Season 1, Episode 1: raising independent kids

Transcript

Conner: (00:06)
Welcome to kiddos in the kitchen, a podcast hosted by my mom.

Stephanie: (00:15)
It was a rare snowy day in Dallas, Texas. It was the most snow the Fredericks could remember and it was so much to know that they had to cancel their son Julian's third birthday party. But they weren't going to let the toddler's birthday go by without a cake. Julian's mom Toria started pulling out baking ingredients. That's when her toddler piped up.

Julian: (00:37)
Can I do it myself? So I got on my sketch tool, got my little chef coat on, and got to work. The cake was amazing. It tasted great. Since then I've been cooking ever since.

Stephanie: (00:51)
That homemade vanilla bundt cake was a family recipe passed down from Toria's his grandmother. But the recipe, while wonderful and delicious wasn't what made that day special. Rather it was the fact that in that moment Toria did something that not a lot of us parents do. She said yes. She said yes to Julian's request to take the lead. She said yes to the possibility of egg yolks on the floor and flour everywhere. She said yes to a high likelihood of imperfection. Welcome to Kiddos in the Kitchen, a podcast about helping busy adults find the inspiration and information they need to teach the kids in their lives how to cook.

Stephanie: (01:36)
I'm your host, Stephanie Conner, and today we're going to talk about how bringing kids into the kitchen can help develop their independence and leadership skills. Julian is 11 and he loves being in the kitchen. He has done cooking demonstrations at culinary festivals in Dallas, a major local hospital and more. In November he'll even be doing a demonstration at the Indianapolis Public Library. Together Julian and Toria founded the Step Stool Chef to share what they learned in the kitchen with other parents.

Julian: (02:09)
The Step Stool Chef is all about empowering kids to be leaders in the kitchen. You provide tools and solutions to make cooking for kids easy and fun.

Stephanie: (02:19)
Julian makes everything from salmon to vanilla ice cream souffle to Pizza Burger Sliders. Wait, what Pizza Burger Sliders?

Julian: (02:28)
[inaudible 00:02:29]. Think of this, pizza and burger, combine it pizza burger.

Stephanie: (02:36)
Julian has the confidence and culinary skills to come home from school, look at his busy, tired parents and say, "Mom, dinner's on me." In fact, the night we spoke, I asked Julian if he was going to make dinner while I continued chatting with his mom.

Julian: (02:51)
Probably, you're going to find out tonight.

Stephanie: (02:55)
I checked back with Toria the next day. Had Julian really cooked? Toria responded promptly telling me he had made penne pasta with turkey meatballs and broccoli. The independence that he demonstrates is a result of growing up in a household that encouraged him to explore and try and test and get messy. I asked Toria to tell me about her philosophy on raising independent kids and what that looks like in the kitchen. Here's our conversation.

Toria: (03:23)
Hello, my name is Toria Frederick. I am the co-founder of the Step Stool Chef.

Stephanie: (03:28)
You really talk about cooking as part of this bigger, bigger thing of raising independent kids and I'm hoping you could talk a little bit about just your view of Parenthood and why that independence is so important and how you're going about instilling that in your own kids.

Toria: (03:47)
Oh, thank you. Yes, I personally have a parenting philosophy that our jobs as parents is to raise self-sufficient independent kids. But one of the things that I have learned is that we think that our job is to raise self-sufficient, independent adults. The process of doing that, we underestimate what kids can do now versus thinking that certain skills or behaviors are going to evolve as they get older.

Toria: (04:24)
I believe in letting kids learn those skills now and demonstrate those skills now and have them build them over time. One of the things that we will always try to figure out, we all want our kids to be leaders, right? We want them to grow up to be leaders, but we rarely seldom think about, "Okay, well what are the skills that's important that I need to nurture in my child to grow those leadership skills?"

Toria: (04:53)
Well, you think about it is decision making. It's risk-taking. It's problem solving, going behind your mistakes and learning from your mistakes. Or interestingly enough, all of those skills you can learn through cooking. If it's trying to figure out a recipe, if it's trying something new, if it's making a mistake during those recipes, all of those skills are leadership skills that are built through cooking. We decide to use cooking as in the kitchen as our lab or experimentation. Where he can figure out how to make those mistakes, how to build those skills while developing these really yummy and fun recipes.

Toria: (05:43)
That's why our focus is around kid independence. It's not just about, "Oh, come help mommy cook." It's around what can you do by yourself? What can you do and be self sufficient. Now I have kids that are more confident, not just in the kitchen, but you see that confidence in other areas in their lives. It has opportunity to just wow. It is about cooking. It really is about confidence, independence and self sufficiency.

Stephanie: (06:13)
I absolutely love that. One of the ways that you set them up for taking on that leadership role is you put your kids in charge and you say the parents are the sous chef.

Toria: (06:26)
That's right. I'm called sous chef mommy and we have sous chef daddy. And again, it's hard, right? Because part of being a parent is that we want our children to be successful and sometime what we do is we jump in and try to guide them or do the job because we want it to be successful. But I've learned that it's more important that success looks like them completing the steps as must as possible on their own. We're trying to make it where our job is just to merely assist them and help them and guide them versus them being our little helper.

Stephanie: (07:10)
Yeah, and I think for most of us we definitely put the kid as our helper. What does it really look like when you're a sous chef, mommy?

Toria: (07:22)
A few things. One, it can start as simple as letting the kid decide the recipe. That in of itself is very empowering. Then you allow the kid to say, "Okay, well if this is a recipe, or this is the dish we're going to make, or what are the ingredients we're going to need? Do we have all the ingredients? Or we don't have the ingredients. Or what do we need to do?"

Toria: (07:43)
Really helping them understand the decision making process and the problem solving process of what it takes to make a recipe. It can be as simple as that. Those are things we take for granted, right? We take for granted, "Oh I got to cook dinner, let me look in the refrigerator and see what I have or I need to go to the grocery store to buy this thing." Those are quick decisions and quick thinking part. Quick kind of decision making that we make during the cooking process that we take for granted, which is an actual learning opportunity for your child.

Toria: (08:17)
It can start as simple as letting them decide what to cook, making sure that they understand if they have all the ingredients, if they don't have all the ingredients, is there an alternative that they could use? So that's another thing that we'll do if we don't have certain ingredients. We'll figure out, "Okay, well what are the substitutes?" If we're baking something and we don't have oil, we've found that apple sauce is a great substitute and healthier substitute.

Toria: (08:47)
Those are the types of things that allows for us to have him and all our customers be more aware around the small things that can happen to help make the cooking experience more independent. Then when it comes to cooking the recipe, it is finding the recipe that they can do most of the steps on their own. You can find a lot of those types of recipes on our website. What we've found is what we call high prep, low heat type of recipes. Things that require a lot of preparation. A lot of cooking, mixing type of things that you can do on a countertop and then require less time over a stove or less time over heat or exposure to heat. Those are the types of recipes that we find to be most helpful in letting kids do it by themselves.

Toria: (09:46)
The last but not least is getting out of the way, like letting them do it. Because sometimes what we find is that they're not going to do it the way we do it. They're going to be slower. It's going to be, "Oh my gosh, it's going to be a lot slower." Right. It's not going to be as efficient. It may not look as good, but they're the ones that's doing it. We want them to be successful as we consider success to be. But success is letting them complete it from beginning to end.

Stephanie: (10:17)
Julian now 11, you started with him being head chef around his third birthday. That's eight years of cooking and being the head chef in the kitchen. What kinds of changes have you seen in him? Obviously he's grown from a toddler to a boy in this time, but what kinds of things do you notice in him that you think tie back into this independence and leadership in the kitchen?

Toria: (10:49)
Sure. Actually it's something I've seen in both of my kids. As Julian mentioned, his little sisters called the step sous chef in training. She has her favorite recipe that she can do on her own. I say that because at first I was wondering if some of those changes were due to just that child's personality. But now I've witnessed it not only with Julian but also with Jasmine. I really do believe that a lot of what we've been building up is being seen in different ways. For example, well one, like I said, they're a lot more independent than confident when it comes to cooking. There have been plenty of times where I come into the kitchen and they already started their breakfast or even my daughter just this afternoon, she decided to make her own turkey and cheese rep.

Toria: (11:46)
Very simple, didn't require a lot of cooking but it was a fact that she just didn't feel any need to rely on me for her own immediate need at that particular moment. Something as simple as that self-sufficiency in the kitchen. But I've seen in other ways as relates to trying new foods, they're a lot more open to try new foods and we have a rule in our house that you have to at least try it once. You can not like something that's okay, but you have to at least try it to make sure that you actually don't like it. They are very receptive to trying new foods, try new exotic foods. Even ones that look strange because they've experimented with enough ingredients and know that all types of foods can taste good.

Toria: (12:33)
Also in other parts of their life, there are a lot more willing to take risks and putting themselves out there and try new things even in everyday life where it comes to sports or academics or even fun things. We have this one time where Julian jumped into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean one time when I was going snorkeling and he didn't want to put the snorkel equipment on his face so he just jump right in and swim with me. His willingness to go for it in so many different elements of his life, we've been able to see him.

Toria: (13:15)
Then last but not least, I will say this, they have dealt with disappointment in a very interesting way. When things don't always go their way. I've seen where both of them, they've been disappointed but then willing to try it again cause they tried things before that didn't work out and they've seen what happens when you try it again and that they could get better.

Stephanie: (13:43)
Well, what advice do you have to help parents relax? Because for a lot of us, especially us, type A folks, the idea of handing control in the kitchen or anywhere over to our kids is might feel overwhelming or scary, maybe even unsafe. Help us chill out a little bit. What advice do you have?

Toria: (14:13)
One of the tips I highlight, and I bring this up a lot with other parents, is in the beginning, you have to treat cooking almost like you would an arts and crafts project. Once you switched your mindset when it's time to do the fun arts and crafts, you already know that you have to mentally set time. You have to put all the supplies out ahead of time to make it as easy as possible. You know there's going to be a mess. You almost have to train your mind beginning to treat cooking like it's an arts and craft activity time, versus it's a chore that needs to get done.

Toria: (15:03)
That mindset shifts helps a lot in letting you being more patient and letting you think about the fun of it and the experience of it versus, okay, I have to get dinner on the table. I need to make this happen as quick as possible because I have other things I need to accomplish. Bringing her in the kitchen or him in the kitchen it's just going to slow me up or it's going to be a big mess after. You switch your mindset and pick a day and know that that moment or that time is going to be cooking with your kid time like you would an arts and craft activities, that generally helps. And once you do that a few times, what you find is that their skills get better and it does get faster and more efficient.

Stephanie: (15:46)
I loved speaking with Toria Frederick of the Step Stool Chef, but I couldn't let her go without asking a few more questions about her own kitchen and a segment I call kitchen questions where I ask my guests a quick list of culinary queries. Thanks to Toria for being the first guest ever in the kitchen questions hot seat.

Child: (16:08)
It's time for Kitchen Questions. I have a question. What would happen if you put a little bit of the wrong ingredients inside a cookie? Why are cupcakes squishy? How often do you burn things on accident? Do you like cake? What is the difference between baking and roasting? What is your favorite recipe?

Stephanie: (16:34)
All right. Toria let's get started. What is one ingredient in your kitchen that you always have on hand?

Toria: (16:41)
Cinnamon.

Stephanie: (16:42)
What is your go-to easy weeknight meal?

Toria: (16:46)
Spaghetti.

Stephanie: (16:47)
What dish or dessert are you famous for at home?

Toria: (16:51)
Home made Lasagna.

Stephanie: (16:53)
Do you clean up as you go or do you wait until you're done?

Toria: (16:57)
Cleanup as we go. Our family have a saying, ABC Always Be Cleaning.

Stephanie: (17:03)
Coconut oil or avocado oil?

Toria: (17:05)
Coconut oil.

Stephanie: (17:07)
Arugala or spinach

Toria: (17:09)
Spinach.

Stephanie: (17:11)
Peanut butter, crunchy or creamy?

Toria: (17:14)
Creamy.

Stephanie: (17:15)
Cast iron or nonstick skillets?

Toria: (17:18)
Cast iron.

Stephanie: (17:20)
There you have it. Our first ever kitchen question segment with Toria Frederick from the Step Stool Chef. Thank you again to Toria and Julian of the Step Stool Chef for being my first guests on Kiddos in the Kitchen. You can check them out on social media. They're on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram there @stepstoolchef. Then head over to their website @stepstoolchef.Com, where you can find tons of great recipes and resources including a free ebook on 10 tips to make cooking with kids easier. It's wonderful and they've also started doing cooking kits for kids which have everything your little chef needs to make their own meals. You get the main ingredients for the recipe as well as fun, kid-friendly cooking supplies, plus a recipe card with step-by-step photo instructions.

Stephanie: (18:12)
Our next guest is a professional baker, cake decorator and instructor in Gilbert, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. Wendy Miguel, had learned to decorate cakes from her grandmother and her culinary career has included owning a bakery in Florida and competing with her friend and boss at the time on the first episode of the Food Network's Cake Wars. She teaches both adults and kids and in fact she'll be back on the podcast in December with tips on baking cookies. But first I asked her for some advice to help us teach our kids something that's pretty fundamental in both cooking and baking. I wanted to know how to properly crack an egg, how to get the shell out and how to know an egg is safe to eat.

Wendy M.: (18:58)
On the inside of an egg shell is a thin membrane and you may have noticed it if you had boil eggs, there's just this thin membrane and that is attached to the egg shell. The best way to crack an egg is to actually crack it on a hard flat surface. I know my grandmother taught me to crack it on the side of the bowl, but that is actually not the best way to do it. You want the flat surface because it will crack the shell, but it will keep the shell attached to the membrane, which keeps the shell out of your bowl.

Wendy M.: (19:31)
Once you've cracked your shell, you want to put both thumbs into the hole where it's been cracked and then pull it apart. Cracking it onto the side of your bowl will break the egg shell away from the membrane. But then you're also right next to your bowl so your shells have the perfect opportunity to slide right into your bowl with your egg.

Wendy M.: (19:56)
Trying to keep your egg away from there. If you do happen to get an egg shell in your egg, which is totally normal, the best way to get that egg shell out is to get your finger wet, just the tip of your finger wet from your sink or whatever, and then just stick your finger in and the water will actually make the shell kind of attract to your finger and you can just pull it right out. You don't have to fish around for that shell anymore.

Stephanie: (20:25)
My mind is blown.

Wendy M.: (20:28)
I can see your face.

Stephanie: (20:31)
Four decades on this planet and I have not known how to properly remove my egg shell from my bowl.

Wendy M.: (20:39)
Also, the things you want to watch out for, well, the one to other technique I would offer is to crack each egg into a separate bowl, one at a time to make sure that you're looking at each egg. Not very often, but once in awhile you can get a bad egg and if you're cracking your eggs right into your recipe, whatever that recipe is, you can end up messing up and wasting all of that time and the ingredients. What to look for is, well, what you can see when you crack an egg, I guess is a cloudy egg. A lot of times I've heard people say, "Is that okay?" It actually is great.

Wendy M.: (21:22)
A cloudy egg white means that it's extremely fresh and brand new. You can't have the clear egg white as well. It just means it's not quite as fresh, but it's still totally fine. That's what most of us see most of the time. If we buy our eggs from grocery stores. The yolk can be dark to light and that's totally fine. That just changes based on what the chicken actually ate before. Sometimes you'll see blood in an egg, which is really off putting.

Stephanie: (21:54)
Yeah.

Wendy M.: (21:55)
But it's still safe to eat. You don't have to though.

Stephanie: (21:58)
Nope, I do not.

Wendy M.: (21:59)
I won't judge.

Stephanie: (22:01)
Not doing that.

Wendy M.: (22:03)
Once in a while you'll see... Egg people call them meat spots.

Stephanie: (22:08)
That doesn't help, that doesn't. You want to eat that?

Wendy M.: (22:11)
They're like little funny brown spots and I actually found an egg like that the other day. Yeah, it's not pleasant, but it is safe to eat. If you are not looking at your kids doing it and all of a sudden you see, you have four eggs in a bowl and one of them was bloody, you can still eat it if you can handle it. The thing you want to look out for is pink or I mean black or green spots or a pink or iridescent looking egg. Any of those are bacterial contamination and you want to steer clear and not eat those though.

Stephanie: (22:48)
Easy, I can definitely steer clear that.

Wendy M.: (22:51)
Yeah. Any egg that look slightly funny. I'm like, "No thanks."

Stephanie: (22:58)
Okay. I have one question about cracking an egg. I only recently learned to not do it on the side of a bowl. My mother taught me that that's how you do it. So that's how I've always done it. But I recently was in a cooking class and we were taught flat surface. I've been trying to teach my son, how do I keep him from just slamming it and smashing the egg? Serious question. Serious, serious problem.

Wendy M.: (23:28)
Serious problem. No, I get it. Because then you have a serious mess. Oh, no. I think it's prepping him. I'm all about preparation. Okay, we're going to crack this egg. Remember we just go tap, tap and if we have to tap it five or 10 times, that's okay. It's just, yeah, to not make the mess. I guess. That's all I got.

Stephanie: (23:57)
That I have to say is the hardest. We just say tap, tap, smash. Then yeah, those are really messy, messy, messy, messy things to clear.

Wendy M.: (24:07)
Yeah. You'd end up with egg shells maybe, but you could have him, if you have a big enough bowl, you could have him tap, tap smash in the bowl.

Stephanie: (24:15)
There we go.

Wendy M.: (24:16)
Then you could just pull out the eggshells.

Stephanie: (24:20)
Oh, excellent. Oh well thank you very much. I think that is super helpful because we all need to crack an egg at some point.

Stephanie: (24:32)
When I think about the value of teaching my son to cook, I think mostly about him being a healthier adult. I think about him being able to better navigate his allergies as an adult. I think about him being self sufficient as an adult. But listening to Toria and Julian, I started thinking about how self-sufficiency can come earlier. I thought about Julian telling me that he likes the independence of cooking. He likes making choices and having fun in the kitchen. He wants to be creative, not just help his mom and the leadership skills and confidence that kids gain from being the head chef, not just our little helpers. Well, Julian's a tremendous example of what that can look like. Tonight or this weekend or whenever you cook next, I invite you to join me in trying something new. Let's take a deep breath. Then let's turn over the head chef duties to our kiddos and see what they can do. Here's to building their confidence and raising independent kids.

Stephanie: (25:46)
Thanks for joining me for the first episode of kiddos in the kitchen. I'm your host, Stephanie Conner. And here's a little reminder from my son.

Conner: (25:54)
If you like my mom's podcast as much as I do, you got to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Google play, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Stephanie: (26:10)
That's right, Conner. You can also view the show notes, subscribe to our newsletter and check out all of our other content @kiddosinthekitchen.com, where kiddos cook on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And I'll be back next month with another fresh episode. Until then, I encourage you to get your kiddos in the kitchen.