Early age cooking

My Alex is only 17 months old and he is already interested in cooking (granted its only eating the food ) I let him sit in his booster seat at the table an let him nibble at some of the ingredients, that way he explores new tastes and hopefully this will avoid the whole fussy eater issues. He also gets a little stir of the cake here and a prod of the dough there just so he get to feel the different textures. He also gets the all important lick of the spoon at the end aswell, we musn't forget that now!!
With Aby its a very different thing, cooking to her is all about finding which tastes go together and seeing how things change from one thing into another. Its all very scientific, and mathematical. She is very clever, the other day I made a mistake when reading a recipe and did not put enough flour into the mixture, Aby was doing the crumble of flour and butter and told me "mummy there is not enough flour" me being stubborn as always I say "I put in what it said so we will leave it as it is" Later when I took the cakes out they had turned into biscuits, I am confused and look over the recipe and it dawns on me. So I think next time I will listen to my daughter who obviously has an eye, or feel for these things. Either that or she is going to be the next Nigella Lawson.

Get your kids involved in the kitchen it really helps, ask them what they want for dinner instead of telling them what they are having, ok maybe give them a choice instead of asking for their exact choice maybe put it as "We have either spaghetti bolognese or shepherds pie? would you like to help me cook one of them?" You will be surprised that they will want to and how much of it they eat as it was their creation.