Having a go in the kitchen is all about encouraging growth and social development in kids aged 5-12 by getting messy and creative in the kitchen. It’s not about producing a masterpiece, it’s about experimenting and getting your hands grubby trying out new things with food. As adults we sometimes take for granted where food comes from, and forget that cooking for our friends and family can be a fun, social (and sometimes hilarious) occasion!

I sat down with Al to find out more about the initiative, and to pick his brain to get some tips on how parents can get their own kids excited about cooking.

Can you tell me a little bit about the Persil Kiwi Kids Have a Go in the Kitchen campaign?  What made you want to get involved?
I was approached about 6 months ago to see if I’d like to be involved, and upon giving it a lot of thought, I knew I had to get involved.  I feel we’re getting a lot more disconnected from our food, everything is packaged and convenience-based and quick, there’s less time around the table and kids just don’t know good food.  We’ve seen programmes like (Jamie Oliver’s) Jamie’s School Dinners, and it’s not as bad as that in New Zealand, but it’s certainly getting that way.  Kids don’t know where their food comes from, because many people aren’t cooking as much anymore, and yet we’re watching more ‘celebrity chefs’ – so vicariously, we’re looking at cooking, but we’re not doing it ourselves.  So the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it.  I have two daughters myself, aged 8 and 10, and we live in the greatest country in the world for produce and products from the land and the sea, so the idea of promoting getting kids into the kitchen made sense to me.  But I wanted to take it back a step further, and take kids into the process of the gathering,  picking food from the tree, digging for pipis in the sand, and getting the family out doing things as well, before they get in the kitchen.  If kids are involved in all steps of the process of creating a meal, or getting something to the table, all the better.

The campaign focuses on more than just cooking, it encourages kids to get outside and to gather food, e.g. tuatuas for fritters, or picking apples for apple cobbler.  Do you think that in modern times of fast food, and food packaging kids have lost that understanding of where good food comes from naturally?
There’s no question kids have lost this understanding, and we seem to have just let it happen.  You know, the other day I was in the supermarket, and now there are apples that are cut up and put in plastic bags – what is going on?! An apple has its own skin, that’s what it’s for,  it protects itself, we do not need to cut it up and put it in a piece of plastic that serves no purpose.  If kids keep seeing this sort of carry on, and they want brightly coloured packaging, and processed this, and processed that, they are getting further and further away from what real food is.  At times, I see kids that just don’t want to try things, because it’s not in a shiny little packet, or it’s not processed.  So, if you get them involved in the actual gathering, or the picking, or the catching, and then get them in the kitchen, it becomes something that they have done, so they are proud of it, and will be happy to try it.  It makes it more fun for them.  Gathering and cooking is creative, tactile, and should be part of what it is to be a kid growing up in this country.  One of my first cooking memories was looking for pipis among the rock pools.  And if kids can have a grounding of a few recipes now, then all the better for them when they leave home and get into a flatting situation, they won’t be putting a chicken into the oven with the plastic still on!  

Why do you think it’s important to encourage kids to get into the kitchen and learn about cooking, and the processes that go into it?
It’s getting them to understand where the food comes from, the creative process of making it, and the fun side of it - the delivery, or ‘reveal’ of the dish, and the giving; that’s one of the reasons why I cook, and why a lot of people do, because they enjoy the giving process.

I know that you have been working on some cool webisodes with kids – what has been a favourite moment from that?
When I hopped on the plane!  Just kidding – it was fantastic, and they were great kids.  We did five webisodes, from picking apples in an orchard to make apple pie, to catching kawai and smoking it to make fishcakes.  It was just fantastic to be sharing with these kids, to see their joy and understanding, and watching them get their hands dirty.  It was quite a big effort for young kids to do something like this, and they all had tons of patience, and were great.  So if some kids can see these, instead of nagging mum and dad to go to the park to play on the swings and the slide in the weekend, they might want to go pick fruit or go to the beach and find tuatuas or cockles.

Do you have some tips for parents to encourage their own kids to get active in the kitchen?
Starve them for five days!  No, all kids love to make things, they enjoy that process.  To me, as often you are doing something in the kitchen for your kids, you should get them away from the TV and get them to peel a carrot, and take them through those processes, you’ll be surprised how quickly they get into it.  Sometimes, you just have to flick off the TV and say you’re cooking tonight.  If all else fails, ask them, ‘what would you rather do, peel the carrots, or do that big pile of dishes?’

What are some recipes suitable for kids learning to cook, or do you have tips on where parents can find these recipes?
Margaret Brooker has just won the  ‘best children’s cookbook’ category at the Le Cordon Bleu World Food Media Awards, for her book It’s My Turn to Cook - which she co-authored with her two young daughters as a way to spend more time with them.   She’s a Wellington food author.  The book is all about getting kids in the kitchen, so it’s perfect.

You are a chef, co-owner of a restaurant, Logan Brown, in Wellington, TV presenter and food writer and of course, a father – how do you balance such a successful career with your role as a parent?
As a parent, it’s about quality time.  I am away alot, and I struggle with that, and my kids do too.  But I have a very supportive and wonderful wife, who is an awesome mother.  My kids understand that’s what dad does, he’s away a lot, and so when I’m at home, I make sure I’m at every sports event, and do all the supportive things a dad can do.  We do try to have some cool family holidays, camping and that sort of thing.  When we’ve got the time, we make the most of it.  I see the craziness of my schedule as a means to an end.

Al has been working with some fantastic Kiwi kids to produce five fabulous cooking show-styled webisodes, of Al with the kids gathering a key ingredient from the source (i.e. collecting tuatua from the beach to make tuatua fritters), and then preparing a delicious meal to share.  The initiative also includes a competition in which people are invited to upload images/videos of their Kiwi kids having a go in the kitchen to be in to win a trip to Wellington to star in a cooking show with Al Brown. The cooking show will form the final webisode and also a TV commercial which will air in December.   Plus there are five weekly prizes of gorgeous kids cooking sets up for grabs for the Top 5 Have a Go entries online.  For more info go to http://www.persilhaveago.co.nz.

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