By the time he was 10, chef Jason LaVerdiere regularly prepared dinner for his family of eight. While his favorite food was lobster, the foundational ingredient he cooked most often in his mother’s kitchen was ground beef. Because it was inexpensive and versatile, he’d transform it into Bolognese sauce, stuffed cabbage, cheeseburgers, shepherd’s pie, tacos, and meatballs.
Twenty-some-odd years later, LaVerdiere owns Flux, a modern American restaurant in Lisbon Falls housed in a space that used to be a diner. The building still sports a chrome-coated exterior, but inside he serves inventive, hyper-local American fare with an easily approachable, modernist flair. Just two blocks away from his Main Street eatery, he lives with his wife Marissa, who is a labor and delivery nurse, and their brood of four kids, ages 12 years to 9 months.
We met all six LaVerdieres recently when they popped into the studio for a photo shoot. Lillian, stylish and calm, helped with her brothers. At 10, Kamden is kind, talkative, and as camera ready as one of his soccer heroes, Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo. Five-year-old Jayden is as joyful as he is energetic. And baby Levi sits in wonder and giggles as he watches the family members buzz around him.
After the shoot, LaVerdiere chatted with edible MAINE editor-in-chief Christine Burns Rudalevige about picky eaters, how his kids helped develop some of the menu items at Flux, and what he thinks kids in general need to learn to become competent cooks. The conversation has been edited for length and flow.
Do you cook with your kids at home?
As much as I hate to admit this, since opening Flux I haven’t been cooking with the kids at home as much as I used to. When I had a normal work schedule, my daughter Lillian would cook with me all the time. I have videos of her cutting fiddleheads with a proper knife grip when she was 3 years old. At 12 now, she has a solid repertoire. Lillian preparing us a delicious Sunday morning breakfast in bed is not all that uncommon.
Do your children spend much time with you in the restaurant?
My oldest, Lillian, has spent the most time with me in the restaurant. She’s had an interest in cooking since she was 3 years old or so.
Through COVID and the school shutdowns, the kids were there a lot because both my wife and I were working in the restaurant. They would do their scholastics, then read books, play games, and sometimes even help with dishes. Lillian would also opt to help me in the bakery, with pastries or portioning dough. Simple things like that.
What kitchen skills can parents easily teach the littles—kids under 5 who might not be so comfortable with a knife?
Simple tasks, ones that get the kids hands-on time with the ingredients. Things like shucking corn, shelling peas, and making their own pizzas.
What does a child need to know about food prep to be self-sufficient?
Maybe not until they are ready to go out and live on their own, but I think kids should know how to safely fry, scramble, boil, and poach an egg. They should know basic breakfast cookery.
They need to learn how to plan and shop for balanced meals. They must know how to cook animal proteins—beef, chicken, pork, and fish—to proper temperatures, for food safety reasons first, and then to meet their own personal taste preferences. If they can prepare fresh vegetables well, they’ll be more likely to eat them. They must know how to steam rice, boil pasta, and make a basic tomato sauce from scratch. They have to be able to roast a whole chicken and use the bones to make soup. Knowing how to use up leftovers in a safe, timely manner means they won’t waste food.
Do you have any picky eaters in your brood?
We have had two picky eaters so far. Lillian has always been super adventurous like I was as a child. The boys, including Levi, started as picky eaters. The house policy is that you try it. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it—but next time we have it, you must try it again. Kamden, formerly the pickiest eater on earth, now eats almost anything.
Have your kids influenced Flux’s menu at all?
Yes, for sure. The kids menu at Flux only has a few choices, but they’re some of the tried-and-true dinner hits from home—chicken tenders, mac and cheese, and tempura haddock. I have worked to elevate them to taste better than most renditions, though, because I want other kids who eat at our restaurant to ask their parents to come back again and again.
How do you talk with your children about the importance of sourcing local ingredients?
Talking to kids about the importance of sourcing local foods is great, but showing them is indispensable in breaking away from the unsustainable, commercial food systems our society has become so accustomed to. We grow a small garden every year and they get to plant seeds and see how a tiny seed, with some simple stewardship, yields something they can eat.
Several times a year, we take the kids to harvest raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and apples at various fruit farms. They go out to Little Ridge Farm here in Lisbon Falls and see her beautiful vegetable gardens, hoop houses, pigs, and turkeys. We visit Winter Hill Farm in Freeport to see their cows and eat their amazing cheese. At their ages, it is less of a conversation and more about normalizing that this is how it is supposed to be.
