Picky Grouchy Non-Cook FAQs and not so FAQs
IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO GIVE A COPY OF THE BOOK
What Chefs Feed Their Kids: recipes and techniques for cultivating
a love of good food (by Fanae Aaron) TO A MAMA NON-COOK
AS A HOLIDAY GIFT?
IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO GIVE A COPY OF THE BOOK
What Chefs Feed Their Kids: recipes and techniques for cultivating
a love of good food (by Fanae Aaron) TO A MAMA NON-COOK
AS A HOLIDAY GIFT?
If the mama non-cook who is to receive a copy of this worthy volume (Lyons Press, 2012) is defensive or sensitive about her non-cook status, or if she is a hardened case with no plans to alter her non-cook ways, the gift may not go over super well. What chefs feed their kids?? Ha!! After all, it's not a gift that says: Don't go changin'. Rather it is a gift that says to such a non-cook: What you are doing leaves something to be desired, and the same goes for what you are not doing.
However, if the mama non-cook in question is conflicted or remorseful over her non-cook status, and thus open to change, or open to change through some other internal scenario, this book could really be an honest to Cannelli Bean Dip (recipe by Piero Selvaggio on page 26) winner. Author Fanae Aaron looks at cooking through the lense of what works for her son Cody, and offers brief commentary on each of the many recipes in the book, all of which were contributed by chefs. The food photography by Viktor Budnik is highly professional and perfect, and the pictures of the various chefs (contributed by various photographers) are dynamic and appealing. There are quotes and ideas from numerous chefs and other food experts about feeding kids, and tips on the subject as well, like this one from Chef Paul Virant of the restaurant Vie outside Chicago: "Get special utensils. Give kids fun forks or a special kids' knife like the Kuhn Ricon Kinderkitchen kids' knife or colorful one piece learning chopsticks." Ok, then! There is absolutely nothing stopping a non-cook from doing that. Even a picky grouchy non-cook cannot justify getting upset if someone suggests that she buy her kid a cute fork. Not to be an Obvious Olivia, but the daunting thing for the non-cook about What Chefs Feed Their Kids is the undeniable emphasis placed on cooking. Not just the cooking, but the cooking with your children. And if it's not the cooking, it's the shopping. And not just the shopping, but the shopping with your children. Listen, you're supposed to involve your children and communicate with them so that they do not become picky icky control freaks around food and eating, OK?! You have to make sure they have an opportunity to connect with the food before they eat it, which for many non-cooks is a stretch since eating the food is the only connection we have, even when we ourselves were the ones to somehow manage to wrangle it into a cooked state. Even then. Even when it was our turn to make dinner, we failed to achieve the connection part. This is part of the tragedy of being a non-cook. The other part of the tragedy is not knowing how to change it. Guess what: one of the primary messages in What Chefs Feed Their Kids is that you're supposed to teach the kids to love food and be open to it and curious about it. And you can't just tell them, you have to show them, which means you have to do it too, which means that this isn't a book about what to feed your kids or even how to feed them, it's a book about how the heck we all should preferably be about food if we want to eat in an open, interesting way and invite food and cooking into our lives in a spirit of passion, welcome, and communication. It's the food culture. The promoting of food. I think what I'm trying to report is that if you want to feed your kids what and how chefs feed their kids, you have to start acting a little bit more like a chef. The good news here is that chefs -- at least the chefs interviewed in this book, have pretty excellent attitudes and ways of being about cooking and eating. They are passionate about food in a deep and real way, and so it turns out that they seem more able to tolerate and work with weird food behavior and pickiness on the part of their children. Here's a quote from Eric Bromberg of the Blue Ribbon restaurants in New York: "...Yeah, we had challenging times; at one point our daughter only ate blueberries. I'm not kidding! She ate a pint of blueberries a day and nothing else." My feeling is this: for a chef to admit that, and to offer his experience with his child as a comfort to other parents, takes a certain warm openness and hope. The attitudes of the chefs interviewed for this volume are far from the sanctimonious, foodier than thou, my-child-eats-caviar stuff that non-cooks the world over fear. The attitude here is more like holding a wonder for food --- what I read in What Chefs Feed Their Kids seems to be faith in the power of food to eventually win children over. Depending on the specific people involved, the difference between the attitude of the chef and the attitude of the non-cook can be measured in lifetimes, or maybe lightyears -- yet there's something captivating in the passion for and faith in food these chefs seem to have. They are communicating with their children through food, and that is also appealing, if foreign and almost fantastical to this non-cook. But in spite of the seeming impossibility of it all, in answer to the question posed: Sure, lay a copy of that book on me! Absolutely bring it on, in all of its Chickpea Panisse with Carrot Ginger Butter (recipe by Peter Berley on page 160) glory! After all, it's not always totally clear from moment to moment if the mama non-cook is the defensive/sensitive/hardened case type or the conflicted/remorseful/open to change type. Really, it's a toss up: Am I going to respond with a dose of rightous indignation? Or will I scrub up and start reeking havoc with that Wild Rice Souffle (recipe by Diane Forley & Michael Otsuka on page 156)? What I think I'm saying is try me. |