If you can't decide which you love more, books or food, you're in the right place!
What Is The Reader's Kitchen?
The Reader's Kitchen is a recipe resource that brings food moments from beloved children's books to life. With thoroughly tested recipes and decades of experience teaching, I am here to help parents, caregivers, and educators inspire kids to develop a love of both reading and cooking. I hope The Reader's Kitchen will bring you together with the kids in your life to spend quality time in the kitchen together and to bring books to life through the magic of food.
The Cook Behind the Recipes
Hi, I'm Afton! I spent the first decade of my career as an elementary classroom teacher and arts education administrator in Boston. As an avid reader myself, I loved helping kids learn to unlock the incredible worlds of storytelling, art, information, imagination, culture, and identity found in books.
But my secret passion? It was food. I loved to cook at home and spent my free time and summers poring over my collection of cookbooks, working in restaurants, and dreaming up new dishes. I launched my own small business, Jam Sessions, on the side of my work in education, making jams and jellies and teaching others how to can and preserve at home.
My success with Jam Sessions led me to the next stage of my career as a recipe developer and food editor at America's Test Kitchen. Over the course of 8 years, I worked on dozens of cookbooks, including Foolproof Preserving, Bread Illustrated, Vegan For Everybody, The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook, and Dinner Illustrated.
While at ATK, I was lucky enough to help launch ATK Kids, a new branch of the company dedicated to creating content for young chefs of all ages. We published a series of New York Times bestselling and IACP award-winning cookbooks for kids, including The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs, The Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs, The Complete Cookbook for Young Scientists, and My First Cookbook. I loved combining my education and food backgrounds to create groundbreaking recipe content that was perfectly engineered for kids.
Since leaving America's Test Kitchen, I have continued to hone my skills as a professional recipe developer, food writer, and editor for outlets including Simply Recipes, Serious Eats, Ten Speed Press, Everyday Pie and Everyday Family Eats, The Kitchn, and King Arthur Baking Company.
In the fall of 2023, I felt it was time to launch something of my own and bring all of my worlds together. What kept coming to mind were the incredible food moments captured in books that I loved, so vivid and magical that I just wanted to be able to taste them. And what if we all could?
Enter: The Reader's Kitchen! I'm excited to travel to fictional and fantastical worlds together, and to bring you foolproof, delicious recipes for readers and eaters of all ages to enjoy.
