Mark Bittman turns his attention to the little chefs in your household with a cookbook for kids

By MARK KENNEDY

NEW YORK (AP) — Mark Bittman taught us how to cook everything: baking and grilling, preparing fish and vegetarian meals and doing it quickly. This fall, he’s focusing on a different kind of home cook: the little ones.

“Cook anything for kids” is written for children aged 8 to 12 and is packed with photos, images, advice and techniques to empower every mini Julia Child in the home.

“It required a different kind of thinking,” Bittman says. “This is a book made to please children, and we are not children. So we had to consult with children. We had to try to think like children and about children.”

Bittman, who has evolved from recipe developer and culinary writer to one of the leading voices in food and health policy, gives his views on child-friendly dishes such as baked ziti, chicken nuggets and chicken with orange sauce, with easy directions and variations, such as pork chops with apples for the final dish.

The tone is less pedantic and more encouraging, leaving room for younger chefs to experiment and adapt dishes. There are lists – such as ‘9 Ways to Season Scrambled Eggs’ – and recipes for replacing soy sauce glaze with sweet and sour, peanut and hot variations. “You do it,” Bittman writes at one point.

‘Visual fun’

It’s a useful resource for novice cooks, explaining that garbanzo beans are the same as chickpeas, and includes helpful sections on spices and herbs, kitchen appliances, and how to prepare everything from pumpkin to corn. There are images of children throughout the book.

“We wanted it to be visually inviting and fun for the kids. I think keeping their interest and attention was something that we really wanted to do,” said Jacqueline Quirk, associate editor at Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Bittman says the hope is that How to Cook Everything Kids will teach kids that cooking isn’t hard and that they can produce things that taste good – lifelong pathways to better health and breaking the addiction to eating out.

“If you give them the opportunity to make it themselves, they’re more likely to enjoy it, even if it’s a strange vegetable or something like that,” Quirk says. “We wanted to make children adventurous.”

Bittman is also the author of several books, including “How to Cook Everything,” “Fish” and “Food Matters,” among others, which look at the intersection of nutrition, personal and planetary health. It made sense to extend his franchise to children.

“There’s a lot of stuff in here that four- and five-year-olds could get a kick out of if they’re so inclined,” Bittman says. “The most important thing is that parents set a good example and that is more important than children cooking themselves.”

He laughs that as a child the only way he would cook was mixing chocolate syrup and peanut butter in a glass to see what would happen.

“Now you have four-year-olds telling you they want to be a chef when they grow up, and that’s very different. Chefs were not visible people when I was younger, even when my children were young,” he says. “Even being a food writer is an acceptable career.”

Color and sweetness, but no mandolins

The book – divided into dishes such as soups, breakfast, sandwiches, pasta, bread, main meals and grains and beans – reaches a crescendo with a beef and vegetable stir-fry, a dish that Bittman considers part of a holy trinity.

“I think there are three crucial recipes in this world. And they are: stir-fry, rice and beans, and chopped salad. “Imagine mastering it, or getting an idea of ​​it, when you were 12, and at that point you’re set for life,” Bittman says.

“Almost everything people end up cooking can fall into one of these three categories. Those are kind of the pillars of world cuisine,” he adds.