How to embrace the mess and teach your kids to cook

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0:06Hey, it's Marielle. Okay, picture this. You're in the kitchen making chicken cutlets, and you've got a kid in the house, your child or your niece or nephew, your grandkid, and they come up to you while you're wrist deep in egg, raw chicken, and breadcrumbs and say something like, you want to look at my drawing? Or you want to play catch? Or I'm hungry. Or can I watch Bluey? Now, do you tell them to go in the other room and play? Or do you get them involved? As any adult who takes care of a child knows, getting food on the table is a big part of the job. And often while we're doing that, the kids are in the other room waiting to eat.

0:45That's something professional chef David Neyfeld is trying to change with his cookbook. Dad, what's for dinner? For me, what the essence of the book is, is about how to reconnect with our families while everybody is in separate rooms, doing separate things on separate devices. You know, the kitchen can be the great unifier. David could have written a very different cookbook. He's worked in a kitchen for nearly three decades, has cooked in some of the finest fine dining restaurants in the world, and opened Que Fico in the Bay Area, which was listed as one of the best new restaurants in America when it opened in 2018.

1:18But what David, who has a young daughter, really wanted to talk about was what people eat at home. And that was in the forefront of my mind because I had a child that I was raising. and, you know, my daughter's time became very valuable to me. David's new cookbook is full of family-friendly recipes. And the point is to bring everyone together to enjoy a meal, but also to embrace the process of making one, spills and all. As parents, we need to remember that we are always trying to be like, hey, I don't want a big mess. Or hey, God forbid if they break an egg and a shell goes into the bowl. Okay, so what?

1:55Then you fish the shell out. Then you sweep up the flour. Then you wipe up the chocolate. It's not the biggest deal in the world. A little bit of a mess is totally worth the price of admission to that time spent with your child together, building their confidence, building their palate and building that relationship between the both of you. Recognizing that doing stuff together is really the fulfilling part. It's the satisfying part. On this episode of Life Kit, reporter Andy Tegel talks with David about the delights and difficulties of making meals with your kids at any age, how to set your family up for successful weeknight dinners, and why you don't have to shy away from spices on your kid's plate.

2:42my personal struggle is that i have very little confidence in the kitchen and even less confidence about helping my small child navigate the kitchen so thoughts to start for non-cooks like me so you know i have certain isms that people who are in my life kind of make fun of me for eventually right because you say something enough they kind of like roll their eyes in the back of their head but one of the ones that I often say is like, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Don't wait for everything to be perfect to start. Sometimes you just need to get going and don't be afraid of burning the thing.

3:13Don't be afraid of undercooking the thing, overcooking the thing. The first time I cooked for my entire family, I think I was about like eight or nine and I cooked fried chicken. If you can imagine letting an eight or nine year old fry, you know what I always say to people is the 90s. And so I fried chicken for my family and I made mashed potatoes because I had watched my aunt's boyfriend do the same thing. And it was spectacular. And I didn't even know you could have fried chicken outside of KFC. And I was like, this is incredible. I'm going to recreate this for my family. So the chicken came out raw.

3:46And my mom was really, really nice about it and just chicken in the oven. And then everyone loved it afterwards. And then no big deal, right? The truth is, as long as everybody is in good spirits and just has a funny bone about it, you can get through even the toughest meals. But the thing that you have to remember is set achievable bars for the time that you're doing it. If you are going to attempt to do something that is fairly ambitious for you, don't do it with the backdrop of I need to get the kids in bed in 45 minutes to an hour. And if this all goes wrong, the whole night is haywire, right?

4:26You do that on a Saturday or a Sunday or a summer day where there's just more time to play around. And it's all good. If the kids end up a little bit late in bed, if the routine gets thrown off, then it's fine. Can you walk us through some ways to start getting your kids involved and then, you know, graduating through the levels? What might that look like? Yeah, sure. So the thing is, you know, my daughter at almost at the age of two was helping me stir things on the stove. For me, allowing your kids to do dangerous things carefully is so crucial to their development and their confidence in life.

5:04As parents, we want to eliminate anything dangerous from their path, but that's not the way life works, right? And so they need to be able to do certain dangerous things in front of you. And what I would do when she was like two or two and a half and she was able to kind of communicate back to me is she would be stirring something. I would say, hey, point to the thing you cannot touch here. And she would point to the metal part of the pan. I'd say, point to the thing you can touch. She would point to the wooden spoon. And I would say, what happens if you touch this? And she'd say, ouchie, right?

5:35Okay, good. So she gets it. Now, I'm not walking away from her at this point, stirring this thing. I'm watching her and letting her develop these things. Now, when you've got a super young kid, at two years old, I think that's the perfect time for them to do things like, we used to make scrambled eggs with cheese in them. And so I would grate the cheese and then she would take the cheese and she'd put it in the pan and then I would help stir. And then we graduated to she would stir. And then we graduated to a little bit older, she would grate the cheese, right? even though you have to be very careful on the grater to make sure that the block of cheese is big enough to where their fingers aren't put near the grater.

6:14So takeaway one, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. If you're not great in the kitchen, pick easy to make, yummy looking meals you can get excited about and learn with your kid as you go. And if you want more inspiration on just how to do that, we actually have a whole episode on how to get into cooking when you're not into cooking. To make sure you're setting up your little ones for success, calibrate for their age or level of coordination. There are lots of tools out there that can assist with basic access and safety. Things like toddler towers that can help them reach the kitchen counter, kid-friendly knives.

6:51From there, David splits up risk into three basic categories. Level one risk is like no potential for ouchies, right? No potential for pain. And so what that is, is you're picking basil, you're picking parsley, you're picking herbs, you're helping measuring things into teaspoons and cups, and you're using a whisk in a bowl to help make cake and things like that. Like all of those things have zero risk. And maybe the worst thing that happens is a little bit of something spills out onto the counter or the floor, right? But there's no harm. Mess, no harm. Got it. Yeah. So the second level of risk is like, we are just starting to introduce things that could create a very little ouchie, but they are under control, right?

7:38So you have a peeler, you have stirring a pot of, you know, soup for you. You really just need to be cognizant of what your kitchen setup is, how tall your kid is, right? Like, because, you know, it's like a little bit like a rollercoaster ride. If your kid is not this high, right? No matter what age they art, like sometimes that becomes a little dangerous. Also, you have to recognize your own kids' coordination. Some kids are different level of dexterity. The third one, that's when they can do things like they can help use the mixer. They know not to put their hands in the mixer when it's moving.

8:14They can pull things out of the oven and put them in the oven. We are cutting things that, you know, maybe are not overly difficult, right? Like I probably wouldn't give even our 14-year-old a sharp knife and tell him like, hey, I want you to cut this butternut squash, right? Because it's a very hard vegetable to cut. But what I would say is peel the onions and I want you to chop them up, which I, by the way, I always say this, I think onions and garlic are a terrific prep project for a teenager because it teaches them humility. And so that's the one, two, three kind of risk category. And once you graduate from like risk category three, you're off and flying, You're ready to do whatever you need to do.

8:54When you're cooking with kids, you just have to accept that there is going to be mess. Like I'm thinking about the time I wanted to do pizza night with my son and I didn't like portion out the sauces beforehand. Then I, you know, I was like, he's, he could probably do this. He could probably pour it out. And instead it was like sauce all over. So I'm thinking just like any tips for how to accept mess and not, you know, lose the threat of your recipe or your whole night. Don't let that be the thing that stops you from your next pizza night. You did it. You learned. Did the world end? Did anyone die?

9:29The thing is, now, what are you going to do next time? Your son is going to have a pre-portioned thing of sauce, and you're going to say, great, put this on the sauce, and then you're going to also be hyper-explicit. Put this on the sauce. Put it right in the middle. Maybe you might guide their hand to start for a few times and not just let them freewheel it. These are all things you're going to learn through the process. You have to accept there is a little bit of risk here. It's fine. So he poured the sauce all over the pizza. Okay, accept your L, move on to the next pizza night. This is just a fact of life that when we're going through this, life is not tidy, life is not perfect.

10:06You just gotta be willing to accept that sometimes there's gonna be a mess, right? Might be the title of my next book, sometimes there's a mess, right? And that's just what it is. 20 years down the line, what would have been a better story? that your kid threw the pizza sauce all over the place and now it's a hilarious memory? Or is it, hey, they nailed it. It was perfect. I had a pizza. I forgot about it the next day. Like there are some days where you're like, hey, I need that frozen bag of ragu that I made two months ago that's in the freezer because I've got 20 minutes here and I've got to take a meeting after dinner.

10:41I'm not going to let perfect be the enemy of good here. I'm pulling out the bag. I'm going to defrost. I'm going to boil pasta. I'm going to get ragu into the pasta. and my way of getting my kids to contribute is I'm going to ask them to set the table. And then I'm going to ask them to clear their plates and bring them to the sink. And if they're old enough, I'm going to ask them to wash them too. That's going to be their contribution that night. Dinner's going to be done and dusted in 30 minutes. I'm going to be onto my meeting and I'm not going to feel like I failed or compromised. Takeaway two.

11:09Yes, you should embrace the mess, but also choose your projects wisely. Not every family dinner can or should be a five-course meal. So consider your time before picking a recipe, and remember that it's okay to get your family involved in different ways, be it scrambling an egg or scrubbing the plates after dinner. Plan ahead as best you can, and remember, cooking together doesn't mean starting from scratch every night. What about grocery shopping? What about stocking your kitchen to have what you need for that inevitable question of what's for dinner? What are we going to do for this busy Wednesday night?

11:45Do you menu prep for the week and then shop for recipes? Do you have any suggestions or advice for how other parents can do this? My suggestion to you is that every Sunday, if Sunday is the day for you, maybe it's Saturday, sit down and you talk to whoever your stakeholders are in the house. And then you talk about it. You say, okay, great. Mondays is actually not that bad. So what we're going to do is we're going to order a bunch of chicken. We're going to marinate chicken. We're going to grill a bunch of chicken. And then it's going to be a grilled chicken that we're going to top with a little bit of pomodoro sauce and some melted cheese.

12:21And we're going to have breadless chicken parm. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to make two times the batch of grilled chicken. And then next day, I'm going to pack kids lunch. I'm going to do a grilled chicken sandwich or a leftover grilled chicken parms for them. And they'll love that. And I'm going to take some of the grilled chicken that I didn't put the melted cheese on. And I'm going to put that on the leftover of the salad that I didn't dress. And I have my salad with my chicken for my next day. So each day is literally, pun intended, feeding the next day. There's so many lovely recipes in your book.

12:55Do you have a favorite go-to that you'd care to share? I would say the one that brings me the most joy is when, you know, my daughter and I make chocolate cake together. It's definitely a little bit of a project, but having her make that cake with me, you know, like she was so like in awe of its size and everything. And the entire process is so fun and delightful. And I find it to be such a cool experience for them to see starting from scratch, something that is so magnificent that you can make. And then I really love the idea of being one of those families where you walk into the kitchen and there's just a cake sitting there with like, you know, with a glass cloche on it.

13:37And it like reminds me of kind of being like my own little mini version of Martha Stewart, where you're like, oh yeah, like, you know, I just happen to walk into my kitchen. There's freshly baked cookies or cake or something like that. And I think that that's a really awesome thing to do. Now, obviously this is not something you're going to do all the time, but it is such a, like a mic drop moment in your kind of parenting relationship with your kids when you guys can achieve something so special like that. Another thing that I think really, really is exceptional here is, you know, things like the spicy rigatoni.

14:10You know, I have been big on developing spice in my daughter's palate. And I think the best way to do that, if you like spicy food and you want your kids to also enjoy it is from a young age, you just start adding a little bit, just the tiniest amount. And then you just, you get to a point where they start to taste it and they start to crave it too. Now it takes time, right? Because the child's palate grows over time. And so I think recognizing that your kid's palate naturally is probably going to reject spicy things at first, but if you slowly start to develop it, they'll slowly start to develop a taste for it.

14:45Finally, takeaway three, remember cooking is about connection, not simply creating the perfect combination of proteins, vegetables, and carbohydrates. Whatever you choose to eat, the more ownership a kid can take of a meal, the more excited they feel about what they eat, the easier it'll be to encourage adventurous eating. As David writes to parents in the book, kids are kids and their palates are both different and your responsibility to develop. Finally, before I let you go, David, I want to bring it back to the genesis of the book. I really like how you specifically reach out to fathers and share your personal experience as a single parent.

15:24I hadn't realized until I read your book how often cookbooks, family cookbooks seem to default to a mother or mother figure's point of view. Any last thoughts for us on how and why dads should claim space for themselves in the kitchen and beyond? I don't see enough messaging speaking to dad saying, hey, let's arm you with the things that you need, right? And even generationally, you're not getting your dad talking to you about that like, oh, son, come here, let me teach you about how I used to make this with whoever used to teach it to me. Now, I'm not saying that never happens, but it's certainly not the norm.

16:00And we don't talk to dads in the same way of saying, hey, let me tell you how you need to prepare the home. Let me tell you how you need to get your kid ready for school. Let me talk to you about how you need to braid your daughter's hair. Let me talk to you about, you know, so many of these different elements, right? So I find a whole generation of men who really do want to be involved. That is 100 % their intention, yet they come into the space with a very little messaging, with very little resources, and frankly, with a culture that's not gearing anything towards them, right? And so once we kind of recognize that, hey, hey, this is something we need to start optimizing more towards and recognizing that we really want to make sure that everyone gets to fully participate.

16:46We also have to change the way we talk about it because dads are more involved. Dads are taking a bigger role in their kids' lives. And we want to encourage that because it's super important for everyone. And I think it also makes for happier families with less resentment. And I think that that probably feels like common sense to most people. Thank you for the encouragement, for the inspiration. David, it's really been a pleasure. Thanks for your time. It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much. Okay, let's recap. Takeaway one. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good in your family kitchen. It's okay to learn as you go and to get your kids involved at any age.

17:22Little, little ones can sprinkle spices and mix bowls. Young kids can stir things on a stove or form meatballs for pasta night. Teenagers can slice, dice, and sear. Just show them the way. Takeaway two. Things are gonna get messy. That might mean batch meals on weeknights and making projects with the little ones on the weekends. And takeaway three, cooking is an opportunity for connection, not just sustenance. The more everyone partakes in the making, the more you'll enjoy the eating. That was reporter Andy Tegel talking to professional chef David Neyfeldt. For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes.

18:01We have one on how to save money at the grocery store and another on meal prep. You can find those at npr.org slash life kit. And if you love Life Kit and want even more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash life kit newsletter. Also, if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share or you just want to say something nice to us, email us at life kit at npr.org. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Claire Marie Schneider. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan and our digital editor is Malika Grebe. Megan Cain is our Senior Supervising Editor, and Beth Donovan is our Executive Producer.

18:35Our production team also includes Margaret Serino and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering support comes from David Greenberg. I'm Marielle Segarra. Thanks for listening.