Teens Cook: How to Make What You Want to Eat

 

Carle, Megan & Jill Carle (with Judi Carle). Teens Cook: How to Make What You Want to Eat. Ten Speed Press, 2004. Paperback $19.95 ISBN 9781580085847

What’s it about?

Meet Megan and Jill Carle, sisters and whizzes in the kitchen, pass on 75 recipes to novice cooks in a colorful, easy-to-follow cookbook for and by teens.   

Find out more:

Sisters Megan and Jill Carle are a kitchen odd couple. One sister (Megan) is a vegetarian, and prefers ethnic foods. The other, Jill, is a meat-eater who favors all-American “comfort food.”  Together, they’ve created a cookbook that serves a variety of tastes and skill levels. Most recipes are easy to follow for tweens, teens, and beyond, but some are more challenging than others.  The Carles explain any mystifying terminology, such as “blanching” in easy to understand language. There is a healthy sprinkling of humor, as well—one sister tells of the time she made cheese ravioli, and when her back was turned, her sister added spinach to the filling. This made the recipe look better, admits the spinach-hating sister, and “it’s worth it just for the shock value of when you ask your mom to buy spinach.”   

This is a good beginner’s cookbook, with plenty of colorful photos, funny anecdotes (kitchen disasters) about recipes gone awry, kitchen tips and text boxes with kitchen math, kitchen safety and kitchen vocabulary. One slight criticism is that there are no “healthy” substitution suggestions for some of the higher-fat recipes. Some young cooks may want lower fat options for themselves and their family members. Also, there is no indication of the difficulty level of the recipes—some, like Strawberries with Marshmallow Dip and Chili Cheese Dip are “embarrassingly simple,” while others, like the foccaccia, look difficult—certainly not recipes for a first-time cook to attempt alone.  Flaws aside, this is a great book to introduce to tweens and teens who are learning to cook.

Interest level: Grades 6 & up

Genre:  Nonfiction--cookbook

Subjects: Cooking, recipes

Read-alikes:

Sam Stern’s Cooking up a Storm (2005), Real Food Real Fast (2008), and Get Cooking (2009)

Other books by the authors:

Teens Cook Dessert (2006)

College Cooking: Feed Yourself and Your Friends (2007)

College Vegetarian Cooking (2009)

The First Real Kitchen Cookbook: 100 Recipes and Tips for New Cooks (2011)