Anthony Spears - Chef Junior: 100 Super Delicious Recipes by Kids for Kids!

Our travels allowed me to get to know a little more about people around the world and how they eat. For example, after a forty-five-mile bike ride through tiny villages and green rice paddies, we dined in our guides traditional Balinese home. We ate a village chicken killed that morning, rice from their fields, and vegetables from the garden next to their family temple. In the Philippines, I ate the sweetest mango I ever tasted. Food makes people unique. I remember certain people because of the food they shared, and the love they spread.

I think we should all be able to enjoy the excitement of baking a loaf of bread or cooking a meal from scratch. I love eating, but everything tastes better when you have made it yourself. One of my other passions is basketball. I love playing the sport, and even more, I love the massive appetite you get after playing it. One of my favorite drinks is a smoothie. I drink one almost every day, no matter the weather.

I also like bacon and avocado. I bet you guys are all groaning right now thinking, Typical Californian, loves avocado. I cant lie, thats true. P AUL K IMBALL Im fifteen and live in the rather cold state of Michigan with my three siblings. I enjoy mastering Rubiks TM cubes and dancing hip-hop. When I was younger, it felt like cooking was a girl thing.

For example, after my mom was born, my Polish grandpa, Dzia Dzia, was alone at home. He put a whole pound of ground beef into a pan and ate it for dinner. Even though many guys cant cook, cooking really is for everyone. Your age and gender dont matter. In fact, when I was two, I was in the kitchen using a butter knife. The famous chef Bobby Flay once said, I just wanted to cook, period.

Simplehis enthusiasm is flat-out why I want to cook. I want to share my knowledge about cooking so that other people can learn to cook. One of the reasons my mom taught me to cook is so I wont have to eat frozen pizzas and canned soup when I go to college. I totally agree, because who wants to eat processed food for four years? Sometimes I imagine cooking my favorite dish, cheeseburger soup, for my roommates. Picturing all of them digging in highlights an important aspect of cooking: making food that other people like. Cooking food is just okay if youre cooking for yourself, but when you cook for other people, their approval is motivating.

It is my hope that you make the recipes in this cookbook for friends and relatives, because bringing people together for a delicious meal is what cooking is all about. It starts with you just wanting to cook, period. A BIGAIL L ANGFORD Im fifteen, and I live in Kelowna, Canada. For me, food is full of memories. I mean, think about it. Think of your top five favorite memories.

Ill bet one of them revolves around food. My first food memory goes back to when I was four. I was having dinner with my familysalad, meat, and corn on the cob, a very dinner-like meal. And I remember taking a giant blob of butter from the butter dish and plopping it onto my plate, right next to my corn. I then proceeded to roll the warm corn in the butter, giving it a sort of glaze. It looked sooo good.

I took a massive bite into the corn cob, crunching too far into the middle. I heard a crrraaaccckkk, and then my tooth popped out of my mouth. Thats still one of my favorite memoriesten years later. As a small child, cooking mesmerized me. We had a little toy kitchen in the playroom. There were all sorts of utensils, pots, pans, different kinds of food, and even a microwave and a realistic sink.

One of the things I loved most about that toy kitchen was a little flipper made of metal. I thought it was so cute and just perfectly my size. So one day, while my mom was making pancakes, I asked if I could help her flip them with my toy flipper. She examined it for dangerous parts and, when she found nothing, let me get a chair from the table and bring it up to the stove to help with the flipping. I can only hope that this book will inspire you to love food as much as I do. A NTHONY S PEARS Im thirteen years old and live in Florida with my parents and five siblings.

I love reading, nature, playing with my siblings, and hanging out with my best friends, Paul and Caden. Ive hung out in the kitchen with my parents as long as I can remember. My favorite food is probably poutine (fries with cheese curds and gravy), which I first got to try when visiting friends in Canada. Cooking is one of those things that I feel is really a part of me. Ive always been fascinated to learn where food comes from, what makes food taste great, and what makes food good for you. My family always had a garden, and I always helped out pulling weeds, watering plants, picking vegetables, and even digging up sweet potatoes.

I was amazed at how much time and patience went into growing the vegetables for even one meal, and I always understood that quality food involves hard work and dedication. It also really stuck with me that food seemed to taste better when it was fresh and in season and I had a hand in growing it. When I was six years old, I didnt think that I liked seafood very much, but then, one day on vacation, my dad took me fishing. After a long day of waiting, I caught a small white fish. My dad taught me how to clean, season, and cook it (I recommend butter, garlic, and lemon). To my surprise, I found that I really liked the taste.

I also felt a sense of pride for having worked so hard to make that meal. From that day on, I came to realize just how empowering it feels to be able to prepare an entire meal completely from scratch, especially when you get to source the food yourself. My hope with this cookbook is that it will awaken your passion for delicious, real food and give you the tools to cook it in your own kitchen for your own family. K ATIE D ESSINGER