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Culinary Kids
Taste Buds (formerly Cupcake Kids!) Imparts The Joy Of Cooking To Toddlers and Tweens Alike
Teaching children about nutrition
at a young age is a hot topic
nowadays, with advice on getting
kids to eat right cropping
up everywhere from cookbooks
to the nightly news. But in a colorful
kitchen nestled in the city’s wholesale
“flour” district—the home of the children’s
cooking program Taste Buds—the challenge seems simpler, and more
fun. Taste Buds has discovered a simple
yet successful recipe for inspiring a
love of good food in children: mix one
part cooking, one part education, and
as much hands-on fun as possible, and
voila! The joy of cooking (and eating!),
perfectly digestible for young chefs.
Then in 2008, Walter watched her day job disintegrate due to Bear Stearns’ widespread layoffs. Yet losing her job allowed her to realize that her weekend hobby—and her true passion—could become her career.
Recently Walter decided the change the company’s name to “Taste Buds” to better reflect the range of cooking classes offered. “As the company has grown beyond my initial days of baking with kids, Taste Buds is a much truer reflection of who we really are and the depth of events that we offer for kids of all ages,” she says.
One crucial step to fully realizing Walter’s dream was the completion of Taste Buds’ very own kitchen, which opened this past spring. Previously, classes were run out of various restaurants in the city. “Every space we rented, they were fantastic to have us, but it wasn’t what I envisioned the space looking like,” Walter says. “I wanted something I could make kid-friendly, but not like a play space. I wanted a real kitchen that would also work for adults, because we go up to age 14, and I didn’t want [the tweens] to feel like they were in a kids’ kitchen.”
A “real kitchen” is exactly what Walter created. The space is filled with baskets of cookie cutters, sprinkles, spice jars and stewed tomatoes, and combines kid-centric amenities (like low-level shelves for plastic spoons and a table and chairs that adjust in height) with professional functionality. While there, kids touch, smell and taste ingredients as they learn where their food comes from, how it all comes together and what it means to eat balanced, healthful meals.
During her classes, Walter strives to make learning feel like play. At Mommy And Me classes, she encourages the children’s development of fi ne motor skills: “When we teach them how to pinch, like for a pinch of salt, we say, ‘Stick out your thumb. Now point your index finger, and close them.’” There’s also frequent story time; “The Big Hungry Bear” is read before whipping up strawberry jam, and the kids gather around to listen to “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” while waiting for granola bars to set. In the
semester-long classes children learn colors (“Who’s ready to cook? Raise your red spoon!”) and food facts (“a blueberry used to be called a star fruit”). As children grow, their skills advance from counting to measuring ingredients. When students reach the Tween Group (10-14), they take on more sophisticated skills, like working with knives.
Taste Buds hosts semester-long classes inspired by the seasons. In the winter, there’s a Warm and Cozy Treats class, where kids create biscotti cookies and hot chocolate from scratch, while in summertime students whip up corn and black bean salsa and blueberry crumble. There’s also a culinary workshop for almost every holiday: creepy crawly spider pretzels for Halloween, gingerbread houses for Christmas and sweetheart cookies for Valentine’s Day. Kids also learn about other cultures by exploring their cuisine; in Around The World classes, kids make Chinese noodle salad and write their own fortunes for fortune cookies; craft a spanakopita and locate Greece on a map; and learn the names of different pastas while shaping Italian meatballs.
Walter also offers full-service birthday parties that can be tailored to a child’s interest (she recently created edible spaceships for a Star Wars fan).
What’s more, Walter is still expanding her roster of classes. She recently debuted classes for parents, like Organic Baby Food 101, and is teaming up with Moore Brothers Wine Company for a night of wine tasting, where parents can unwind while their children learn to make applesauce muffins in the wine company’s kitchen.
And
while Taste Buds may sound like a program that Michelle Obama would
endorse, Walter doesn’t consider herself a messenger for public service.
“We don’t associate ourselves with any kind of anti-obesity
organization or anything, it’s just fun,” she says—and in a way, that’s
the magic of Taste Buds. While kids reap the benefits of healthy eating
and improved self-esteem, they keep coming back for one reason: because
it’s fun.
Taste Buds, 109 West 27th Street, 10th Floor, 212-242-2248, tastebudscook.com.
Jessi Walter, founder of Taste Buds, shares her tips for at-home cooking with kids:
Keep it fun. Food is amazing, so let the ingredients speak for themselves as you embark on your culinary adventure. Cooking is also a great time to catch up with your child and talk about your day.
Taste everything. We don’t use “yummy” or “yucky” in our kitchen. We taste everything and then talk about what we like and don’t like. A “no thank you bite” is certainly allowed if you don’t care for the ingredients or dish, but it’s great to try everything when you cook, as tastes change over time.
Don’t mind the mess. Messes will happen, so don’t worry about keeping everything neat when you are cooking. It will only take a few minutes to clean up and a relaxed attitude will make your kids feel more free and excited to cook with you.
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