"What's Cooking?"

Selected by Lisa Von Drasek, Bank Street Library Children's Librarian.

Cooking is one of the most satisfying of activities for children. The small tasks involved in cooking also help children sharpen many important skills from honing small motor skills and hand-eye coordination to following directions and gaining a sense of sequencing. Through reading recipes, children learn that comprehension is important. Math skills have greater meaning when measuring amounts and doubling or cutting recipes. Not to mention telling time, observation and patience-— "Is it done yet?"

Our recommended cookbooks all contain clear instructions, safety information, age-appropriate skill expectations, and best of all, real foods like green spaghetti, pretzels, sleepover snacks, and of course "pretend soup." Enjoy exploring these titles and create your own cookbook to share family or classroom favorites.

Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes: A Cookbook for Preschoolers & Up
by Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson
Ages 3+

A perfect beginning for fun in the kitchen from the authors of the beloved Moosewood Cookbook. This book contains a collection of vegetarian recipes for the very young. Each recipe begins with the traditional list of ingredients and directions for concocting such kid-friendly recipes as "Green Spaghetti" and "Zucchini Moons." Turning the page then reveals an easy-to-follow spread of graphic instructions for a child. For older children check out Honest Pretzels— more complex recipes laid out in the same easy-to-follow style. Katzen's recipe layouts are also terrific models for recording your own recipes to share.

Emeril's There's a Chef in My Soup: Recipes for the Kid in All of Us
by Emeril Lagasse, Illustrated by Charles Yuen
Ages 8+

Celebrity chef Emeril leads us through the basics and provides easy-to-follow mouth-watering recipes. He begins with a preface that encourages parents to make memories with kids by cooking with them and creating a meal together. Emeril emphasizes safety in the kitchen. Each recipe begins with safety icons— an eye symbolizes the need for adult supervision, a knife indicates that sharp tools are needed, and a mitten reveals that there will be handling of hot objects. Exuberant cartoon illustrations show cooking tools and clearly label each procedure. A range of treats from an easy cinnamon toast to a more complicated French toast will please chefs of all ages. As Emeril would say, "Now we're cooking!"

The Secret Life of Food
by Clare Crespo, illustrated by Eric Staudenmaier
Ages 9+

For grown ups and children who love to play with their food, here is a book that says go right ahead. Forty-six fun-to-make recipes include tarantula cookies and a football meatloaf. Some of the recipes are simply prepared with store-bought supplies, such as a caterpillar cake created out of Hostess Sno Balls, and others are fascinatingly complicated, such as a Jell-O aquarium. Full-color photographs of flower pot cakes, sushi cupcakes, and pond pie will spark the inventive food creator in all of us.

Gifts to Make and Eat
by Elizabeth Macleod, illustrated by June Bradford
Ages 8+

This is another superb entry in the Kids Can Do It series from Kids Can Press. Over twenty-five ideas for making inexpensive gifts for friends and family using common household items and recycling others for charming gift wrapping. Projects include chocolate truffle mice, fuzzy felt gift bag, stained-glass fudge, great granola, and a homemade muffin mix.

It's Disgusting and We Ate It!: True Food Facts from Around the World - And Throughout History!
by James Solheim, illustrated by Eric Brace
Ages 10+

This is not so much a cookbook as an illustrated compendium of poems, facts, statistics, and stories about unusual foods and eating habits. Featured delicacies include roasted spiders and squirrel pie. Lots of fun for reluctant readers with a big interest in the gross.

The Sleep over Cookbook
by Hallie Warshaw, illustrated by Julie Brown
Ages 9+

Cooking is a terrific activity for sleepovers, and here are plenty of kid-tested recipes for fun. The recipes range in difficulty from easy snacks using ready-made ingredients, to more complicated menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Most fun to make and eat are chewy pretzel letters, creative crepes, and fluffy s'mores.

The Kids Can Press Jumbo Cookbook
by Judi Gillies and Jennifer Glossop, illustrated by Louise Phillips
Ages 8+

This oversized paperback contains more than 150 recipes tasted and tested by kids. Many family favorites are here— tacos, crispy chicken fingers, pizza, sloppy Joes, lasagna roll-ups, vegetable curry, potato pancakes, and strawberry shortcake. This collection is appropriate for beginners of all ages and also includes basic cooking terms, helpful hints, safety tips, menu ideas, and more.