About the Project…

This blog originally started to showcase our family cook nights but has since developed into a full fledged memoir for everything relating to our life. Enjoy…

About Eight Little Chefs…

Eight Little Chefs came about because we were looking to develop a tradition in our house that would provide an opportunity for the family to hang out together and spend some quality time. Papa John (that’s me) loves to cook (and eat) and the kids have always shown an interest in fixing meals. I finally pitched the idea that we should have a weekly night where we all get together and cook a fancy dinner and just leave the TV off. The kids loved it.

We started doing it almost every week and it got bigger and better every week. The kids had so much fun that we started planning all week what we would do on cook night. One day we were standing around outside talking about the project and one of the kids brought up that they would like to do something like this with their kids when they grew up and that we should write down these recipes so we could all remember them. The idea of Eight Little Chefs was born….

The premise of the project is simple. Enjoy spending time together, create, eat, drink and enjoy the simple things in life. Turn off the electronics and engage in the time honored tradition of the family meal…

I have somewhat of a background in cooking and being the fastidious type A personality that I am, I needed some rules. The crew developed the following rules:

1. We would create everything from scratch as much as possible. No pre-cut vegetables, canned food, jars of garlic, etc. Everything needed to be done by hand. This way we could truly learn the art of cooking and also have enough things for everyone to do.
2. Everyone would take turns being the pastry chef, the sous chef, the master chef, etc so that all would get a chance to do all of the different tasks in the kitchen.
3. We would take turns researching and planning different meals and everyone would get a chance to pick what they wanted to cook.
4. We had to pick something each night that we didn’t know how to make and learn it.

We’re still figuring it out as we go, but we’re having fun!