A mother laughing as she stirs a bowl in a bright kitchen while her children crowd around her.

Five people, one kitchen, every Wednesday

What happens when the whole family cooks supper together, including the four-year-old, and nobody is allowed to say "let me do it".

Read our story

The one where the muffins went everywhere

Two small children kneeling on a kitchen counter pouring batter into a muffin tin.

2 Oct · 5 min read

Letting two children pour their own batter (and what we learned about tea towels)

Twelve muffins, eight of them in the tin. A recipe for banana and oat muffins that works even when half the mixture ends up on the floor.

212 views · 14 comments

Welcome to our table

We are the Okafor-Linds: Ada, Johan, and Ife, Saga and little Bo. Five years ago we made one rule, that on Wednesdays everybody cooks. This is where we write down what happened.

Read our story

A grandfather and two grandchildren cooking together at a kitchen counter, steam rising from a pot.

A mother standing behind her young daughter, helping her chop vegetables in a white kitchen.

An older woman cooking at the counter while a teenage girl sits at the table watching and smiling.

Fresh from our kitchen

A girl and a boy in striped tops mixing something in big steel bowls at a wooden table.

25 Sep · 4 min read

Pancakes, but the eleven-year-old is in charge

Ife's rules for Saturday breakfast, written down by Ife.

A child's hands placing sweet-studded cookie dough balls onto a baking tray.

18 Sep · 3 min read

Cookies with exactly one sweet each

A lesson in counting, sharing and not eating the decorations.

A toddler's floury hands patting a round of dough on a table covered in flour.

11 Sep · 6 min read

Flatbreads a four-year-old can make

Flour, yoghurt, a frying pan and a lot of patting.

Join our circle

A letter once a month with one recipe, one disaster, and one thing that worked.

We send the letter by post, on paper, because the children decorate the envelopes. Send us your address on a postcard and it will arrive on the first Friday of the month.

Where to send the postcard

A mother and her young son making cookies together at a kitchen table.

Before you cook with small children

A little girl concentrating as she shapes dough on a kitchen counter.

Give them a whole job

Not "stir this for a second" but "you are in charge of the salad". Children try harder when it is theirs.

A very small child in a chef's hat holding a spoon over a pan.

Double the time

A twenty-minute supper takes forty with help. Start earlier, not faster, and keep a snack nearby.

A mother and daughter preparing food side by side at a kitchen counter.

Mess is the point

Put a towel on the floor before you start and decide now that you will not mind. You will mind a little. That is fine.