Kids Cuisine

We didn’t exactly set out to make pumpkin whoopie pies. It was about 95 degrees out, and pumpkin was the furthest thing from our minds. In fact, my daughter had a recipe for cream-filled lemon sandwich cookies picked out and, lemon lover that I am, I was definitely on board. But there was that long-lost container of cream […]

Next week we’ll be taking the kids on our once-a-year camping excursion.  For one week out of the year, we pitch a tent in the wilderness and reconnect with each other in a very peaceful manner. Our choice campgrounds are always the ones with the least amenities — no running water, no camp store, no […]

The thing that appeals most to me about fresh peaches is their smell. To me, a fresh, ripe peach is one of the definitive smells of summer (along with sea air, sunblock, the leaves of tomato plants, freshly cut grass, and fried dough).
When peaches appear at my farmstand market, the entire aisle they sit in is perfumed […]

My children think they love s’mores.  I know I love s’mores — those warm, toasty marshmallows, sandwiched between two graham cracker squares, and oh, the oozing milk chocolate from the heat of the marshmallow… it’s pure heaven, I tell you.  Every year when it’s time to go camping, my children clamor for the s’mores. Eagerly […]

Did you ever have one of those moments where your child asked to make something that didn’t sound too appealing?  Then you look at her recipe and determine that it’s not likely something that you’d enjoy eating either, but the look on her face and the insistence wins you over.  That was the case yesterday […]

Recently I was asked by my daughter if I could buy her a new cookbook.  I asked her what kind of cookbook she wanted, and her reply was “one for kids, Mom!” So I spent some time looking around for a new cookbook that we hadn’t discovered yet, and I found a gem written by […]

Why is it that when something is little, even when it is something ordinary like a nose or a foot, it is adorable? Well, the same goes for food! Barilla had a fantastic idea when they thought to create Piccollini - miniature versions of 5 of their pasta shapes: penne, ziti, fusilli, farfalle, […]

On my blog, I wrote about an email I received from Lindsay at Fleishman-Hillard.  She thought I might enjoy a new cookbook from the California Table Grape Commission, Green Black Red: Recipes for Cooking and Enjoying California Grapes  (Chronicle Books 2008). She wrote, “In it [the book], readers learn how to turn this kitchen staple into an […]

The next time you bake a pie or quiche, don’t throw away those scraps of pie crust dough. Reroll the leftover dough scraps and use them to make these amazingly simple and addictive Cinnamon Pastry Flats. Of course, if you’d rather skip the pie and go straight to the flats, feel free! I like to use […]

One of the best things about summer vacation is that my daughter wants to spend more time in the kitchen. Her free time is no longer limited to just a few activities, and the world is her playground all day long. As a result, she’s been spending more time looking through cookbooks and […]