Illustration by Karly Andersen
There was no single moment when I decided to teach my daughters — Lily, 10, and Hazel, 3 — how to cook. They’ve been in the kitchen, clinging to me as babies, strapped to me as infants, climbing on step stools as toddlers, all along. The thing about kids, mine at least, is that they have a keen sense of what seems to bring joy to the people around them. There’s something infectious in it, and they want, desperately, to be included.
There are only a few dishes I remember cooking with my mom when I was growing up, namely deviled eggs and the occasional pot roast. With my dad, there’s a lingering memory of learning how to thicken a sauce with a cornstarch slurry from his book of Chinese recipes when I was 7. But from around the age of 8, I saw that cooking was a way for me to take care of my mom and to entertain and impress everyone else, and I was happy to do it. From that point on, I never really stopped cooking for others, and it only made sense that when they were born, my daughters would be the beneficiaries of that energy.
Ganz’s daughters, Lily (foreground) and Hazel, baking together in the kitchen (Photo courtesy Stephanie Ganz)
We started with baking projects. Unlike the improvisational nature of stovetop cooking, baking has tools, measurements and exact steps that make for natural teaching moments. Plus, baking is tactile, it’s exciting, and you get to lick the spoon at the end. Challah was one of the earliest recipes for both girls. It’s simple, but there are plenty of ways for things to go awry, and I figure we’ve done them all — forgotten salt, forgotten honey, used old yeast, underbaked, overbaked. We’ve made and eaten dozens of mistakes.
Over the years, the girls have chosen their lanes. Hazel is the dough queen. From cookies to pasta, if it’s got strands of gluten coming together to form some sort of structure, Hazel wants to make it (and poke it and rip off a chunk of it and eat it raw). While both girls love a project that ends with sweets, Lily prefers the savory recipes. She’s developed a signature ricotta mix for lasagna that she immodestly calls “Lilcotta,” and she’ll always jump at the chance to stretch and top her own pizza dough.
Hazel also loves looking through cookbooks, and we’re assembling a modest collection, including the entire line from America’s Test Kitchen Kids. My former-chef brain was initially skeptical about a kids’ cookbook. Frankly, I wondered what was the point. But the way Hazel connects with her cookbooks, which she proudly displays on their own shelf, is something special. I suspect it’s about access and ownership, a feeling of something being meant not for the typical grown-up audience for which so much of the world is designed, but for her own specific, curious, developing mind.
I’ve realized that the point was never to end up with a properly baked loaf of bread.
When I first started cooking with Lily, I lacked patience. It took years of (ongoing) work to move through my instincts to control everything. I would swoop in and solve a problem before she could even wrap her head around it. I would get irritated by messes or mistakes. Now, messes and mistakes are practically my favorite part because they’re rare opportunities for me to play it cool — safe failures. I’ve realized that the point was never to end up with a properly baked loaf of bread (although it’s nice). The point is to end up with good memories — cookie dough mustaches, cupcakes with no sugar, eating so much brownie batter we couldn’t imagine eating an actual brownie.
Cooking is the ultimate home court advantage for me. It’s the place where I can be my most serene, my silliest. It’s the place where I feel truly myself, and that’s what I want to show and pass on to Lily and Hazel — not how to make a perfect, fluffy omelet, but how to make peace with every messy, complicated and unexpected version of themselves along the way.
Key Ingredients
Kitchen tools and tomes for little ones
Photo courtesy World of Mirth
Hombae Kids Kitchen Knife Set: These kid-sized, brightly colored nylon knives make knife work feel safe and approachable for even the smallest cooks.
Apron and Chef’s Hat: You’ve got to dress for the job you want, and chefs’ hats look objectively adorable on toddler heads. Luckily, Carytown’s World of Mirth has a cute space-themed set complete with an oven mitt.
‘America’s Test Kitchen Kids: The Complete Cookbook for Young Scientists’: Of all our kids’ cookbooks, this one is the best at combining great recipes and a little sneaky learning, perfect for my 10-year-old.
Cuisinart Mini Baking Tools: Complete with a rubber spatula, whisk and pastry brush, this set is specially designed for small hands.
Chef’N Pastrio 3-in-1 Scraper Set: If hands are the best tools in the kitchen, a bench scraper comes in a close second. This set includes stainless-steel and plastic scrapers that can be used for a wide variety of tasks.
