Welcoming kids into the world of reading is as simple as sharing a favorite family recipe in your kitchen. Yes, women have passed along wisdom and recipes together for centuries.
Take my conversation with Anna about combining cooking and reading with little ones. She pointed out how welcoming your children into your kitchen prepares them to welcome others into their hearts. AND prepares your pre-schoolers to read!
Welcome to My Kitchen
“Can I read you something, just surprise you with something?” Anna asked me on air. That always makes me a little nervous.
“Yeah, of course!”
“It’s about hospitality. ‘Hospitality isn’t busy entertaining, but instead welcomes drop-in guests to join the daily pageantry of family life.’ Do you know what that’s from?”
Then, Anna and I burst into laughter together.
It’s from our family cookbook. Cookbook is a stretch of the term. It’s the kind of family recipe collection you don’t show anyone who isn’t related to you by birth, adoption, or marriage. In my kitchen, blackened is always on the menu.
I only cook for people who love me unconditionally.
Reading and Recipes
Reading and recipes go together like peanut butter and jelly. Hmm, I seem to be in the mood for a sandwich.
Recipes are one of the best ways to teach your child to read. Who doesn’t love food?
“I don’t know anyone who ever met a kid who wasn’t motivated by food. They’re just hungry,” laughs Anna. “They need fuel for their body.”
A little bit of freedom in the kitchen quickly transforms into teaching precision, measurements, back to school success, even how to recover from mess-ups. Just for you and your kiddos, we’ve included my favorite kid-friendly Chimichuri recipe at the end of today’s blog.
Here are just a few of the benefits of welcoming your kiddos into your kitchen with a good recipe.
#1 Counting and Reading
“I love to let them do the counting part. As you get older, numbers are easy to read,” explains Anna. “It doesn’t involve sounding things out, just identifying one single shape. So that is a lovely segue into reading.”
Even the most active child is enchanted by creating in the kitchen, according to Anna.
“Everybody who’s been in the kitchen with a kid knows they want to stir, and pour, and measure. They can hardly be still the first few times you actually let them do it.”
She suggests writing the numbers extra big, so even the youngest child can focus on them easily. And don’t forget to emphasize any fractions, math conversions, measurements, or substitutions you come across as you cook.
“As kids start associating words and sounds with reading, you can make lists. You can make numbers big,” says Anna, adding one more important tip, “I often pre-measure things for my kids. So they can count and dump. So you’re not wasting ingredients.”
#2 Storytelling and Reading
“When I went through my cookbooks, I found I have multiple generations of cookbooks,” reports Anna. “I have one from my great grandmother in Minnesota. I found her name in it with the recipe she donated to the book. That will be like family history I can put in my mouth.”
Hmmm, blogs involving food make me hungry. Great Grammy’s famous ginger cookies?
“I think it might be cake. It’s something sweet. I think that’s all she ever cooked, according to family lore.” Our family also loves Cooking though Rose Colored Glasses.
Recipes are a lovely way to teach young children to respect sacrifices family members have made along the way to pass along blessings to new generations.
#3 Kitchen Science and Reading
“He’s gonna want to make slime. Beth will want to make it in three shades of pink. They will be very motivated to read these.”
Anna loves to incorporate science into the ways her kids cook, even encouraging teamwork in the kitchen.
“Jason loves science and Beth is all about concoctions,” she adds.
Anna suggests kid-friendly books with lots of pictures. She looks for easy definitions of big science words that non-scientist mommies can read to children as they create.
More Science Resources
Math and Science go with recipes and reading so well. Recipes are a terrific way to inspire your reading-averse kiddos, especially if they have a natural knack for STEM studies. Don’t forget to add music in the kitchen; it’s fun and stimulates our brains!
Today, I searched my shelves to find an old book I loved when my kids were little: The original Backyard Scientist, by Jane Hoffman who published as early as 1992.
Not to be confused with the guy claiming to be the backyard scientist and making crazy science youtubes you might not want your kids to see. But maybe he was inspired by Jane. Or maybe he was homeschooled. Maybe he’s Jane’s son? Who knows? If you know him, please tell him I want to talk to him.
“Whatever your child loves most, whether it’s math or science or stories about family while you’re cooking and they’re standing there, if you make your kids welcome in your kitchen, that will give them a platform for which to welcome other people into their lives and hearts and homes,” says Anna.
And when they are grown, hospitality will come naturally for them.
Food is Personal
Speaking of sharing stories and recipes, this past summer I took my Mom’s Hot Sauce recipe on the road for my first book tour. (Find my books here.)
As I spun onions and tomatoes in my food processor in book stores across West Texas and Colorado, I realized something important. I needed to tell people we don’t actually sell cookbooks.
Thank goodness.
“Half your recipes have no measurements, Mom. It’s just a list of ingredients,” laughs Anna.
I’m pretty, ahem, creative about cooking, I guess. Certainly, I leave myself room to fail, we’ll say.
If you want Mom’s Hot Sauce recipe, you can sign up to be on my Book Launch Team. I’m sending the recipe out to the team soon. I even included the measurements! Or just come see me at one of our events.
Recipes, Cook Books, and Family Conversations
“When I think of hospitality all these decades later, it’s the intro to that first little cookbook that you gave me when I was a little kid,” says Anna. Wow! That blew me away. It made all the kitchen messes over the years worth it!
Camp Krafve is not a place it’s a lifestyle.
“The last line is about ‘Letting God choose our friends for us and then rejoicing at the marvel of His handiwork in each one.’ I’m gonna tear up because that is exactly who I want to be,” says Anna.
Marveling at God’s Creation in Each One
Marveling at each and every person God made.
Anna explains the process is funny and sometimes bewildering.
“I regularly have people come into my life and I look at them and I think they are so different from me. I don’t understand them at all.”
When the person keeps turning up in our life, that’s a clue, according to Anna.
“I’m like, ‘Okay, God. I get it. They’re a gift from You because this is not someone I would have in a million years picked for myself.’ It’s so dear of how He does that.”
Hospitable Hearts
Camp Krafve Definition of Hospitable — Life-Long learning about how to devote yourself—open your life— to others.
Anna adds, “It’s amazing how you could write something thirty years ago and we could live by it!”
Want just one fine example of people God sends our way?
My friend, Roy Bryan, produces our show. It’s an unlikely friendship given our age gap. Plus, I don’t understand technology very fast. Often, Roy patiently explains a lot.
Especially since I’m so dingy, stuff happens. Often, during breaks or on mute, he spices up our show with funny messages or encouragement. I like to make him blush often by giving him credit for all he does behind the scenes on the show.
But Roy rarely gets enough praise for simply being a good and kind friend. God gave me this friendship and I’m grateful.
More Dividends to Welcome
When we welcome our kids into our kitchen often, Anna thinks memorizing recipes encourages memorization as a reading readiness skill.
“Do you remember Will and his special potato salad recipe?”
You bet. Now I’m craving PB&J with a side of potatoes salad. Yum!
William memorized the recipe. Then, he made improvements on it until he liked it.
Finally, Anna adds one more dividend of welcoming kids into your kitchen.
“If you cook enough, you’ll be a humble person,” laughs Anna. “And you’ll have opportunities to be hospitable, if you learn to cook.”
“Just knowing you don’t have the answers is a recipe for humility, openness, acceptance, forgiveness, and an eagerness to learn – and those are all good things.” ~Dick Van Dyke, Comedic Actor
“You can learn all that while you’re cooking because think of all the disasters you’ve had in the kitchen! My kids actually look at me when I say I’m making toast and say, ‘Oh Mom, you’re so good at burning it!’”
“Apparently it’s my best kitchen skill; the most dramatic one,” laughs Anna.
Bottom Line
Bottom line: Even if your child struggles to read, as I actually did as a child, there are so many fun things you can do to take the edge off the stress of learning to read. Don’t be discouraged. Instead, think outside the box.
You may not get these ideas in the classroom. But we used all of these —classic books, comic books, field guides, memoirs for kids, pajama parties, cook books — and so many more. All these creative options inspire our family’s flashlight readers, folks who stay up past bedtime for the love of a good book. Anna and I hope you’re inspired to find the things that will work at your house, too.
Dipping Nacho Recipe
As I promised in our podcast, I pulled together our kid-friendly Camp Krafve Dipping Nachos recipe. With measurements, too! Find more about how to create a sanctuary in your kitchen for your friends and family.
We will send it to you as our gift when you subscribe to our blog. Plus, we’ll send FREE goodies each week.
- Interviews with Experts
- Our blog,
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- And yes, even a Camp Krafve recipes once in awhile for you and your kiddos!
ALL FREE! Why? Because we love you!
Thanks for reading, listening, and writing in with your own stories to encourage us! We definitely WELCOME you into our life with whole hearts!
🙂
Cathy
P.S. If you don’t get the recipe when you subscribe, just let me know. Tech is tricky for me!
We LOVE to hear from YOU! Recipes? Stories? Hospitality?
What is your memory most associated with good food? When have you been glad to make a sacrifice in your kitchen? How has a neighbor’s hospitality touched your heart?
Your Own Upcoming Conversational Adventures
Are you dreaming of your own conversational adventures? Could the right conversation change everything in your life? How can we take a deep breath and step into our fear of rejection?
At Camp Krafve, we’re creating tools to help you pass along bold, noble ideas.
May we pray together?
Dear good Father, We love You. We love the way You welcome us into Your life, love, and adventures! You are a gracious and good Father. Teach us to be more like You. Help us see when our smallest openness of heart can transform someone else’s day or life. Give us words to spread Your blessings. We thank You for the gift of language and READING! Most of all, we thank You for the gift of Your Word. Bless us now because that is Your heart’s desire. Help us live like Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen.
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More Favorite Quotes
“A recipe is a story that ends with a good meal.” ~Pat Conroy, Author of Prince of Tides among many other books
“Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions – for and to – express it all.” ~Danny Meyer, Restaurant Entrepreneur, including Shake Shack
Yummy, Kid-friendly Chimichurri Sauce Recipe Link
My Favorite Chimichuri Sauce Recipe is the one I think is most like Los Ranchos in Miami.
Chimichurri is great for teaching (carefully supervised) older kids to chop with a knife. Or for letting little ones cut parsley with safety scissors in your kitchen.
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Cathy Krafve, host of Fireside Talk Radio and author of The Well: The Art of Drawing Out Authentic Conversations and Marriage Conversation: From Coexisting to Cherished. We welcome your stories, ideas, and questions at CathyKrafve.com. Truth with a Texas Twang!
I found this wonderful recipe on CafeDelites.com by Karina, whose family ties to Argentina really show in this recipe! Yum! I eat it on beef, chicken, salad, toast, you name it.
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