Cricket Azima

Teaches at The Creative Kitchen

Cricket Azima is a dynamic professional chef who specializes in cooking for and with children. Her children’s cookbook, Everybody Eats Lunch, was published by Glitterati Inc., in May, 2008. She works with a variety of food companies offering a range of services. These include spokesperson, recipe development and testing, freelance writing, teaching, family outreach, blogging (as part of the Cooking Light Blogger’s Community), creating webisodes (from soup to nuts), special events, and consulting. She has worked with General Mills (Betty Crocker and Bisquick) FoodNetwork.com, iVillage, Fruit Simple, Head Chefs, and Kellogg’s. Additionally, Cricket has consulted for a number of kids’ foods brands.

Since 1999, Cricket has been teaching cooking classes to children of all ages at various locations in New York City, including schools, Whole Foods Market, The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, City Treehouse, Girl Scout groups, as well as privately-held classes. Cricket has developed curricula for multiple schools and after-school programs. As an instructor, Cricket is one-of-a-kind. She strives to teach more than a recipe or basic cooking techniques, with a teaching philosophy that is based on the educational benefits of cooking. Cricket believes that kids can learn about more than just food while in the kitchen classroom, whether that’s history, geography, math, reading, social studies, nutrition, science, foreign language, or art.

Cricket developed her teaching philosophy while pursuing her master’s degree in Food Studies and Food Management at New York University (NYU). Her thesis, which focused on the benefits of teaching cooking to children, led her to launch The Creative Kitchen in 2003. Her method of cooking instruction and food education is designed to inspire children to learn and express themselves creatively in the kitchen, while reinforcing traditional learning disciplines.