Wednesday, December 5, 2012

replacement kid-friendly food magazine

So since Everyday Food wrecked my cooking-with-kids plan, I've been on the lookout for a replacement and/or supplement to the now-quarterly-instead-of-monthly format for EF. I may have found a contender:

Chopchop: the fun cooking magazine for families

I've requested some issues from the library to see if they will fit the bill (or have anything in them that I would be willing to eat if my kids cook it). As it is only a quarterly publication, I could see using it and the now-quarterly status of Everyday Food together to advance our project.

There's also a series of chef skills on DIY.org that I plan to go through with each kid. They are more open ended and fundamental skill based than following a recipe and so require a bit more planning on our part than simply opening up a magazine and following instructions. So I'm thinking it will be better to try and accomplish these during school breaks, rather than in the midst of the chaos of a school week.

UPDATE:
I looked over four issues of Chopchop and it isn't going to cut it for my kids. It's more pitched toward a younger age group (say 5-8 year olds) and for kids who are far less suspicious of food than mine are. Even with engaging writing and nice step by step instructions you aren't going to convince my kids to make kale smoothies (hell, they won't eat a basic smoothie) or anchovy vinaigrette (since they won't eat that most basic substance: ranch dressing). The recipes lean towards the excessively healthy--always substituting greek yogurt for sour cream, hardly any salt used--and I wasn't convinced that some of their recipes would taste good (a bean soup so basic that it didn't look too appealing to me). It's probably terrific for a different audience (one of my son's friends, who loves food and cooking, would have probably really enjoyed the magazine when he was little), but I'm still on the lookout for another publication.

2 comments:

  1. I got sent a trial copy of Chop Chop and I felt the same way about it. Have you looked at Eating Well yet? I started getting it and I really like it.

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  2. I'm going to get a couple of copies out of the library and see if it will fill the gap. Thanks for the rec!

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