The Child Chef

When a 13-year-old shows an interest in cooking, get ready for root beer beans, chocolate chips in omelettes — and the flourishing of creativity and good taste in a young chef.

My 13-years-old son Miles oversees a hot barbeque that rages like a blacksmith’s forge. The latest issue of his subscription to Bon Appetite magazine has just arrived. He’s discovered a simple, dramatic recipe. According to the surprising directions, Miles has placed the steaks – seasoned with nothing but salt and pepper – right on the orange-hot coals. Surely the steaks will burn to a crisp or become so covered with ash, they’ll be inedible. The smoke billows. The coals stick to the steaks. With a chuckle, Miles calmly plucks them off with the tongs.

It’s not that Miles is a particularly unusual kid. Like other boys his age, he loves riding his bike, playing on the soccer team, blowing things up in video games and lazing around on Saturday mornings. Although he does well in school, he claims to hate it, and his penmanship is so bad, the joke amongst his teachers is that he’s destined to be a doctor.

But at 13, he’s already a cooking champion. Just over a year ago, he took home first prize in a local contest for his blackberry crème brûlée, a dish in which he specializes. He owns no fewer than eight cookbooks and sometimes creates his own recipes. In fact, he has so many, we had to find other cooking related items to give to him last Christmas like a non-stick skillet for his omelettes. Many a Saturday morning at a local farm market, he’d peddle one of his homemade soups hot from the pot, and I’d sell homemade baguettes to go with it.

The source of Miles’ flair for cooking is his love of food. Never a fussy eater, Miles discovered very early in life that each new food brings new sensations, new flavours, new pleasures. When he was in diapers, I’d lead him to the cherry tomatoes in my vegetable garden. He loved the sun-warmed fruits so much, he called them candy. He even snacked on the yellow flowers on some of the oriental greens I grew. He can count on the fingers of one hand the foods he dislikes. Perhaps because we live by the sea in a rural area, his favourites are traditional chowders and fruit pies, but he goes out of his way to look for new eating experiences.

At a street vendor’s stall on a recent trip to Holland, Miles joined his grandfather and I as we dipped our raw herring filets into raw chopped onion and mimicked the local pose, lowering the herring by their tails into our mouths. On the same trip, we visited an Australian-themed restaurant where Miles sampled emu, kangaroo, alligator and yammi tail, a kind of freshwater shrimp, all in one sitting. His sister settled for chicken.

Still, local foods are among Miles’ favourite ingredients. He munches strawberries from my patch and rants about those wooden, flavourless things shipped from Florida in winter. “They’re more like apples,” he complains.

From the forest we collect wild chanterelle mushrooms for his famous omelettes – the care and patience with which he chops and sautés the mushrooms, red peppers and onion is a remarkable sight. At the shore, we dig soft-shelled clams for shucking and frying. Although it’s sometimes hard on the bank account, we’re pleased he’s developed a fondness for local lobster and lamb, fresh haddock and trout.

Of course, at 13-years-old, Miles the chef is still refining his skills. He’s such a dedicated carnivore, we have to insist that he prepare side dishes for the meats he loves to cook. Planning and timing a meal so everything is ready at the same time, the table is set and the food served hot is a real challenge for him. And then there are the questionable ingredients – chocolate chips in an omelette, vanilla bean with a pork tenderloin roast, root beer in the beans.

I’m not sure if Miles will take his love of and gift for cooking any further than his own kitchen, but it doesn’t matter. There is no more fundamental skill than preparing the food that sustains you. As long as he continues to find pleasure in that task and in the sharing of the fruits of his labour with family, friends and market customers, his hobby will serve its purpose.

Truth be told, those beans aren’t half bad, especially when paired with seared meat. When the steaks are done, Miles brushes the ash from them and serves them to family and guests with a side of those root beer flavoured white beans – another recipe from Bon Appetite – and a salad of fresh greens from the garden dressed with a little olive oil and red wine vinegar. He digs in with gusto and soaks up compliments from family and guests.

On Kids Cooking

By Miles Redgate

The first thing I ever cooked was toast, which I burned to a crisp. Then one day I had a yard sale of unwanted toys and decided to sell some chocolate chip cookies. They sold very well. I made them often afterwards. I dreamed of cooking great dishes, all the while making breakfast in bed for my parents composed of soggy cereal, olives, beer and a few dill pickles. My cooking skills evolved from scrambled eggs to my famous omelettes.

Upon receiving my first cookbook, I took on one of the most difficult recipes, crème brûlée — or as the unimaginative British call it “cooked custard with burnt sugar” — a dish I could burn on purpose. After that, I cooked as a treat to myself and to others. I became known to friends and family as the boy chef. I sold hot soups such as borscht, spring vegetable and mulligatawny at the local farmers market.

How I pick out recipes is simple. I find a new food or technique, then I use it. I enjoy cooking because I take joy in providing food for family and friends and receiving praise. There is a sense of professionalism and empowerment when creating this type of art. I highly recommend cooking to any kid and not the unwrap-and-microwave kind, but from scratch because it’s more fun and challenging. Food you pour your heart into always tastes better.

Photo Credits

“Chef prep by Mom” © Darcy Rhyno. All Rights Reserved.

“Miles searing steaks directly on hot coals” © Darcy Rhyno. All Rights Reserved.

“Miles prepares an appetizer of mussels steamed in wine and herbs” © Darcy Rhyno. All Rights Reserved.

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