Cooking with Helen for Food Revolution Day 2014

One proud chef!

I was inspired by Food Revolution Day's theme this year of getting kids worldwide excited about good food. What better way than to get kids in the kitchen cooking, tasting, and learning about delicious real food?  I was thrilled to be invited by Brianne DeRosa of Red, Round, and Green and Bettina Siegal of The Lunch Tray to collaborate with other bloggers on a Flipsnack virtual cookbook to celebrate the day. We each had our kids cook up different easy dishes at home and shared our experiences with photos and step-by-step recipes. Here's our story and a fun cookbook for you and your kids to get cooking at home in your own kitchen!

FOOD REVOLUTION DAY 2014: COOKING WITH KIDS

Click link to access free cookbook. 

My daughter loves cooking but in the busy daily rush of making dinner, I often forget to include her. Sometimes I think after the fact, "Oh, she could have really helped with this one. Darn!" I am on a mission to teach my teenage daughter full-scale recipes and meals, but I have to remind myself to capture the energy and enthusiasm of my eight year old while I still can.

One afternoon I had hurt my hand and even doing simple tasks in the kitchen was challenging. Perfect time to call in the kids to help! My teenager diced the tomatoes, but my eight year old wanted to make the tomato bruschetta all by herself. With this simple recipe, she could do it! I just told her what to do, step by step, and--viola!--she did it.  She was so proud and the result was a kid-friendly, good food snack that can be a quick bite or an appetizer. 

Another great thing about this recipe is that it can be varied and amended in many ways to suit your budding chef's creativity. Add spices or fresh herbs, lemon juice or use a different cheese (just not too much!). Also, as long as you don't burn the bruschetta in the broiler, it is impossible to "screw up." Some tomatoes fall to the tray, not problem! They'll get roasted too. The rustic look doesn't stop them from getting gobbled up.

Tasting is the best part!

Roasted Tomato Bruschetta

(Time approx 15 mins)

This delicious snack was made entirely by my 8 year old daughter, except for help with dicing tomatoes and using oven.

• Slices of thick, hearty bread, if large slices, half or quarter slices as desired. (Bread can be day-old and best to use baguette, country, wheat, sourdough-type bread that can hold weight of topping)
• 1 cup of diced tomatoes (must be fresh, not canned)
• Olive Oil
• Salt
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• Optional: Lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, fresh herbs

1. Set oven to broil (low setting, if possible).

2. Arrange bread slices on baking sheet. Use a spoon or pastry brush to “paint” each bread slice with olive oil. (If bread is soft, it will not hold tomatoes well. You can lightly toast bread in a toaster if needed.)

3. Spoon tomatoes over each bread slice, piled high; it’s ok if tomatoes fall off toast as they will be roasted on tray anyway.

4. Sprinkle a bit of salt on each toast and also sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

5. Have adult or older teenager place tray in hot oven and broil for 3-5 minutes. Check to be sure it is not burning. Heat until tomatoes and cheese are lightly browned but not burned. Depending on the temperature of your oven, you may need to add 2-4 additional minutes.

6. Let cool a moment and serve. Any tomatoes that have fallen off can be re-piled onto the toast slices. Enjoy!

7. Optional variations: Add squeeze of lemon juice or a splash of balsamic vinegar to tomatoes and stir prior to spooning on bread. Fresh herbs can be added to tomatoes or sprinkled on finished bruschetta as a garnish.

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Many thanks to the other great bloggers who contributed to this effort and of course to Food Revolution Day team which is tirelessly working to expand awareness about food choice and to teach and inspire kids and families everywhere to eat good food and to cook for themselves.


Participants in the Food Revolution Day Kid's Cookbook 2014

Bettina Siegal, The Lunch Tray: www.facebook.com/thelunchtray, @thelunchtray  
Bri DeRosa, Red, Round, Green: www.facebook.com/redroundorgreen, @redroundorgreen 
Sally Kuzemchak, Real Mom Nutrition: www.facebook.com/realmomnutrition, @RMNutrition 
Mia Moran, Stay Basic Blog: www.facebook.com/StayBasic, @StayBasicblog www.staybasic.com
Lynn Barendsen, The Family Dinner Project www.facebook.com/pages/The-Family-Dinner-Project/229902527045870, @FDP_Tweets 
Caron Gremont, First Bites: www.facebook.com/yourfirstbites, @FirstBites 

Call Me a School Gardens Convert

I have a confession to make. It is hard to publicly admit this but, I think I'm ready and here is goes. I have been skeptical about school gardens. (Gasp! I know). True, I advocate for healthy eating for kids and basically support, any and all strategies to encourage them to eat more fruits and vegetables at school or at home. But I have not been a fan of school gardens (more on that below).  Yet, I have been inspired recently by the work of Stephen Ritz of Green Bronx Machine and by Edible Schoolyard NYC. I dare say I am so impressed that I might become a school garden convert.

(Note: Applications are now being accepted to be an Edible Schoolyard NYC Showcase School. Find more details here. Deadline is soon!) 

School gardens are feel-good stories in the making, for sure. Furthermore, it makes sense that they would make a difference. Gardens provide hand-on lessons that show kids where  carrots come from, "from the earth and not aisle 9 in the grocery store" as Stephen Ritz would say. School gardens provide chances for kids to eat leafy greens that they grew themselves, while learning about science and nature.  And it's hard not to love the images of smiling kids holding up vegetables freshly pulled from the earth, or chomping down on a kale salad for maybe the first time. So what's my issue?

Let it be said that I am a gardener myself, and this maybe why I am skeptical. Gardening is hard, especially in the urban environment with poor soil (often filled with lead and other chemicals) and lack of easy water access. (Water access probably doesn't even cross the minds our suburban garden counterparts.) Gardening can have significant start-up costs. (My grandfather talks about the $300 peach he grew one year. That's how much he invested in caring for the tree that yielded just one fruit.) Gardening, like farming, can be plagued by failure, as it is dependent on so many vagaries in weather and soil that you never know what you are going to get. This is the life of a gardener--thorns as well as roses.

Furthermore, school gardens work against the growing season calendar. Just when the gardens need the most care, school is out for the summer. Just when the plants need the most water, no one is home to water them. In a typical urban schoolyard, the sun beats down on the blacktop and dries up that garden in no time. In my neighborhood in Brooklyn, I have unfortunately seen many a dry and neglected school garden. All these reasons have lead me to be a school garden skeptic.

Recently, at the 2012 TedxManhattan conference,  I learned about a two projects that are restoring my faith in urban school gardening: Green Bronx Machine and Edible Schoolyard NYC.

Stephen Ritz's talk about Green Bronx Machine at TedxManhattan was a true revelation about the power of gardening in young people's lives. If anyone can make you a believer, it is him.  Just watch, enjoy and cheer.




Working in the Bronx, "in the poorest Congressional District in the county," Ritz is not just growing seeds, he is truly growing lives. For him, gardening is a stepping stone to broader skills that the middle and high school students in his school desperately need. I love that his program is not just about "little kids." It is mainly targeted at teenagers who are often overlooked as potential change-agents in their own lives. These are kids that need a break and urban gardening is giving it to them: job skills, math and science skills, the chance to care for something that grows and can be tended for without judgement or fear, and most importantly, an opportunity to see themselves differently. Teenagers are very close to living on their own, making life choices now that will follow them forever, for better or worse. Stephen Ritz's program is showing at-risk kids a path that they perhaps never knew about. They are learning carpentry skills, marketing skills and skills in the kitchen that can help them cook everyday meals for themselves or start a career in culinary arts. Plus these kids, who are at very high risk of dropping out, have an  incentive to come into school everyday because there is something living and growing in that classroom that they care about and are interested in. Plants are not abstract; they are right there, growing in front of you, needing your care. That's a powerful message of hope.

A second project, Edible Schoolyard NYC had caught my attention earlier this year, but I didn't understand the full extent of their programming until recently, when its name came up again and again at TedxManhattan. Based on Alice Waters' famous Edible Schoolyard Project in Berkeley, CA, Edible Schoolyard NYC (@ESNYC) is the first of its kind in New York City and is set in PS216, a Title I elementary school in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Unlike the school graden programs I've seen, Edible Schoolyard doesn't just put in some planters, plant some seeds and call it a day. They have a rich and fully integrated curriculum that teaches kids in an age-appropriate way and incorporates New York State standards of science, math and English. They are in it for the long-haul, setting up a kitchen curriculum, establishing evaluation standards (are kids eating better? are grades improving?) and thinking about how their students will develop from ages 5 to 10, exploring and learning from the garden.


As an advocate of family dinner, Family Cooking Nights and Harvest/Market Days are the parts of the Edible Schoolyard program that excite me the most. It is crucial to connect with parents and get them as excited as the kids are about good food and healthy eating. To truly make a difference, school garden programs must work with parents so that the lessons from school come home. No one wants that kale salad a child enjoyed at school to be the first and last of his life. That salad should be the first of many and part of a long-lasting change for the whole family at mealtimes. School gardens can start a dialogue between parents and kids, spurring the kids ask for vegetables at the grocery store, not just junk food.


Edible Schoolyard NYC is expanding to have showcase schools in all five boroughs of New York and will provide this incredible program at no-cost to the schools. The exciting news is that applications are being accepted now for Title I schools in the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island. If you know a school that could benefit, please pass it on. (My kids' public schools are not eligible as they are in Brooklyn, otherwise I might be keeping this to myself!)

Learn more about the fabulous program at Edible Schoolyard and spread the word about their new grant, deadline February 28, 2012. 

You can support the wonderful work of either Stephen Ritz, Bronx Green Machine by buying a cool T-shirt or Edible Schoolyard NYC with a donation. 

What I Learned on the Way to the Health Fair

Last week, I talked to parents at the first of a series of spring health workshops that eatdinner.org is involved in. Parents were eager to learn more about healthy choices for their kids, despite where they fell along the spectrum of healthy eating behavior. One mom talked to me about her fight to get her child to even try a whole grain bagel, with a tone that suggested she was losing the battle. Another said she offered healthy foods every day and her kids happily ate everything, but she was always in need of fresh ideas. One grandma said that her grandkids wouldn't touch anything but mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, and that she was going to pick up all my handouts to give to her daughter anyway. All typical challenges that parents face.

Every single person I talked to was relieved to just chat about ideas and solutions, rather than having me lecture them about strict "right" and "wrongs." I began many sentences with "I'm a parent, I know how hard it can be...." or "My youngest is the pickiest, but here is what worked for us..." Happily other parents also joined in the discussion, sharing tricks and tips, including some ideas that were new to me.

Understanding the real challenges of parents and meeting them where they cannot be underrated.  If we are going to engage parents to improve their children's eating habits, it boils down to this:

What parents need to be empowered:

• Validation of their efforts. 
• Support, not guilt (Believe me, moms have enough guilt already!)
• Positive activities, like family dinner, to encourage healthy eating with their kids
• Good, unbiased information on health choices
• New ideas for snacks and family-friendly dinner recipes

One of the messages of this blog is that parents are powerful. True, parents are harried, busy and sometimes confused over the various health choices they face for their kids. Nonetheless, parents have more influence than they think in setting good examples and making the right choices for their kids. Let's work with parents as allies, giving them what they need to make the best choices for their kids. That's one way to make in-roads in the huge problem of childhood obesity and poor nutrition among kids.


Resources and Handouts:
In addition to promoting the benefits of family dinner, I talked about healthy snacks for kids and healthy portion sizes. Here are links to some of the material I used.

25 Healthy Snacks for Kids  From eatright.org, American Dietetic Association

Help Your Child Stay at a Healthy Weight From healthfinder.gov

Family Friendly Blogs with Recipes From eatdinner.org

Rainbow Stew from Aviva Goldfarb, PBS Kitchen Explorers

Today I Ate a Rainbow Kit (15% off with discount code: eatdinner until April 15, 2011)

Fruits and Veggies More Matters website

12 Smart Ways to Right-Size Your Portions From EatSmartMoveMoreNC.org, found on www.wellnessproposals.com

I Heart Fruit, Straight Up from Kindergarten

Fruit Heart from my little Kindergartner

My 5 year old daughter brought this drawing home yesterday from school. It may be a bit hard to make out, but it's a pink heart surrounding a fruit bowl. Before I could ask her what it was about, she excitedly reported that they were having a contest to name the school's salad bar and that she decided it to make this, because "I L-O-V-E all the fruits!" Wow, even if I didn't spend all day trying to promote healthy family eating, I think I would be bursting with pride.

I would like to take all the credit for my kid loving fruit, but remember she's the "picky one." So I dare not or I might jinx myself and we'll be back to mac and cheese requests every night. Really, though, I think kids naturally love fruit and simple exposure to good, fresh, in-season fruit will convince most kids to eat it with joy. We as parents (and educators at school) have to decide that fresh fruit is a worthwhile snack than can be available all the time, despite its slightly higher cost and perishable nature.

We have a rule in our house The fruit bowl is always open.  I try to have 2 or 3 big bowls of fruit out on the counter in easy access all the time. Honestly it disappears. Standards are bananas, apples, and, now, clementines; I keep washed grapes in a big bowl in the fridge. For dessert, we'll sometimes have harder to prepare fruit like mango, pineapple, or last night, we had starfruit, which tastes a bit like kiwi, but in a really cool shape. My kids also love berries and whipped cream, which is still a healthy dessert option. The fruit balances out the whipped cream by far!

Starfruit, cool shape.

The biggest complaint I hear about fruit is the cost. Fresh fruit can be expensive. But really, if you compared fruit to most cookies or pre-packaged snacks, they are very comparable in price. Most cookies are at least 3 or 4 dollars a box; if you cost out the packaged snacks, most are 50 cents or $1 a piece. Somehow it's OK for a cookie pack to cost this much, but an apple at 75 cents is too expensive? Really, we have to change our mind set. Reducing packaged foods is the real way to cut a grocery bill, and sticking with fresh fruits and vegetables often will end up being comparable in cost, or even cheaper, and much healthier to boot.

Fruit is perishable, though, and I understand that busy parents who go shopping only once a week don't want to throw good money away. Below I have some tips for buying and storing fruit, and plus ideas for getting your child to eat more of it!

Ten Tips for Buying, Storing and Eating Fruit:
1. Buy fruit in varying stages of ripeness, if you can. Ideally, some fruit will be ready the day you buy it, and some fruit will ripen over the week, so that you and your kids can eat the best fruit as it becomes ripe.
2. If freshness is waning but the fruit is still good, stick it in the fridge. This will help it keep another couple of days.
3. Don't forget about fruit in the fridge! Since the kids may not see it to grab it, you may have to remember to cut it up and serve as snacks, or with breakfast.
3. In general, fruit keeps better unwashed. Teach your kids to give it a rinse before eating.
4. Use an apple corer. For some reason, fruit slices are much more enjoyable for snacking. Once I bought an apple corer, my kids' apple consumption doubled! Also keep the skin on because it has lots of vitamins. If the apple is cored, a skin hater can still just eat the inside, though half the time, my daughter still eats the whole slice, skin and all.
5. Slightly damaged fruit can be saved to use in smoothies or in fruit sauce. I cut out the brown parts and either freeze or, if I have enough, I throw in a pot to make sauce for pancakes. One or two apples or pears with a little water and sugar can make a quick and delicious sauce to be used for a weekend pancakes.
6. Many fresh fruits can be frozen at home. If strawberries are on sale, you can buy two packages and freeze one. They don't taste quite as good defrosted, but they are still good for you and can be used frozen in smoothies or thawed over cereal or in a fruit dessert.
7. Figure out the fruits that your kids like and always get them. Fruit should be like milk and bread, something you always get. Make it a new habit. Don't get stuck thinking your kid doesn't like fruit just because they don't like the red delicious apples at the cafeteria. (In case you didn't know, red delicious apples mostly stink; they are the biggest misnomer in the fruit world!) Gala apples are kid favorites, so are golden delicious, but there are lots of other varieties to explore.
8. Add new fruits every once in a while to expand their interest. Right now, there are lots of choices in citrus, so try some varieties of oranges that you haven't before. Tangelos and blood oranges can be amazing and you may be surprised that kids actually like the sour-sweet combination. (There are some popular candies on the market that exploit this.)
9. Fruit is best when it is local and in-season. In season fruit tends to be cheaper and taste the best. But in the winter time, it may not be possible to only eat locally, and still actually eat fruit. As a mom and as someone who promotes healthy eating, I am still in favor of eating fruit year around.
10. Increase the times you give fruit to your child. Fruit can be served with breakfast, packed in lunches, and offered for dessert. It's not just an in-between snack.

More great resources for learning more and making eating fruit and veggies fun!
Today I Ate a Rainbow Kit This kit that encourages your kid to get eat the colors of the rainbow, everyday.
The Produce Geek: Sign up for weekly newsletter on what to eat now.
Fruits and Veggies More Matters website has lots of tips and ideas for increasing the number of fruits and veggies in your life.

Spread Vegetable Love: Eat Veggies Plain or with "the Flavor"

How to get kids, and their parents, to eat vegetables: that's been a topic of much debate in the blogosphere lately. Jane Brody of the NYTimes recently wrote a lament that basically argued that people should know what's good for them and take their vegetable medicine. Many in the foodie blog community (Daniel Koontz of Causal Kitchen,  Jolly Tomato), as well as over 600 NYT readers, called her on it, stating "Can we please stop calling vegetables bad and rejoice in them?" In another thread, One Hungry Mama called for straight up vegetable love rather than teaching parents that veggies must be "sneaked' into cooking in order to be consumed by kids. I agree; we need more vegetable love.

Vegetables are delicious. Period. True, vegetables may require a bit more cooking skill and adults may have to open their minds a bit to get over old habits. If your working memory of vegetables runs something like spinach=canned or stringy frozen=punishment, go get yourself some fresh spinach, wash it well, and lightly steam. It is a totally different experience. True, organic and fresh food can be expensive, but getting sick is expensive too. Healthy food helps you and your family stay healthy. True, many kids balk at vegetables. But just remember that kids may have to be exposed to lots of veggies, lots of times (like 10+) in order to love them. There are easy ways to make kid-friendly, great-tasting vegetables and serve them from infancy onward.

My older kids love vegetables. Maybe they are "weird" or maybe it's because they have eaten them from baby-hood. (I used a blender to make babyfood or the Happy Baby Food Mill to crunch up everything right at the table.) My youngest, though I hate to admit it, is the picky one. She takes a lot of coaxing on vegetables, just like everything else. We call the bok choy "baby boy choy" even if it's not. We just give her the more tender leaves of a Chinese vegetable, not the stems. We let her open up the green beans and just eat the tiny little "pea" inside, tossing the rest away. After all the coaxing, there's a lot of ignoring. She often loudly declares that she doesn't like it, or worse, throws the offending thing off her plate. We firmly say "That's not allowed," and go into the "ignoring" portion of the dinner. We basically say you can eat it or not, but you can't be rude. And every night, we keep offerring her whatever vegetable we have on the table and steel ourselves for her discontent.

She is now 5 years old and this vegetable battle has been going on for maybe 2 or 3 years now. It can be wearing. But we do have some triumphs to report. She will now ask for salad (likes the carrot shreds and the tomatoes, sometimes the lettuce), she loves edamame, and she regularly eats broccoli, spinach, and the baby leaves from many Chinese vegetables. Her favorite dish is "Broccoli with the Flavor." Not just her favorite vegetable dish, her favorite thing to eat, period. My husband devised this stir-fry method, which my dear daughter dubbed "Broccoli with the Flavor." When I asked him to walk me through the steps of the recipe, he warned,"This is a seriously complicated way to make broccoli." But she loves it and your kids might too.

Broccoli with the Flavor
1 Head of Broccoli, sliced into florets, retaining some stem
2 Tablespoons Canola Oil
2 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly or minced
1 teaspoon of soy sauce

Parboil broccoli: Cook in boiling water for 3 minutes. Promptly remove and run under cold water, spin dry in a lettuce spinner, if you have one. Otherwise, pat with paper towels to remove excess water.

Stir-Fry: Heat wok or saute pan until hot. Add canola oil and quickly saute garlic for 10 seconds, careful not to burn it. Toss in dried broccoli, scraping up the bottom to mix garlic, oil and vegetable. Cook this way for maybe 1 minute. Lower heat and add soy sauce. Toss for another 30 to 1 minute and serve.

PS: If I'm cooking, I just steam up the broccoli (try not to overcook!) and toss with a little butter, salt and pepper. She'll ate that too.

Spread Veggie Love!

Links to Veggie Debate and Resources for Cooking Veggies for Kids:

• Jane Brody, Even Benefits Don't Tempt Us to Vegetables, 10.04.10, NYT and Response: Learning to Love Vegetables: Readers Weigh In. 11.01.10, NYT
• Tara Parker Pope: NYT Well Blog Response on Debate, 11.01.10
• Fruit and Veggies: More Matters! Great website with lots of articles and info. Top Ten Reasons to Eat More Vegetables!
• One Hungry Mama: Many great recipes and tips for feeding kids healthy, fun food, with lots of veggies and some treats too. Here's a recent kid friendly recipe: Squash Rings that look like Onion Rings!
• Casual Kitchen Blog: Told to Eat Its Vegetables, the NYT wrings its hands. 09.27.10
• Simple Bites and Jolly Tomato take on Brussel Sprouts.
• Feed Our Families Blog with Colorful Rainbow Veggies and a great chart of health benefits, in partnership with a Today I Ate a Rainbow contest.

Just Cook: Knife Skills for Parent and Child

This week I came across a couple of videos about basic knife skills that I hope will offer inspiration: one for parent, one for child.

Having family dinner can be sabotaged by many things, but two persistent threats are cooking skills of the parent and attention spans of the kids. Many parents feel unable to cook and then feel overwhelmed by the daily process of making a home meal. But like any skill, cooking skills can be developed slowly and surely over time with great reward. Jamie Oliver has a great series of videos related to his new book 30 minute meals that can help round out your basic cooking skills. This one's on knife use.


Getting kids involved in the kitchen at the end of a long day can be a harder trick, but a useful one becuase they are engaged, learning and helping out. Kids do want to help out in the kitchen, but it often just adds to a parent's sense of stress. To relax and get them involved, it helps to have a few tricks to engage your child safely in the kitchen. I sometimes have my youngest put already-chopped vegetables into little bowls for a simplified mise en place or have her measure out the ingredients for simple sauces and stir. As she gets older, I may be inspired by J.M. Hirsch's book and video High Flavor, Low Labor to move her up to knife skills!





Thanks for the video tips from The Lunch Tray and from my tweep @FoodiePatootie.

Family Dinner Day 2010: Celebrate, Move Forward

Plan to have dinner with your family this Monday, September 27, 2010 as part of CASA's National Family Dinner Day. I know this is preaching to the choir, because many readers and followers are having dinner with their families (almost) every night anyway. Still, take a moment to reflect on why family dinner is important to you and to pat yourself on the back for making the effort for yourself and your family. Then, think about what we can do to promote family dinner more widely.

The media laments that "no one" eats dinner together anymore and that our busy lives are to blame. There are periodic news stories or articles that run down the statistics on why it is important for kids and their families to have meals together and gloss over the various barriers to family dinner: technology, work schedules, sports schedules, commuting, to name a few. Yet, those who actually have dinner with their families can feel isolated, as if modern busy families are all too focused on other tasks to bother with the routine of family dinner.

I have had many people thank me for working on this issue, for publicly supporting family dinner as important. I almost feel like "family dinner" is in the closet. The people who have family dinner are loathe to talk about it, feeling perhaps like they represent some throw-back, traditional family or that they would be "bragging" to admit this special feat.  Then families who aren't able to swing dinner together very often, for whatever reason, may feel guilty or defensive that they aren't meeting some "family dinner standard." So they don't want to talk about it either.

These little demons cut both ways:

"Gosh, you must have such a boring, un-busy life if you can manage family dinner every night. Do you wear an apron too?"
"Do you realize that not having dinner every night with your kids will doom them to failure for life?! Little Johnny will probably be doing drugs by the time he is 10. Are you ready to live with that?"
"Only well-off, upper middle classes families can afford the time and money it takes to put family dinner together."
"Only low-income immigrant families eat dinner together."
"My kids need sports and afterschool activities to be healthy and competitive in high school and college. These things are good for them; how can they possibly do both?"

Guilt, as the new age gurus say, is a useless emotion, though one that I, as a lapsed Catholic who married a Jew, know a lot about. Family dinner is not about guilt; it's not even about doing what's right for your kids, although that is a happy side bonus. I think it's what's right for mom and dad too as part of building a family life. My motto is: try family dinner, make it a priority, give it a chance. Talk about it, share stories and support and recipes with other families. Family dinner norms for 2010 are not a "Norman Rockwell" scene, but something quite different. It's about finding that happy medium of "busy, yet got your priorities straight," a balance that seems so hard to manage for parents today.

The bottom line is: Many families are not eating dinner together and we need to decipher why not. There are obvious reasons: families are busy and crunched for time and money. But like the obesity paradox, where low income families who do not have enough food are also likely to be obese rather than stick-thin, I think there is more to it than that. From a public health perspective, more can and should be done to influence, support, and encourage families at all income levels to make the effort to create healthy family dinner traditions. So promote National Family Dinner Day (09.27.10), live what you preach and spread the message. 

Friday Fan Club: School Lunch Reform

Back to school is on my mind as are all the issues around feeding our families breakfast, lunch and dinner. So this post is a shout-out to some of the bloggers, twitter mavens, and policy wonks who are advocating for real change in the lunch room.

School lunch is a personal issue for me now as my youngest started Kindergarten at a large public school this week.  I'm packing her lunch, in a special new lunch box, just like I did for her in pre-K. Much to my chagrin, lunch is turning out to be her least favorite part of the day. The food isn't the issue; it's the same heart-shaped jelly sandwiches or cheese sticks and veggies. The problem is the loud, chaotic nature of being in a big cafeteria, with literally hundreds of kids doing lots of things that might not be eating. It's hard to celebrate and enjoy lunch when you are hunkered down. It makes me think a bit about how environment affects how much and how well kids are eating in the school cafeteria. That hotly-debated chocolate milk is perhaps a comfort food, for reasons beyond sugar.

Most school lunch reformers are trying to change the larger system and improve the food that's presented to all kids as they pass their cafeteria trays through the line. For families that can't pack lunch from home, schools should be able to provide good food. School lunch reform advocates have been making progress locally, with fresh ideas like salad bars and farm-to-school collaborations. Nationally, there is a big push for more money and improved guidelines in the Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR). Recess and outdoor play, either after or before lunch, is another important piece of keeping kids healthy and ready to learn during school time. It's great that these issues are finally getting attention and action.

For my own child, I hope I can use her little lunch box as a token of home amid the confusion of "big-kid" school. To be sure, planning and packing healthy from-home lunches everyday is a hassle and it adds to the daily morning juggle. But, like family dinner, I think it's worth it. When a friend asked if I was packing lunch, I expected her to remark on the poor quality of institutional school lunch. Instead, she said, "Food from home can be such a comfort." Words of wisdom.

School Lunch Reformers (and Moms/Dads who pack great lunches!) that I Follow
(Please add to this list in comment section!)
Fed Up With Lunch
One Hungry Mama Back to School Lunch Post
The Lunch Tray 
Healthy Schools Campaign
Time For Lunch Slow Food USA
Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
The Lunch Box
What's Cooking Blog
Brooklyn Food Coalition School Reform Group
Bento Lunch
Today I Ate a Rainbow
Jolly Tomato

Just Cook: Easy Calzones that Even Kids Can Make

Two Aprons Video

Family Dinner Tip: Get the kids involved. These girls are too cute and aptly demonstrate that kids can cook in the kitchen, especially with some advanced preparations. These calzones would be in the oven in less than 20 minutes, add a salad and you are done.

Calzones
Store-bought pizza dough, cut into 2 or 4 pieces depending on size of calzone
Grated Mozarella cheese
Any other pizza fillings you like: veggies, pepperoni, etc.
Tomato sauce (optional, but I like it for dipping)

Roll out dough, Add fillings with cheese and pinch closed. Cook for approx. 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

Note: The girls don't say oven temp in their video, so I guessed a hot oven. Bittman says to cook calzones at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Pick one and keep a close watch.

Wednesday Videos: Menu Planning Reality TV

Mark Bittman posted a column on Babble last week with 5 tough-love tips for parents who want to make family dinner a priority. I agree with his sentiments, but several commentators, rightly, pointed out that his list didn't actually include any helpful tips for how to get dinner on the table quickly, night after night.

Many cooks swear by menu planning as the answer to making sure family dinner happens every night without fuss. The basic instructions are simple: 1) take time on Sunday to plan for the week, 2) use your plan to create a shopping list, 3) stick with the plan through the week. The Menu Plan can help you be organized and maybe even get a jump on prepping for some meals ahead of time. It can also be a platform to get your partner and older kids to help out. If everyone knows what is on the menu, tasks can be assigned beforehand, so that they can chip in. Older kids can be taught to wash vegetables or start the water for pasta when you are on your way home, for instance.

I found two videos on menu planning that were so funny in contrast to each other. The first shows a regular mom who happens to live in New Zealand. She swears by menu planning as a money-saver; that's another bonus. She eschews paying a menu planning service (that are abundant on the internet) and just opts for a simple printed chart tacked to the frig. Low production values, but very honest, real, and practical.


Reality Menu Planning


The second video is pure fantasy.  Put together by Parents magazine with sponsorship (Bertolli says make pasta, pasta, pasta!), the production values are better: nice shots of well-groomed kids and mom (an actress?) in kitchen and grocery store. She, too, is basically describing a piece of paper that becomes a menu plan and a shopping list. The fantasy part is that the kids are so helpful and that there's time to let them help with the shopping, help with the meal prep, and you can even boost their writing skills if they write the list for you! Kids can definitely pitch in: setting the table, clearing the dishes,  and during well-planned and practiced food prep. But having kids help is not really a time- or work-savers as any cooking parent knows! It's teaching them to cook which is valuable, but not often possible in a time-crunch situation. Still, it's a good idea to involve kids in the planning; each kid can recommend a dish for the week and then you plan how they can be of help with actually cooking it. Realistically, this can probably happen once a week, depending on the age of your kids and the time frame you have between getting home and making dinner. (Maybe Friday night or a weekend meal is Kid's Choice night.) Similarly, the trip to the grocery store is cute, but also pretty laughable in reality. Unless it's a trip to the farmer's market or a health store, the kids may sabotage your healthy pantry and your budget!


Fantasy Menu Planning

Do you menu plan? Feel free to write in with your own menu planning tips.

Orgjunkie.com also has some great menu planning tips under Menu Plan Monday.

Just Cook: Easy Fruit Crumble with Kids

To encourage readers who may be reluctant home cooks, I've decided to periodically post cooking videos that will show easy recipes you can create with or without your kids.  This video from Kids and Cooking channel on YouTube and www.kidsandcooking.co.uk.



I like how she does the set-up before the kids get involved in the cooking. Helps keep it organized and fun for even the youngest children. True, it's more like a class or special activity than everyday cooking. But this recipe is so simple, it's a great way to get started cooking with your kids, especially if you've been reluctant to try it! Also it's very flexible recipe, so you can use seasonal fruits or whatever is on hand.

Ingredients: (amounts can vary based on size of dishes)
Fruit (Apples and Strawberries, or any other)
Flour
Butter
Sugar
Water
Small Tins or Baking Dishes

Latest links and news on family dinner

I've been posting a lot of interesting news, research and tips about family dinner on my Facebook fan page (Eat Dinner.org) and Twitter (eatdinner). Here's a few recent links. Happy reading!

New Kids Mag: Chop Chop: Getting Kids in Kitchen always a good idea!

Miriam Weinstein's book "The Surprising Power of Family Meals" is a favorite; now a blog and family meal website

Family dinner pep talk. Great, non-judgmental advice for starting family dinners

Journal of Pediatrics study: Structured family meals help kids eat veggies and have good body weight

10 pitfalls to avoid for picky eaters, no.8 is the best. bring that baby to the table!

University of Minnesota Study on Parenting Styles and Family Dinner: Authoritative Style (set rules and routine, but also empathetic and listening) did best with family dinner. Picked up by Babble Editors and many others. Official press release here.