cooking experience when his dad, Dan Sigmund, signed him up for the Celebrity Kitchens class at Independence Mall on Concord Pike in Brandywine Hundred.
"My favorite is hot dogs," he said. But Samuel picked up some new tips and tricks while he was cooking with chef Barbara Maletsky and her 15 other young chefs-in-training.
"You use sour cream in cookies," Samuel told his father. He also used a knife for the first time, to chop some apples.
Walter Konyk learned that "you're not supposed to pack [the flour] down when you're measuring it."
There are many lessons to be learned in the kitchen, Maletsky said. They include kitchen safety, organization, how to measure, how to use utensils properly, and more.
Broaden the cultural horizons of your small chef by learning together about the culture of a particular dish.
Younger children can learn about colors, using food dyes for cookie frosting. All kids can learn about healthy ingredients, and gain self-esteem by helping to create something the whole family will enjoy.
The "Educational Baking" section of Foodnetwork.com promotes a series of lessons to be learned while kids are enjoying the fruits of their labor.
For example, while trying out the double chocolate brownie recipe, parents can work math into the fun. When measuring, say, 1/3 cup of oil, take the opportunity to ask your child how much of the cup is empty.
Learning about foods and how to prepare them can help reform your picky eaters. Teaching them to wash leafy vegetables and choose a salad may encourage them to actually eat it.
Surrounded by her cooking compatriots who were munching on the menu of holiday cookies, cheese straws, apple-cider muffins and apples with toffee dip, Gayle Tadler, 10, of Wilmington, said that afternoon she had cooked "way more than I usually do."
For instance, she said, "I've had [cheese straws] before, but I've always wondered how to make them."
Parents expect the enthusiasm to carry over into their home kitchens.
Amanda Konyk, Lowell and Walter's mom, said she had "looked and looked" for something like the class for her two boys.
"There's nothing else like this around," said Konyk, of Chadds Ford, Pa. "They both love to cook. They both watch cooking shows. As soon as we saw it, we wanted to get in here."
So now that they know their way around the kitchen, will they be helping out?
Lowell believes he'll be treating the family to his newest specialty, chocolate-covered marshmallows.
Gayle Tadler intends to use her skills as often as she can. "And I'm definitely going to be making this stuff," she said, dipping an apple slice into the toffee dip.
