Cooking Camp Jr.: Chef Offers Summer Camps, Talks About Kids In The Kitchen

So she puts them to activity chopping, slicing and dicing because bully weapon skills are an fantabulous spot to commencement erstwhile learning to navigator and getting comfortable successful nan kitchen, she said.

Lapidus owns Blooming Palate, a business she started much than 3 years ago, offering cooking classes and coaching on pinch trading microgreens she farms and integrated sourdough breadstuff baked by her husband, Taylor Lapidus.

As a postgraduate of a culinary programme astatine Scottsdale Community College successful Arizona, cooking “is my existent passion,” Kayla Lapidus said. “I tin navigator anything.”

But her attraction is connected wholesome and cleanable eating. “I don’t conscionable navigator to cook,” she said.

She besides likes to thatch others really put together home-cooked meals. Up to this point, Lapidus chiefly has offered classes for adults and, astatine times, a people called “The Dynamic Duo” for a genitor and their child.

“We conscionable do nan aforesaid things we do astatine my different classes,” she said. There is 1 large difference, though: nan kids’ faces. At activity successful nan kitchen, “you conscionable spot kids ray up,” she said.

So successful precocious May done June, Lapidus will connection kids cooking camps for children ages 4–7, 8–11 and 12 and up.

What they study and what they navigator will beryllium circumstantial to each property group, expertise to publication and attraction span. Along pinch room information and weapon skills, location will beryllium look reference and creating, measuring and baking, immoderate basal nutrition and more.

Younger kids mightiness return connected mac and food and homemade granola bars, while older kids will tackle much intricate recipes and skills, possibly making soufflés aliases utilizing a occurrence torch for crème brûlée, she said.

With only 8 kids per group, location will beryllium tons of one-on-one cook time, Lapidus said. It will beryllium “very hands connected and they will beryllium learning a lot.”

Lapidus said she wants to springiness kids nan state to research not only cooking, but possibly immoderate foods aliases dishes they mightiness not effort if their parents were around.

The astir communal questions she mostly gets from parents are “How do I get my kid to bask cooking?” and “How do I get my kid to want to eat different varieties of food?”

“You cognize what … I person a picky eater arsenic well. It’s conscionable a genitor plight, I guess,” Lapidus said.

Exposing your kid to different foods and to cooking helps, but “I show group that what you do astatine home, they will turn up doing,” she said.

Lapidus herself was raised connected homemade foods. “If you wanted cookies, you made cookies,” she said.

When she was a teen and started babysitting, “the first point I would do is find these people’s junk (food) drawer.”

However, erstwhile she grew up, and “I took my instauration pinch me,” she said.

“So my biggest point is, chill out. Feed them patient food… get them successful nan room pinch you,” she said.

If you don’t want kids to eat junk food, don’t bargain it. “In my location location is nary nutrient that my girl can’t person because we don’t support that successful nan house,” she said.

When it comes to enjoying cooking, parents should support successful mind that while kids whitethorn request supervision successful nan kitchen, particularly if they are younger, they besides tin beryllium rather capable, Lapidus said.

“Let them explore,” she said. Don’t beryllium truthful worried astir messes that tin beryllium cleaned up. “Try to refrain from nan control.”

If they are into baking, fto them bake. If they thin toward off-recipe baking — not pursuing recipes is thing Lapidus’s 8-year-old daughter, Belle, likes to do — past you get to thatch them a spot of subject because “you request to cognize nan subject for it to move retired right,” she said.

“It’s astir creating an situation wherever our children want to engage,” Lapidus said.

That said, for 1 logic aliases different getting that “environment” tin beryllium reliable for immoderate parents to execute pinch nan busyness of mundane life, she said.

Lapidus is happy to person 1 of her home-based camps beryllium a stand-in spot wherever kids tin observe cooking aliases amended already existing skills aliases interest.

Each time they will navigator and eat a multi-course repast pinch different kids, finishing nan week pinch recipes they are assured cooking for themselves and their families and that hopefully spark a desire to do more, she said.

It decidedly helps erstwhile a kid tin locomotion into a room and navigator their ain nutrient aliases snacks, she said.

This besides whitethorn make them much unfastened to trying caller foods, she said, noting nan guidance of 1 genitor aft a “Dynamic Duo” class.

During nan class, jackfruit was utilized alternatively of nutrient successful a look and afterward nan genitor was amazed astatine really their kid began uncovering ways to usage jackfruit to make each kinds of things, she said.

Getting into nan room “just opens their minds and that is nan full goal,” Lapidus said.

GET INTO THE KITCHEN Kalyn Lapidus astatine Blooming Palate is offering weeklong cooking camps for kids successful precocious May done June. For accusation connected these camps, pricing and registration, spell to bloomingpalate.com. PLAN THE SUMMER There are galore camps and classes offered successful nan Grand Valley to support children learning and progressive done nan weeks of summertime break from school. Registration for galore of those camps aliases classes already has begun. If you are a parent, grandparent aliases caregiver, it’s clip to get your kids signed up. Here are immoderate places to commencement looking: n The Grand Junction Parks and Recreation has galore options and immoderate thin to capable quickly. There’s everything from learning wilderness endurance skills to swimming lessons. There all-day camps to hour-long classes. Info: gjcity.org/233/Summer-Camps and support an oculus retired for nan Summer Activity guideline that will beryllium coming soon astatine gjcity.org/1462/Parks-Recreation. n Fruita Parks and Recreation besides offers a assortment of camps and classes to support kids engaged and learning. Info: fruita.activityreg.com. n Colorado Mesa University and CMU Tech person galore options for allowing younker to discover, create and study skills, from sports camps to euphony camps and more. Info: coloradomesa.edu/camps. n The Eureka! McConnell Science Museum has camps for children property 5–15 that will person them learning astir insects aliases architecture, Minecraft, LEGOs, coding and more. Info: eurekasciencemuseum.org/2025-summer-camps/. n The Art Center of Western Colorado offers summertime creation camps that let children to create and beryllium inspired by good art. Info: gjartcenter.org. n If your kid has an activity they love, location apt is simply a campy for it. Check pinch section creation studios for creation camps, section climbing gyms for climbing camps and truthful on.