My First Cook Book: Bake, Make and Learn to Cook

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Young chefs will need more guidance becoming comfortable with navigating and using a kitchen solo. Look for cookbooks that include step-by-step images and a finished shot of most, if not every recipe. "I won't buy cookbooks that don't have photos of the recipes. I like being able to see the end goal,” says Debbink. “This is especially true for kids who are just learning to cook. That's why we made sure to have photos of the recipes in 'Kitchen Chemistry' along with illustrations."

Food memories, Dimbleby believes, have a powerful role to play, one that goes way beyond simply cooking and eating. “Those food memories are very important to people, and they’re quite emotional too. It reminds them of family life. I did a lot of literary festivals for my books Orchards in the Oasis and A Profound Secret. At two separate ones, women stood up in the question time at the end, holding one of my old Sainsbury’s cookbooks, and then burst into tears. They began by saying, ‘You’ve always been part of our life,’ then bursting into tears. I didn’t quite know what to say. Also when they came up to have the new book signed, they would bring me these incredibly old, stained Sainsbury’s books to be signed. It was really, really nice.” GBBO winner, former nurse and aid worker, David Atherton has created a superb recipe book in My First Cook Book. There is a gentle pace so that after surveying hygiene, kit, measurements and cookery terms, we begin. Naturally, we start with breakfast and something tasty, healthy and delicious in breakfast smoothies. Thereafter we build up to lunch and creating Snakey Bread and Veggie Hotdogs, for example. I have even talked the head into a little revamp of the library so that we can display them properly! Jill Norman edited several Sainsbury’s cookbooks published in the 1980s with Walker Books, commissioning the likes of Nathalie Hambro, Claudia Roden, Anne Willan, George Lassalle, and Barbara Maher. Norman says her aim was to deliver: “good quality, from writers who knew what they were talking about, and whose recipes figured one could trust. And good presentation.” Next would be another successful title, Cooking With Herbs and Spices (1979). “I was brought up a lot abroad, so I really like using herbs and spices in my food,” Dimbleby says. “At that point [Sainsbury’s] had one little drum of dried mixed herbs and one little drum of mixed dried spice.” She agreed to write the book, with the proviso that Sainsbury’s would ensure cooks were able to get their hands on the ingredients she wrote about – a decision that was a precursor of what would come to be known as the Delia effect. Capturing the spirit of the times

Involving kids in cooking meals is not only a great way to build life skills, but also to bond as a family. Depending on their age, there are plenty of tasks that children can handle. Younger kids can help add measured ingredients into bowls. As they grow older, have your kids stir in mixing bowls, peel potatoes and carrots, or measure out spices and liquids. Once they’ve refined their motor skills, tweens and teens can help chop and dice vegetables or monitor things cooking in a pot or pan. Starting kids in the kitchen at a young age is great for them to develop important cooking skills. So, why does Norman believe the books were rated so highly by the Glenfiddich judges? “Well, I think they were well conceived, they were written by people who knew what they were doing – and it was innovative. Sainsbury’s was the first supermarket who went in for a line of cookery books. They were small and inexpensive. I know when the first one came out, and I still working was at Penguin and we thought ‘Oooh, competition’.” Co-authors Peter and Kelli Bronski are seasoned pros in the kitchen when it comes to making gluten-free meals and desserts, like cornbread taco muffins and pesto macaroni and cheese. Plus, as the parents of three children, they have a wealth of experience in cooking with kids, which is apparent in the age-appropriate “Kids Can" tips, which accompany every recipe throughout the book. Other highlights include details on how to set up and sustain a gluten-free kitchen, along with other ingredient options if a particular dish needs to be further modified to also be nut- or dairy-free. If you want to give your kids a bit more control over the cooking process (still with supervision, of course) you may wonder where to start. Kid cookbooks, like the ones featured on this list, are a fantastic way to get kids excited to cook. They’re full of tasty kid-friendly recipes and simple-to-follow instructions, usually complete with pictures. There are also thousands of online tutorials for those who prefer visual and auditory learning. Allison Wignall, who also updated this article, is a writer who focuses on food and travel. She’s always in the kitchen trying to recreate recipes from around the world. Her work has been featured in publications including Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, and Southern Living.

Dimbleby eventually wrote ten titles for the Sainsbury’s series. “I never meant to write cookery books,” Dimbleby muses now. “I never trained as a cook. I just had this sort of food imagination, and it was a way to be creative while I had very young children. They were wonderful books. They were very thorough, and I’m sure that it was part of their success. They were also very personal.”Mini fan clubs have formed around some of the Sainsbury’s authors. Suffolk-based food writer Janet Davies of the Pigeon Cottage blog has an affinity for the recipes and books of Patricia Lousada, her Pasta Italian Style in particular. “This particular one about pasta is still, in my view, the best one in my extensive collection even after all these years … I still use her exact recipe for her Spaghetti alla Siciliana and Spaghetti alla Puttanesca today.” In truth, there could have been better use of more evening meals and more original themes for foods which were a little less simple, but ultimately this serves as a really nice introduction to cooking and baking for children - and possibly for some adults too! Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.