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20 Recipes Kids Should Know — Review

rosihollinbeck

Thought for the Day:

“Failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something.”
~ Morihei Ueshiba ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

It is always a good idea to inject humor into your writing, but doing it well isn’t easy. The Creative Penn has a good post HERE with some hints about humor.

Greg Pattridge has a terrific post HERE with good advice and wonderful links to help you get ready to pitch your book.

Ashlee Willis has a good post HERE talking about self-editing. It’s always helpful to see how others go through this process.

I hope you all had a good holiday weekend last week. The week before, I drove my gas-sipping Prius back from Minnesota after my daughter used it to deliver my grandson to school at Bemidji State University. He is having a great time and loves it so much there, he says he will never move back to California. We shall see how he feels the end of February. Anyway, driving nearly 2000 miles in under three days at my age kind of takes my energy away. I needed last weekend to do absolutely nothing, so that’s what I did. Thus, no blog post and I didn’t even get to visit other people’s blogs. I am so far behind on my email. But at least I’m back to blogging!

Last time I posted, I offered a gently-read ARC of Simon Grey and the March of a Hundred Ghosts by Charles Kowalski to one of you. The winner this time is Donna Gwinnell Lambo -Weidner.  Congratulations, Donna! I will get your book out to you soon. If you don’t know Donna, she is a children’s writer from the Bay Area. You can read more about her HERE and visit her wonderful blog as well.

20 recipesThe book I want to tell you about this week is not the sort of thing I usually choose, but I knew my granddaughter could use a book like this, so when I saw it come up for review for the San Francisco Book Review, I snapped it up. It is 20 Recipes Kids Should Know written by Esme Washburn and photographed by Calista Washburn — sisters aged 12 and 17 respectively when the book was written. Here is the review I wrote for SFBR.

Little kids love to help in the kitchen, stirring and measuring and whatever they can do. But they tend to lose that interest as they get a little older. Perhaps it’s because they want to do things independently, but they might not have the knowledge and skills to finish entire dishes on their own. Au contraire! This wonderful book has twenty terrific recipes kids 10 and up will be able to complete on their own. Seven sections contain recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Appetizers, Mains, Sides, Desserts, and More. The introduction has some basics and safety tips as well as a glossary. The recipes are not dumbed down, but will really teach kids how to put together entire meals with real food that is healthy and tasty. Readers will even learn to make fresh pasta! But perhaps the best is that the book is written by a twelve-year-old chef and the gorgeous photographs were taken by her seventeen-year-old sister. The Heavenly Hummus is truly heavenly and the Popovers that Pop! really do. So, take the night off, Mom and Dad, and send your kids to the kitchen with this great cookbook.

sisters-cooking-together
This is the only photo I could find, and it does not identify which sister is which.

I can’t give away every book I get. This one is going to my granddaughter. I hope she uses it! If you are reading this in your email, please click HERE to get to my blog, then click on the title of the post, and leave a comment. And don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at the Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.

Published by rosihollinbeck

20 thoughts on “20 Recipes Kids Should Know — Review”

  2. This sounds like a great book. My daughter and I used a different fun cookbook to get her into cooking when she was in grade school. It was so much fun! Thanks for sharing this one. I’ll keep it in mind when I have grandkids to cook with.

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  3. I also enjoyed this book and even tried out one of the recipes with success. I hope this young chef eventually opens up her own restaurant. I’d be a regular.
    Thanks for including the link to my critique post. I’d like to do more helpful ones like this but am limited by the number of reviews I have agreed to write. The other two links were also useful as I’m always infusing humor into my manuscripts and currently editing one.

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  9. This book sounds delicious! That’s awesome it was done by kids. I’m enjoying watching cooking shows where young chefs can do things in the kitchen I’ve never tried. I love to try new recipes–in fact today I’m making vegetarian chili in my crockpot, using a recipe I made up, so we’ll see how my peeps enjoy. I did miss you last week, so I’m glad you’re back!

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  10. I’m sure your granddaughter (and her parents) will enjoy the book. I’ll look for a copy for my youngest granddaughter. Maybe she’ll be inspired to help her Mom in the kitchen and to try some new foods. I’m glad you got home safe and well.

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