A Few of My Favorite Things

Today's Blog inspiration was this morning's episode of The Splendid Table on NRP.

This is a summary of today's program from the show's web site:

In 2010, the British chef Jamie Oliver did a TV series about Huntington, West Virginia, called Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Huntington had been named the unhealthiest town in America by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the series, Oliver set out to change how the entire city ate, especially targeting school lunch.

Jane Black, a food writer, and her husband, Brent Cunningham, deputy editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, wondered about the show's aftermath. They are writing a book about how to bring a healthier food culture to middle America.

The movement to bring healthy food to our children is now not just a west coast-east coast elite movement. So many times in my efforts to bring awareness of the impact healthy food has on our children, I am met with resistance. Teachers will often frown, wince, and roll their eyes when parents insist that children have organic milk at school. It often seems that perhaps the movement for healthy food is a class issue and only the elite care. The work that Jamie Oliver did in Huntington, West Virginia proves otherwise. 

When he first observed the school lunches and breakfasts served to children, he saw so much of the food being thrown out by children. As a visiting artist at many, many public schools, I often saw the same scenario, The smells of the cafeteria food was often nauseating. 

Jamie Oliver was able to change the food offerings in the Huntington schools. Once Huntington children were offered healthy foods, they ate their lunches! Because healthy food tastes so good!

http://www.splendidtable.org/story/to-change-food-culture-in-the-us-does-the-messenger-matter

My "mentors" in the quest for feeding babies and toddlers wholesome, attractive food have been books. My absolute favorite is Bebe Gourmet. The photography is inviting and the writing and recipes are very accessible. I appreciate the section on frequently asked questions and the tips for making the toddler dishes adult friendly. I have served many of the fruit coulis over yogurt to rave reviews at dinner parties with adult friends.

Other terrific cookbooks are The River Cottage Baby and Toddler Cookbook.

And a new favorite (check out the Vegetable Baby Broth) is the petit appetit cookbook: Easy Organic Recipes to Nurture your Baby and Toddler. The book has so many basic "how-to's", that it is well worth the expense of the book. I also love the author,

Lisa Barnes',  blog: http://petit-appetit.blogspot.com/

My Inspirations!

Opening up the New York Times Magazine yesterday, I was thrilled to read the article by Marc Bittman: Getting Your Kids to Eat (or at Least Try) Everything!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/magazine/getting-your-kids-to-eat-or-at-least-try-everything.html

I have taught pre-schoolers, infants and  toddlers in two wonderful settings in New York City, at both Williamsburg-Northside Schools and The Children's Learning Center at Morningside Heights. And the hottest topic (next to, "will they ever sleep through the night?") of parent conversations is all about food!
Food was an important part of growing up for me back in the fifties. Everything was made at home and my great-grandmother, Grace, who lived with us during the winter months, had owned and run her own bakery in Washington D.C.  When Grandmother Grace retired, she worked at the legendary Reeves bakery in D.C. Grace loved to tell us stories about the famous children who bought baked goods at Reeves, including the actress Helen Hayes! The smell of concord grapes, which are in season now, always brings back the memory of Grandmother Grace making grape jelly at this time of the year.
At Williamsburg-Northside School, many parents own restaurants and the hot Williamsburg restaurant scene impacts children's eating preferences. I overheard a four year old child say that his favorite food was kimchee! We did a study of chocolate in the preschool that included fermenting the beans in banana leaves and traveling to a raw chocolate factory!
At the Children's Learning Center in Morningside Heights, where I presently work as an Infant-Toddler teacher, we have embarked on a study of Dough: Grains for Living.
The babies and toddlers in our care have been making and playing with play-doughs and mixing and kneading doughs for the baking of breads.
We embarked on the dough project with a Scottish Scone recipe from the James Beard Bread Book and substituted sweet potatoes rather than using white potatoes for optimal nutrition. Sweet potatoes are a super-food that can be used with your family in so many ways. Purees are great for babies and toddlers enjoy eating firmer baked, steamed, or roasted "french fry" style sweet potatoes. When I worked in Trenton, NJ, a highlight was going out for lunch at a local Italian restaurant (that sadly closed) that made a rich sweet potato soup with sherry and brown sugar.
Sweet Potato Scones

Based on a traditional Scottish potato scone recipe, cooked on a griddle and generally eaten along with a breakfast of bacon, egg, sausage, and other traditional Scottish delicacies like, black pudding.
Ingredients
1½ cups warm mashed sweet potatoes
1/3 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
Directions

Mix the mash potatoes, butter, salt and flour until thoroughly blended.
Divide the dough into parts.  Using rolling pin, turn onto a floured surface (sprinkle some flour to make sure consistence is correct and doesn’t stick), roll out into two circles about ¼” thick.  Cut each circle into eight pie parts.  Cook for several minutes each side on a hot-floured griddle or skillet.

Leave to cool but serve warm with butter

Sweet Potato Scones