I have always liked cooking and baking. However, when it was decided in the September of 2017 that I was to hold “Kids Cook”, a cooking class for children, I felt nervous and excited at the same time. I worried about how I was going to conduct this class, whether the children would like what they made, and if I would I be able to answer all their questions.
The first book chosen to centre this activity around was “Spot Bakes a Cake” by Eric Hill. Naturally, I decided to bake a chocolate cake with the children. I was ready & prepared, and waiting for registrations… but no one came. I felt sad but consoled myself with the hope that children would come for the next session. But I was let down, yet again. I wondered if what I had to offer would pique interest at all, and if I should just not conduct a class at all. But my curiosity about how it would feel to conduct a children’s cooking class turned into motivation – and I gave it one more chance. Messages were sent, posts were uploaded and the word was passed on.
Slowly but surely, children began to be a part of “Kids Cook” at the Library. Together, cupcakes have been baked and frosted, cookies have been piped into zig-zags and spirals, sandwiches have been buttered and stuffed, cookie-crunch-oreo milkshake has been made and gulped down, and a quick jam roly-poly has gone down well with all the children. My nervousness towards teaching children to bake was overtaken by the excitement of doing so. Children would say “I love what we made!” with an honesty that filled me with joy.
The children participating in “Kids Cook” are aged five to eleven years. There is a marked interest in naming ingredients, which I find can be advanced by telling the story of their origins, and tasting each one. Expectedly, chocolate is a children’s favourite; once, a little boy said if could choose to brush his teeth with anything, it would be chocolate!
Every child in attendance gets to weigh ingredients, mix batter, melt chocolate, spread jam, grate vegetables, and peel fruits. The expression on a child’s face when they bite into something they have created is priceless.
In the fun of “Kids Cook”, children taste things they would have not usually tried, try new ingredients, talk about the foods they like and enjoy – a sense whose exploration seems to have been reserved for the epicureans and gastronomists of the grown-up world. But food is for everyone of all ages, and so are our associations with it. The rising of cupcakes in the oven, the cracking of eggs, the sizzling of butter on a hot pan, the whirr of the mixer, which even sounds like a car to some – they all engage the perceptions and imaginations of children.
We aim to strengthen the Library as a safe space for new experiences to be made, skills to be sharpened, and most of all, fun to be had. The responses to “Kids Cook” show us that it finds a place in the Library. It draws links between the senses that cooking stimulates, the ability to express them found in books and library activities, and the potential to see oneself not just as a child cooking in a kitchen, but also as any of the illustrated characters coming to life – a tiny mouse hungry for a cookie and milk, a little golden puppy mixing cake batter for his father’s birthday, and even a famous boy-chef who has been invited to the White House on account of his famous pancakes