How to Help Your Kids Enjoy New & Different Types of Food

I receive a lot of emails on this subject and have a few ideas that I try to relate but this week I read an article in the Philadelphia Inquire by Karen Heller about a new cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld, the wife of actor / comedian Jerry Seinfeld called Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids to Eat Good Food.

The article, Mrs. Seinfeld’s recipe to raise picky eaters, is a great read, informative and humorous itself, but I was more interested in Karen Heller’s own “tricks” to get children to eat more adventurous foods at the end of the article. They are right on.

Not that there is anything wrong with Jessica Seinfeld’s methods, they just differ with Ms. Heller’s philosophy. I have not read Mrs. Seinfeld’s book yet so I will reserve my editorial to a later date.

Start Early

Ms. Heller suggests presenting “interesting food to children” as early as possible so they are “more likely to adopt an interesting diet”. I couldn’t agree more. It’s not easy, but I ask my kids to at least try everything I prepare and if they don’t like it, which is more often than not, they can spit it out in my hand. Sometimes I think they fake not liking it just so they can spit in my hand.

And you will be surprised by what they like and don’t like. For example, my youngest does not like hamburgers. I’m thinking, “What kid doesn’t like hamburgers?” but she and her sister both love steamed clams. When I was a kid I didn’t even like looking at steamed clams.

Dining Out

Ms. Heller also suggests taking kids out to restaurants so they can learn to eat different ethnic foods. I could not agree more. Not only do they experience new styles of cooking, they get the whole experience of dining out and how to behave in a nice restaurant. Be careful how young you start taking them out to be considerate of the other people in the restaurant.

One of the first times we took our oldest daughter out to a restaurant as a baby, I was holding her in my arms with her head looking over my shoulder at the table behind us. They thought this was cute until she threw up. Luckily we knew the people and they were ok with it but it could have been a really bad experience for everyone.

Cook With Your Kids

The most powerful suggestion Ms. Heller writes is “Cook with your kids. Children love to cook. They love to eat what they’ve made.”

This is so true. I can’t tell you how much my kids like to help in the kitchen especially my 7 ½ year old with cerebral palsy. We have a special stander that brings her up to counter height and she helps me prepare meals. She gets great satisfaction out of being able to help and she is definitely more likely to try eating something that she was involved preparing than something I throw in front of her.

I get emails from parents all the time asking me about cooking classes for their kids. They are around and I am going to put together a list and post it on my web site but I always respond to the parents by suggestion them to start in their own kitchens. At these early stages, most of us parents have all the skills we need to be our kids’ culinary arts instructors. Besides, it’s a great way to bond with your kids.

Happy Holidays to all of you avid home cooks. 

We had a wonderful Christmas and as usual there were many kitchen items exchanged between my wife and me. I hope to tell you about them all in the next couple of weeks and share with you how I’ve been using them.

My 9 year old daughter using her own savings gave me this wonderful looking, giant cookbook by Aliza Green called Starting with Ingredients – Quintessential Recipes for the Way We Really Cook.

Looks just like the kind of cookbook I will love to learn from. With over thousand pages describing over one hundred ingredients, this cookbook focuses on most of the popular ingredients we cook with every day and describes what they are, how to shop for them and most importantly how to cook them.

For example, she looks at Fennel, one of my favorite and in my opinion, under utilized vegetables used in most households. I love to cook with it or eat it raw in salads. Aliza describes the history of fennel, where it is grown and when it is in season, how to choose it, how to use every part of it and then provides a whole bunch of recipes using it in various dishes and cooking methods.

She has recipes for Tuscan Tuna Salad with Fennel, Chicken Salad with Fennel, Lemon Zest and Currants, Fennel and Tomato Casserole, Braised Fennel with White Wine, Bay and Thyme & Whole Grilled Red Snapper Stuffed with Fennel.

The book is filled with food facts, buying tips, cooking methods and plenty of ideas how to use the ingredient. It’s one of those cookbooks you can just sit down with to read and enjoy whether you use her recipes or not.

Besides, just holding this massive book provides a workout to burn off some of the calories you’ll gain trying all the recipes in it.

I am still browsing through it and will report back on any of the recipes I try, but from what little I’ve seen, this one is a must for anyone who really wants to know more about what they are cooking and why.

You can find it at Amazon here.

Summer is here and my girls are out of school on vacation. My 8 year old came home with a reading list for her summer reading so we took a visit to the local library to pick up a book.

I love libraries and I have to admit I don’t get to them very much but that is going to change. On this trip I was wondering down the “Adult Isle” and what do I come upon but rows and rows of cookbooks. There were dozens of them, some new, some old. Many I already own, but many more that I don’t

I have never thought to take out a cookbook from a library but why not. There are lots of good reasons to check out a library cookbook.

· Gives you a chance to look it over before purchasing it.
· You may just want one or two recipes from it.
· You don’t want a bookcase filled with cookbooks.
· You buy cookbooks and just let them sit on that bookshelf.
· You want to save a couple of bucks

I have a fairly good-sized cookbook collection that does fill a whole bookcase. I don’t think I ever met a cookbook I didn’t like or didn’t want to own. Although with the Internet so readily available, I find myself doing a lot more research on the Net.

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