The Small Chef
Guides for families
Learn
Short, practical guides on how children come to eat a wide range of foods, and how cooking at home helps. Each one is grounded in research on young children's eating and in many years of cooking with children, and each ends with something to try this week.
Children who cook, eat
How washing, tearing, stirring and tasting widen what a child will eat.
The cautious eater
Being careful with new foods (food neophobia), why it is common in the early years, and what helps over time.
Many tries, no pressure
Offering a food again and again (repeated exposure), and why pushing a bite tends to backfire.
The shared table
Serving from shared bowls (family style meals), eating together, and the part adults play by eating the same food (modeling).
Kitchen jobs by age
What children can do at two, three, four, five and beyond, from scrubbing and tearing to cutting and measuring.
Knives, heat and safe habits
Child knives, close supervision and the habits that keep a family kitchen safe.
Words for taste
Crunchy, tangy, earthy, bitter. Describing food together builds language and curiosity at once.
Where our food comes from
Seasons, farms, markets, produce boxes and growing a little at home (farm to table).
Many families, many tables
Bringing your family's foods, and the foods of other families and places, to your table.