Bay Area Kids' Cooking Classes and Camps

As part of our summer camp series, do you have a budding chef on your hands? Time to check out some Bay Area kids' cooking schools. Here's some to consider:

By yamakazz (Flickr)**

Camps

Paulding and Company's COOK
These culinary classes for kids ages 9-18 (broken up by age group) are held in Emeryville. The hands-on courses range from ethnic cooking (Chinese, Italian, French), to baking, to culinary leadership training. 

Cindy Toque Cooking
Based in Palo Alto, this camp is for kids 10-17, and includes competitions, field trips and hands-on projects. Cooking topics include pizza/pasta, cookies, chocolate and chili - each with their own week.

A Little Yumminess
Our friends at A Little Yumminess are hosting camp again this summer. The San Francisco and Marin camp is for kids ages 7-9. If interested, get on their list, because they're mostly sold out, and they only offer two weeks of camp, which focus on foods from several different countries each week.

In the Kitchen (ITK Culinary)
This organization offers a two hour Sunday cooking class once a month for kids, in Marin. They also have a spring break camp the week of April 14. The classes are hands-on, aimed at kids 4-14.

Galileo Camps
Galileo Camps offer some culinary camps as well, as one of their "majors." This summer they're offering a class in decadent desserts, and one in international foods, for 5th to 8th graders. They have more than 40 Bay Area locations - check the website to see when/where these are being offered.

Classes Bean Sprouts Café and Cooking School
Bean Sprouts Cooking School (and the cafe) opened at the Bay Area Discovery Museum last fall. 
It's for kids ages 2-10 (divided up by age). Their Imaginibbles classes began in October. The 10-week class series for children ages 2-6 included dishes as featured on Nickelodeon's ParentsConnect and Good Morning America. They focus on tasty, healthy recipes along with playful presentation and recipe steps. I couldn't find any current classes listed, but check in with them if you're interested.

Photo: **CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), 
via Wikimedia Commons