Lifestyle
Get your kids in the kitchen with hands-on recipes
Ayesha Rascoe watches her daughters Annalise, 7, and Gabrielle, 8, prepare chicken. (left to right)
Melissa Gray/NPR
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Melissa Gray/NPR
Cooking with kids can be a challenge. There’s the mess, the chaos, and concerns about safety. But the whole point of Mark Bittman’s new cookbook “How to Cook Everything Kids,” is to get your young chefs comfortable with the kitchen.
Now, I can’t tell you to do it if I’m not willing to do it myself! So I tried out his book with my children. Reggie (11), Gabrielle (8) and Annalise (7) picked out recipes, and Mark Bittman bravely joined us in-person to show us how it’s done.
On the menu: “Chicken Mark Nuggets” and “Chicken with Orange Sauce.” Long story short: my kids had a blast and so did I!
Ayesha Rascoe with her kids and food journalist, Mark Bittman.
Melissa Gray/NPR
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Chicken Mark Nuggets
You won’t believe how easy it is to make crispy tidbits of chicken in the oven. And they’re waayyyy better than what you get at a drive-thru window. You can double this recipe to feed a lot of hungry people, or if you want to freeze leftovers in an airtight container. They can be heated later in the microwave.
SERVES 4
TIME: 30 minutes
- 1 pound boneless chicken (tenders, breasts, cutlets, or thighs)
- Salt and pepper
- 1 cup whole milk
- 4 cups corn flakes
- 3 tablespoons good-quality vegetable oil, plus more as needed
STEPS
“Chicken Mark Nuggets” coming out of the oven.
Melissa Gray/NPR
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Melissa Gray/NPR
- Heat the oven to 400°F. Cut the chicken into chunks about 2 inches long. Put them in a medium bowl, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, and pour in the milk. Toss with a fork until the pieces are all coated with the milk. Let the chicken sit while you get everything ready to cook.
- Put the corn flakes in a shallow bowl and crumble them with your hands or a potato masher. Crush the flakes into crumbs about the size of coarse bread crumbs. (For a more even coating, make finer crumbs by pulsing the cornflakes in a blender or food processor.)
- To set up for breading and baking: Put a large rimmed baking sheet on a counter or table and smear the bottom with the oil. On one side (depending on whether you like to work from the left or the right), put the bowl with the crumbs. Next to that, put the bowl with the chicken.
- Toss the chicken again with the fork to make sure all the pieces are wet. With tongs (or your hands), one at a time lift a piece of chicken from the bowl and roll it in crumbs until coated all over. As you work, put the pieces on the oiled pan, spreading them out so they’re evenly placed without touching. (Be sure to wash your hands once you’re done with this step.)
- Set a timer for 10 minutes and let the chicken bake without touching. You’re looking for a crunchy-looking golden brown crust to form on the bottom as the oil sizzles. You’ll see it around the edges when the pieces are ready, and you’ll be able to turn them easily without tugging. Tongs are the best tool to avoid splatters, but sometimes a stiff spatula can help loosen every bit from the pan. If they’re not ready to turn when the timer goes off, set it for another 5 minutes and check again to see if they’re ready to turn.
- If you used breasts or tenders, bake the second side for another 5 minutes (or 8 minutes for thighs). You want the second side to be about the same color as the first. To test for doneness, carefully remove the pan and cut into a piece with a fork and small knife so you can peek. The meat should feel firm against the fork and cut easily and you’ll see no pink. The juices should be clear. You don’t have to check every piece once you get the hang of what they look like.
- Sprinkle the nuggets with a little salt and pepper if you like. Serve them plain, or with a condiment or homemade sauce for dipping on the side.
Finished “Chicken Mark Nuggets.”
Melissa Gray/NPR
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Chicken with Orange Sauce
Feel like a total chef when you whip up perfectly golden chicken and a bright, buttery sauce. It’s easy, especially if you have some help.
SERVES 2-3
TIME: 45 minutes
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more if you like
- 12 ounces boneless, skinless chicken tenders or thighs
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 cup orange juice
- Pepper (if you like)
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint, parsley, or chives for garnish
STEPS
Ayesha Rascoe’s son, Reggie (11), sautés chicken with help from Mark Bittman.
Melissa Gray/NPR
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- Spread the flour out in a large shallow bowl next to the stove. Add the salt and stir with a fork to combine. Add the chicken to the bowl and toss the pieces in the mixture until every nook and cranny is covered.
- Put the oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. When the butter foams and the oil is hot and shimmering, quickly but carefully use tongs to lift a piece of chicken above the bowl, shake off the excess flour, and put it in the pan. Smooth side down first is best, but if you can’t, no big deal. Try with some of the other pieces. It’s more important that the chicken is spread out as much as possible.
- When all the pieces are in, adjust the heat so the edges sizzle without burning. If the flour is getting dark fast, turn the heat down under the pan. Cook without touching until the chicken smells like toast and you can see the edges curling up from the bottom of the pan, 3 to 5 minutes for breasts and 5 to 7 minutes for thighs. While the chicken cooks, dump the flour out of the bowl, wash and dry it, and put it next to the stove again.
- Tug on the thinnest piece of chicken with the tongs to see if it will lift easily and peek at the bottom. It should be golden brown. If it is, turn the pieces over, using a stiff spatula. If the chicken isn’t ready, set the timer for another minute and check again.
- Repeat Step 4 to cook and brown the other side. As the pieces finish browning, move them to the clean shallow bowl and turn the heat under the skillet to medium-low. Even though the outsides are brown, the chicken will probably still be pink inside. That’s okay. It will finish cooking in the sauce, but you’re going to need to use a clean platter or dinner plates for serving. (Unless you want to just serve from the skillet—your choice.)
- Add the orange juice to the skillet and adjust the heat so it steams and bubbles. Use a stiff spatula to scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Then add the last 1 tablespoon butter and stir until it melts and the sauce bubbles again.
- Return the chicken to the skillet and cook, using the spatula to move it around and coat it in the sauce until the thickest piece is no longer pink inside, about 5 minutes. To check, use a small knife to cut a slit and peek inside. Taste the sauce and see if it needs more salt, then move the chicken to the platter or plates and spoon the sauce over the top. Garnish with chopped herbs and eat.
Finished “Chicken with Orange Sauce.”
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Eleana Tworek and Melissa Gray contributed to this story, with a special thank you to Julia Redpath.
Students walk on the Stanford University campus on March 14, 2019, in Stanford, Calif.
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Ben Margot/AP
When Theo Baker arrived at Stanford University a few years ago, he joined the student newspaper, following the path of his journalist parents, Peter Baker, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, and Susan Glasser, a writer for The New Yorker.
Through his reporting as a student journalist, he eventually broke a story about manipulated data in Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscience research that helped lead to the university president’s resignation.
Theo Baker’s book, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University was released May 19. In it, Baker describes Stanford as a place where proximity to Silicon Valley gives rise to a parallel system of influence, recruitment and money, with investors looking to identify promising students almost as soon as they arrive on campus.
He told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep there was “a sort of Stanford inside Stanford,” where elite students are drawn into an “alternate reality” of excess and access to cut corners.
In the interview, he discusses how Stanford is not just a university but also a pipeline where status and power can matter as much as ideas.
We reached out to Stanford University for comment and have not heard back.
Listen to the interview by clicking play on the blue box above.
The scoreboard shows the results of the women’s singles final match between Iga Swiatek of Poland and Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
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Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Fifteen points in tennis? Nice. Thirty, 40 — even better. Advantage — that sounds good. “Love” — that also must be great, right? Well, not quite.
As the French Open rolls on and Serena Williams has announced her return to the sport, maybe you’ve been paying a little more attention to tennis. The sport’s scoring system is notably distinct, and can sometimes be hard to grasp for newcomers. But even tennis aficionados might not know why, or how, “love” became the unmistakable callout for zero points. For this installment of NPR’s Word of the Week, we’re exploring how a word that signifies trailing behind got such a sweet name.
“Love” comes from the heart — or an egg?
It’s hard to pinpoint when the first tennis ball went over the net. Tennis is a derivative of lots of other sports, such as “jeu de paume,” a handball game played in France, said JT Buzanga, the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum.
But tennis became a patented, official sport in 1874, said Steve Flink, a journalist whose tennis coverage got him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has retained its unique, mysterious scoring system ever since.
“By and large, the original system has held up almost entirely,” Flink said.
The use of “love” goes back to the late 18th century, said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer. But it was used earlier than that in card games such as whist and bridge. Before the term made its way to tennis, the sport favored plain old “nothing,” or “nil,” he said.
Why love in the first place, though? Historians don’t really know for sure, but there are a few theories.
The French could have something to do with it. Some historians believe “love” derives from “l’oeuf,” which means “the egg” in French. Because eggs are shaped like zeros, terms such as “goose egg” and “duck’s egg” have been used in other contexts to mean zero, Sheidlower said.
It’s also possible English speakers mispronounced l’oeuf as “love.” But Sheidlower isn’t convinced that’s the answer.
“It’s the French equivalent of an English expression. But since that expression doesn’t appear in French, the French word wouldn’t have been used,” he said.
To be sure, France has had a lot of influence on tennis culture, Buzanga said. For example, “deuce” or a game tied at 40 points, comes from the French word for “two”: “deux.” But he prefers another prominent theory: that “love” comes from the idiom “for the love of the game.” Even if a player hasn’t scored, it doesn’t matter, because their heart is in it. It’s the theory Sheidlower said is the most plausible, because the idiom was used by the English before tennis was popularized.
Another variation of the “love of the game” theory is that the word could have come from the Dutch “lof,” or “honor” — or the Latin “amare,” meaning “to love,” Flink said.
But if tennis’ “love” doesn’t come from a French word, the theory at least has a French sensibility.
“I think the ‘for the love of the game’ is kind of romantic,” Buzanga said.
“Love” probably isn’t going anywhere
Tennis used to be a sport of leisure. The style of play has changed a lot over the years; players are more athletic and competitive, for instance, Flink said. But the rules of the sport are more steadfast, he said.
“There’s this incredible, enduring respect for tradition in tennis,” he said. “Changes are not made easily.”
There has been one major change in modern history: the tie-break. Matches can go on and on because players have to score two consecutive points to break a deuce, or by two games to break a tied set. But the onset of television meant matches would have to get shorter if the sport wanted to capture a larger audience, Flink said.
Change even came for “love.” An alternative sprouted up in the 1970s, and is still used today: “bagel,” named for its zero shape, Sheidlower said. Novices may say “zero,” and insiders will understand what they mean, but they “will needle them about it,” Flink said.
But “love” still prevails.
“People kind of like it,” Flink said. “It’s different. Why say zero when you can say love?”
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