(Photo: Courtesy of the Vendor)

• Creative Cooks

  298 Atlantic Ave., nr. Smith St., Boerum Hill; 718-237-2218

  Chicken nuggets and sugar cookies have no place at Creative Cooks, a tidy Boerum Hill culinary school that takes full advantage of New York’s diverse ethnic fare—not to mention rampant foodie-ism. Designed for kids ages 3 through 13, the school expands beyond the usual introductions to baking and broiling to take field trips to food sources like a chocolate-maker in Marine Park, a tortilla factory in Williamsburg, or nearby butcher Paisano’s Meat Market. “We brought back an eel once from Fei Long Market in Sunset Park and cooked it up,” says founder Emily Rios. “Turns out boys like to eat eels.” Students pick out ingredients, then go to work preparing dishes like lumpia, churros con chocolate, and matzo balls. The kitchen is child-friendly, stocked with nylon lettuce knives, mini-aprons, and low-height faucets. After the course, each student gets a recipe booklet of everything he or she has cooked. Seventy-five-minute afternoon classes are held three times a week through the winter ($400 per twelve-week session); a summertime day camp runs from June to September ($550 a week).

From the 2010 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine