And the winners are:

Are you passionate about food and children? Join ICE graduate, Cricket Azima and The Creative Kitchen team to help kids discover the joys of cooking, learning through food, and eating while exercising your culinary talents!

We are looking for dynamic, kid-loving, self-motivated culinary interns ready to roll up their sleeves and get cooking in the industry of kid’s culinary education.

Duties include but are not limited to:

• Assisting and/or conducting kids cooking classes, parties, and playdates throughout Manhattan
• Creating grocery orders for cooking classes, parties and playdates
• Prepping ingredients for cooking activities
• Calling in and writing product reviews for foods and children’s cooking supplies
• Aid in administrative duties, including invoicing, organizing calendars and data upkeep
• Assist in research and development of new culinary endeavors
• Assistance with recipe development, testing and writing

TERM

Flexible.

 If interested, please send resume, areas of interest and availability to: info@thecreativekitchen.com.

The Instructional Coordinator supports the learning environment of The Creative Kitchen by interpreting curriculum, training, modeling, instructing and assessing. The Instructional Coordinator will be employed by The Creative Kitchen and will have no rights to the program content or recipes.

Duties Include:

• Serve as liaison between teachers and upper-management
• Coordinate teaching schedule, food ordering, transportation of supplies and communication with hosts and venues
• Maintaining teaching venue invoices and invoice summary spreadsheet weekly as supply orders are received
• Provide feedback regarding the evaluation of teachers and assistants
• Lead team meetings and calls to coordinate curriculum and provide training
• Create appropriate learning environments including safe and sanitary cooking spaces and activities, planning and observation of theme based lessons and related lesson plans
• Provide direct instruction to large and small groups of students
• Engage parents to participate in classes and increase communication with parents
• Invoicing, including teaching venues and birthday staff.
• Class and party prep, including ordering, packing bag, grocery prep, baking cookies and cupcakes
• Maintaining spreadsheets including:
• Class registration lists,
• Reconciling teaching calendar with upcoming events, blackout dates    and changes to recipe schedule etc.
• Parties & Playdates Schedule of upcoming parties and assigned teachers
• Expense sheet
• Masterlist

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Current Teaching Certificate, PreK-Kindergarten OR Culinary Degree preferred (or equivalent)
• Demonstrated experience within classroom environment
• Evidence of ability to work well with others.
• Evidence of organizational ability and willingness to pursue tasks to successful completion.
• Knowledge of staff development strategies, instructional techniques.
• Superior communication skills (oral and written).

TERM

One year. Current term will be from 7/1/2012 – 6/30/2013

  If interested, please send resume, areas of interest and availability to: info@thecreativekitchen.com.

The Creative Kitchen is looking to hire several self motivated, flexible, and energetic  cooking teachers to work in a creative and hands-on environment. Students are ages 2.5 years and up. The Creative Kitchen offers all staff the opportunity to work with children in a dynamic, supportive, and fun environment.

DUTIES INCLUDE:

• Daily planning and implementation of curriculum
• Supervision of children and staff
• Communication with parents and venue personnel
• Maintenance of safe and welcoming classroom environment
• Recruiting new students to the program

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• Classroom management skills
• Applicant must have strong organizational skills
• Equal confidence working with children and food
• Weekend availability

In addition, The Creative Kitchen is seeking three specialized instructors:

1. Baker

• Knowledge of basic baking practices and performs oven duties.
• Prepares a variety of bakery products in accordance with The Creative Kitchen recipes and high standards in order to produce a superior quality product that satisfies customer’s expectations.
• Responsible for preparing baked goods in accordance with company standards on presentation, safety, sanitation, and service.

2.  Recipe Developer and Tester

• Familiar with kids’ tastes.
• Culinary degree or equivalent.
• Proven experience of recipe development

3. Curriculum Writer

• Responsible for developing new and revised training curriculum
• Background in early childhood, curriculum development and instructional design to ensure course learning activities are effective and lead to increasing respondent cooperation rates, response rates and passing quality audits. The Curriculum Writer must ensure the course is compliant with company and research standards and meets all quality assurance checks.
• Develop project timelines and ensure curriculum development projects are completed on schedule.
• Collaborate with Project Managers, and business partners on course development and revision.
•  Proven experience.

TERM

One year. Current term will be from 7/1/2012 – 6/30/2013

 If interested, please send resume, areas of interest and availability to: info@thecreativekitchen.com.

A great read and a permanent reference book for everyone who wants to make better food choices and teach kids how to do the same. Get your copy now!

BOOKS: Good Junk Food & Comfort Food

Junk food is a pejorative term attributed to Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. He first used it in 1972 to refer to food that is of minimal nutritional value (little protein, vitamins or minerals) and worse, typically high in fat, sugar and other empty calories. Some of the culprits include candy bars, potato chips and other salty snacks, soda, and many desserts.

Could he have known that a substantial number of Americans—junk food lovers—would come to see the term as a positive? No doubt, if someone were to establish a chain called The Junk Food Food Court, the lines would be out the door. (Note that if you take this concept and run with it, you owe THE NIBBLE a royalty, which we will put to the service of healthier-eating awareness.)

In his series of Eat This, Not That books, David Zinczenko has done a great boon to America by pointing out the horrors in our diet: the salty, sugary and fat-laden foods we consume. While we know they are not good for us, we never realized how bad they were until he garnered so much media attention.

UNJUNK YOUR JUNK FOOD

The first book is Unjunk Your Junk Food: Healthy Alternatives to Conventional Snacks, by Andrea Donsky and Randy Boyer with Lisa Tsakos.

The premise is that you don’t have to give up junk food to eat healthy; just make smarter choices.

As such, the book features some 175 favorite brands of junk food, from candy and chocolate, to cookies and ice cream novelties, to chips and dips, to sodas and other beverages. It showcases the “bad food” on the left hand page, with the better alternative on the facing page.

Equally as important, the book explains why, giving a detailed comparison that is both enlightening and interesting. In addition to the specific food comparisons, there are helpful overviews and glossaries: basic nutrition, bad ingredients to watch out for and things even a ten-year-old can understand and appreciate.

In fact, we really like this book for both kids and adults. Instead of demanding change, it confers upon the reader a great understanding of the differences between good and bad ingredients, while providing a more-than-satisfactory alternative for each bad food.

Even though we don’t eat much junk food, we were enlightened by:

• The great tips for reading food labels and recognizing false claims.
• The explanation of many ingredients—especially the polysyllabic ones that look like the chemicals they are.
• The nutritious ingredients to look for and dangerous additives to avoid.

Blog written by THE NIBBLE’s Gourmet News & Views. 

BOOK NOW!

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Make & Eat Menu Suggestions:

• Playtime Pasta
• Fruit Cheesecake Tartlets
• Bread Salad
• Sweet Pizza

Suggested add-on: Decorate on the go lunchboxes or snack packs

Parties and playdates include all ingredients, recipes, equipment and food to eat or take home.

BOOK NOW!

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Make & Eat Menu Suggestions:

• Race Car Rice
• Wagon Wheel Pasta
• “Eat my Dust” Cake
• Sweet Wheels

Suggested add-on: Decorate “on the go” lunchboxes or snack packs

Parties and playdates include all ingredients, recipes, equipment and food to eat or take home.

BOOK NOW!

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Cricket Azima believes cooking is an essential skill to teach all children. “My whole perspective…is that kids can learn an endless amount while cooking,” says Azima, a Manhattan mom and founder of The Creative Kitchen, a company that teaches children about food and how to cook in a fun, safe, and educational way. While working on her thesis from 2000-2002 for a master’s degree in food studies and food management at New York University, she discovered a lot of research on how cooking can benefit children with special needs. Azima incorporated that knowledge into her lesson plans when she started  The Creative Kitchen in 2003, but she had no idea how personally relevant her research would become later in her life.

Azima now teaches a cooking class for kids with physical and developmental disabilities called Everybody Can Cook. Her inspiration for the class came from her son Kingston, now 4, who began an aggressive early intervention plan at 18 months for
severe developmental delays, including apraxia. Azima says she noticed that a lot of the language used and skills taught during her son’s therapy sessions were very similar to those she used in her preschool cooking classes.

Soon afterward, she created a comprehensive curriculum for Everybody Can Cook and piloted the program in fall 2010 at her son’s school, Roosevelt Children’s Center. She will offer it again this spring, and students from the Gramercy School will be integrated into the classes. Azima also teaches a family class at the Manhattan Downtown Youth Community Center and is in the process of reaching out to other venues in the hopes of providing more inclusive recreational activities in the future.

“There was really an ‘Aha!’ moment,” Azima says. “I realized that I was able to combine everything I’ve learned in the past 10 years, whether it was professional or personal, to create this class.” She says her classes teach traditional disciplines such as reading, mathematics, science, music, art, history, and geography, as well as fine motor skills, socialization, independence, and self-esteem—all through cooking.

Azima is ever mindful of her audience. She says the most important part of her curriculum is the ability to customize. “Every child’s needs are unique, so we offer lots of options to make sure everyone can participate,” she says. Whether she’s encouraging students to use their pointer fingers to pinch a dash of salt, focus on their muscles while squeezing out honey, or remember which country a certain spice comes from, Azima aims to make her lessons fun, memorable, and educational. “Everybody likes to eat! It’s really easy to adapt and include everyone in the kitchen,” she says. “It’s a common ground.”

Azima is the founder of The Creative Kitchen and the author of Everybody Eats Lunch. For more information on her philosophy and classes, visit thecreativekitchen.com.

Written by: Vanessa Friedman

http://nymetroparents.com/article/Everybody-Can-Cook-The-Creative-Kitchen-offers-cooking-classes-for-all

Parties last 1.5 hours and include all ingredients, recipes, equipment and food to eat or take home.

In this hands-on class, kids will:

• Make and eat wraps and rolls
• Keep their little fingers busy chopping, dicing, mixing and tasting

Receive a PDF invitation and personalized recipes for all guests at no additional cost! Themed thank you letters are available for purchase–just ask!

This party can be held in any venue that has table and chair space for each child.

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