Kinsey Drake

ne 500 companies to family-run restaurants uses blogs to share thoughts, feelings, opinions and ideas. Senior Kinsey Drake is no exception. As of May 2013, she has used her blog, “Kinsey Cooks,” to showcase her culinary creations and innovative recipes.

Since childhood, Drake has enjoyed experimenting with food. In elementary school, she would often help her mother cook for the family’s nightly dinners. She began to add her own twists to recipes and create completely original foods. Together, she and her father would invent something new every week. “Every Sunday night my dad and I make dinner,” she said. “It’s something that we have both done together for over seven years.”

Drake’s cooking incorporates    seasonal produce and fresh ingredients. “I love to cook anything spicy, anything vegetarian and anything I can make from scratch,” she said. One of her goals for her blog is to simplify some of her more complex dishes (like her recipe for fresh pasta sheets for ravioli) for her peers and beginning chefs. She spends extra time making sure her recipes contain specific directions and exact measurements. “I avoid using terms like ‘a pinch’ or ‘a drizzle’ because I understand that it can be confusing,” Drake said.

Since Drake’s friends and family always ask for her creative recipes, she realized that creating a blog would be a great way to make her recipes widely available. “I’ve always loved reading food blogs myself,” she said. “I figured this was the natural next step towards sharing my recipes and love of cooking with everyone.”

Although her blog has been around for less than a year, “Kinsey Cooks” is already gaining popularity among the blogging community. Even Michael Pollan, the author of the food novel “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” recognized and commented on one of her recipes. “I met [Pollan] at a book signing and told him about my blog,” Drake said. “He found [the blog] and commented: ‘Nice job. I love all the recipes and photography. Keep up the good work!’”

Drake hopes to continue increasing awareness of her blog and improving the quality of her photography and website’s design. She is committed to incorporating food into her future. Although she does not want to become a head chef in a restaurant, she hopes to pursue nutrition, food sciences or another similar career. “Cooking is a part of me,” she said. “Food is something that I daydream about.”

—Pooja Belur

 Charlotte Fron

Sophomore Charlotte Fron not only creates magic in the confines of her kitchen, but also shares her passion in the blog, “Charlie Bakes.” Her blog features recipes and baking projects that Fron has experimented with. It is a way of sharing her love of baking with her friends, family and the outside world.

After watching her grandmothers and mother bake, Fron became enamored with making pastries, pies and cookies. She associates baking with comfort and simplicity, and  she loves to share her experiences with others.

Noticing her passion and skill, Fron’s mother encouraged her to look at some food blogs in the summer of 2009. Intrigued, Fron contacted the creator of her favorite baking blog. She asked questions, learned about the process of blogging and eventually decided to try it for herself. “I just thought: I’m going to do my own thing,” Fron said.

In October 2010, Fron was the youngest chef to attend BlogHer Food, a food blogging conference in San Francisco. She learned to take photos and improve her blog posts, and she picked up crucial food blogging tips to apply to her blog. “The one thing I like about baking is that you can always grow,” Fron said.

Through blogging, Fron has grown as a baker and a philanthropist; she is now passionate about stopping hunger throughout the world. Every year she participates in The Great American Bake Sale, organized through Share our Strength, a non-profit organization that works to end childhood hunger. Through her philanthropy, Fron has raised five thousand dollars for the organization. She is passionate about helping others experience the same joy that she receives from baking and eating treats.

Her love for cooking ties in with her interest in chemistry. Fron loves how the different elements and ingredients mix together to create a final product. Her favorite moment is right before she puts a finished recipe into the oven. “I feel very accomplished, but the oven is scary. It can make or break your recipe, but before it goes in everything looks perfect,” Fron said.

Fron is not sure how baking will fit into her future, but she is sure that she will incorporate it in some way. She has always wanted to be fourth grade teacher, but she sees a cooking instructor or the owner of a vintage bake shop as possibilities as well. Either way, Fron wishes to continue to have baking as part of her family life and hopes that “[she’ll] be the cool mom that always has the homemade food,” Fron said. “Baking is bonding.”

—Sam Acker

To read more about these young foodies and their recipes, visit: 

Kinsey Cooks – http://kinseycooks.com

Charlie Bakes – http://www.charliebakes.com