Especially when you're young, cooking isn't a chore - it's an adventure and hopefully a tasty one! Cooking is also a great way to spend time doing something together with your child and then sharing the edible results. Here are some gift ideas for your young culinary sidekicks:
1. Mini Server Set ($12.99, Cook in Color)
2. Decorator Bottle Set ($13.50, The Pampered Chef)
3. Kids Apron, Eep in Framboos ($29.50, Skinny LaMinx)
4. Zyliss Lettuce Knife (a great first knife, $3.99, Cooks Warehouse)
5. Chopper by OXO ($ 19.95 , Crate & Barrel)
6. Once Upon a Time in the Kitchen: Recipes and Tales from Classic Children's Stories by Carol Odell, illustrated by Anna Pignataro ($11.65, Barnes & Noble)
7. Butterfly Measuring Spoons and Cups ($8.95, cups and $4.95 spoons, Neatoshop)
8. Wookiee Pies, Clone Scones, and Other Galactic Goodies by Robin Davis and Lara Starr, photography by Matthew Carden ($22.99, Chronicle Books)
9. The Learning Tower by Little Partners ($215, Stacks and Stacks)
10. The Silver Spoon for Children: Favorite Italian Recipes by Amanda Grant, illustrated by Harriet Russell ($17.05, Barnes and Noble)
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These are really cute ideas- too bad I was organized this year and already purchased Christmas gifts for my nieces and nephews! Well, there are always birthdays...
The lettuce knife and chopper are great cooking gift ideas for my little guy.
We bought the Learning Tower when my first was about 18 months old. ONe of the only big purchases we made other than the carseat. WORTH IT. (Though be prepared to stub your toes for two weeks until you get used to the footprint of the thing.)
The Silver Spoon Cookbook is the cookbook my 9 year old cooks out of most; it is fantastic. Heck, I cook out of it.
we have a learning tower too that a friend gave us, it's a toe-stubber but if you have the room in your kitchen for it, it is a fantastic thing to have
For slightly older kids, like 8+, I recommend buying them adult cooking things. When I was younger I used my Easy Bake Oven maybe 3 times before I started using the real oven (once I realized I could make way more cake/brownies/cookies in regular oven). For younger kids, I recommend Marcel the Pastry Chef, the book that made me ask for an Easy Bake Oven. It's about a hippo that likes to bake.
I think the best gift to give a young chef is time together in the kitchen.
I second YoNella's comment. If you are thinking of giving a cooking-related gift to a child other than your own, consider accompanying the present with an offer to cook with the kid, especially if his/her parents don't cook much or are too busy to launch into a cooking project with their child. (This is especially true of parents with multiple children--it's really hard to cook with your preschooler when your baby needs attention!)
Possibly the first cookbook I ever had was the Little House Cookbook ( http://www.amazon.com/Little-House-Cookbook-Frontier-Ingalls/dp/0064460908 )
I couldn't make many of the recipes myself, but I distinctly remember trying out the directions for making maple candy in the snow.
Are kids even reading those books anymore, or are they too old and boring? I really hope not...
These can be easily made, but my son gets super excited when he can help me and wear his chef's hat. I thought that was worth $5.
I third YoNella's comment!
Also, Ikea make nice and relatively cheap items for young bakers. This is what I got for my 3 years old nephew:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20130166/
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40224017/
I personally prefer the Kinderkitchen dog knife. It's cute, cuts well for a kid's knife and is designed for teaching safe knife handling. http://www.amazon.com/Kuhn-Rikon-Kinderkitchen-Knife-Teeth/dp/B001UK3FC4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355971736&sr=8-1&keywords=kinderkitchen+dog+knife