cooking with kids

Sister Act

by Marge Perry

Olivia Gerasole struggles to knead the dough for Irish Soda Bread—not surprising as she’s only 9. But with the help of producer Gaylon Emerzian, the mixture comes together beautifully—as does each web episode brought to us by the Gerasole sisters. Together Isabella (age 11) and Olivia form the team behind the award-winning website www.spatulatta.com. The webcasts, produced every two weeks since April 2005, show kids just how fun and rewarding it is to cook. Gaylon, who came up with the idea for Spatulatta, films the sisters in their kitchen in Evanston, Ill., where they joke, get serious, have fun and learn as they teach—everything from safety in the kitchen to how to make favorite dishes. According to the girls’ mother, Heidi Umbhau, the girls read through the recipes and look at the ingredients, then Gaylon turns the camera on and lets them do their thing.

The girls won the prestigious (in the food world) James Beard award last year. When asked how the fame of winning the Beard award affected her daughters’ lives, Heidi said, “Well, their confidence level in the kitchen—and outside it, too—has grown hugely. But it’s not a big deal at school. They have all their other activities, the way most kids do—ice skating, piano, Brownies, swimming, drama.” In fact, Heidi reports, producing the webcasts every two weeks is really “not a big deal.”

Winning the Beard award, however, did make quite a wave in the family’s life. Shortly after the award was announced at the gala in New York City, the girls’ parents turned on their cell phones and were astounded to find their message boxes full. “We thought we’d see the Statue of Liberty on our visit,” said Heidi, but the next day they were on the PBS program All Things Considered, and for the next few (thankfully, summer) months, there were appearances on the Today Show with Al Roker, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Rachel Ray and five offers from publishers to do the Spatulatta cookbook. The girls just finished work on the book, which Scholastic expects to be on the shelves this fall.