An Academy for Chefs Both Young and Old

Since opening a New Jersey branch of the Young Chef's Academy, Anna Levien has found inspiration in watching grandparents and grandchildren cook together.

“Teacher, can I bring my grandma to class?”

That’s the single most common question Anna Levien and her husband, Phillip Levien, have heard over the two years since they opened the Sparta, N.J., franchise of the Young Chef’s Academy, a five -year old national company with 155 cooking schools for toddlers through teenagers.

Levien always says yes, of course. She loves to see her students leading a grandparent or two by the hand into the cheery, brightly-lit Young Chef’s Academy cooking classroom, giving them a brief tour and proudly naming utensils like seasoned pros, though they’ve only recently learned about them.

Many of the academy’s summertime students are visiting their grandparents for a week or two. At the end of the day, Levien often overhears the kids asking their grandparents, “Can we go to the grocery store, please? We need to pick up ingredients for the dinner we learned how to make today.”

Chefs-in-training at work

“When I saw how excited both grandparents and grandkids are to cook together — it was an ‘a ha’ moment,” says Levien, who was raised in the Philippines by her grandparents and spent hours in the kitchen, simply watching her grandmother cook. Her own 7-year-old son, Simon Jude, cooks with his grandmother, Lisa Levien, although he’s a picky eater and insists on “just a taste” of their creations. For Simon Jude, cooking isn’t about food as much as the experience of spending time with his grandmother.

Last year, Levien came up with the idea of having a special grandparent-and-grandchild cooking class, and did a trial run last Grandparent’s Day, the first Sunday following Labor Day, with three grandchildren ranging in age from 4 to 12, and five grandparents.

The adults and children wore chef toques printed with their names, or simply their titles: “Grandma” and “Grandpa.” They set a table, arranging knife and spoon on the right, fork on the left, topping it off with a neatly rolled linen napkin set at a jaunty angle on each plate. Then they got settled at the work station, grandchild and grandparents working side by side to cook two simple recipes with decidedly cross-generational appeal: warm chicken salad and snickerdoodle cookies.

Grandparents and Grandchildren learning together

Inspired by the enthusiasm for grandparent-grandchild cooking, the Young Chef’s Academy of Sparta will hold an official “Take Your Grandparent to Cooking Class Day,” modeled on “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” in the coming months. And this fall, it will hold its second annual Grandparent's Day cooking class, expanded to include many more families.

Levien believes that the process of cooking together — reading a recipe, sharing tasks, and producing a food from a collection of ingredients — is an effective bonding experience because it’s a process that encourages communication and problem-solving.

“And it helps that there’s something delicious to eat at the end!” she says.

Her advice to grandparents cooking with their grandchildren? “Keep it simple. That’s where the discovery is.”