Confidence in the Kitchen: Sharing Cooking Experiences with Your Preschool Child

Karmel, Annabel. Favorite Family Meals. New  York, Atria Books, 2005.

ISBN: 0-7432-7518-7

Overall rating schema here is on a scale of 1-10.  (1 too “cutesy:” seems to insult intelligence of adult and child – 10 imaginative and forward-thinking towards building actual cooking skills).

Overall ratings:  Culinary Interest-Building: 5   Recipe Quality: 6

From the introduction, “These recipes don’t require split-second timing, special skills, or expensive equipment, and most of them can be prepared in less than 30 minutes.” I haven’t tested the time limit, and am skeptical whenever this claim is made.

Karmel’s overall philosophy for eating is to make food choices according to food pyramid. In the detailed forward explaining her outlook, she makes suggestions as to what to keep in your pantry.

Karmel has a designation on certain recipes of “kids in the kitchen” which denotes a recipe which could be prepared by an older cook. However, instead of encouraging kids to be involved in the kitchen, Favorite Family Meals  is rather a guidebook to making healthful meals the family will enjoy. The chapter headings of her text are: Breakfast Suggestions, Soups Snacks and Lunch Boxes, Pasta, Poultry, Meat, Fish, Low Fat, Vegetarian, Cakes and Cookies, Desserts. Many healthful and mouth-watering recipes are included. Two particularly interesting recipes are Bow-Tie Pasta with Peas and Prosciutto, and Basket weave Chicken Breasts (chicken in a parboiled carrot & zucchini wrapper which is very pretty).

Visually, the cookbook is very attractive with loads of color photographs and easily readable text. Any cooking to be done with a young child will require forethought and re-thinking the cooking directions on your part. There are times when you just want to crank out a good meal on your own, and this text would certainly aid you in that goal.