Weekend Cooking: 20 Recipes Kids Should Know by Esme Washburn

I have a fairly short cookbook review for today, but short in words doesn't equal short on love. This is a cookbook that you might consider for yourself, your kids, or your recent college grad.

To jump to the chase: Esme Washburn's 20 Recipes Kids Should Know (Prestel Junior, April 2) may be my new go-to gift for inexperienced home cooks. Personally, I'd change the title of this book to 20 recipes everyone should know, but that's just me.

This cookbook was written by Esme Washburn, a 12-year-old expert chef (and writer), and the photographs were taken by her very talented 17-year-old sister, Calista Washburn. Despite the age of the authors, there is nothing amateur about this book.

Heck, Esme makes her own pasta! And pizza dough and bread and black bean soup (from dried beans). The cooks (of any age) who master the recipes in 20 Recipes Kids Should Know would be well-equipped to feed themselves and their family and friends better than most.

The recipes are classic standards: mac and cheese, pancakes, steak, roasted vegetables, apple pie, chocolate cake, Dijon vinaigrette (and the salad to go with), and omelets. The directions are easy to follow, and I love the personal notes Esme added to introduce each recipe.

Besides the solid recipes, I absolutely loved the photographs. I need a Calista in my house. I rarely photograph my food, because--frankly--I'm not very good at it.

Recommendation: For any new cook of any age and for any experienced cook who wants to brush up on some basics. I would have loved to have had a copy of Esme Washburn's 20 Recipes Kids Should Know when my niece and nephews were young; it would have been so much fun and yummy to help them cook their way through this book. (Thanks to Media Masters for the review copy.)

NOTE: Because there are only 20 recipes in this book, I'm going to pass on sharing one. Although it's within the rules of copyright to share text (and photos) in the context of a review, I feel that even just one recipe would represent a fairly large percentage of the book, pushing the fair-use rules.

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