“It is Spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” ~ Rilke
Good morning, Poetry Friends, and Happy Spring!
More than a few rabbits have invaded the Alphabet Soup kitchen but we don’t mind in the least. Thought we’d ease into Easter Weekend by serving up an iconic Mary Oliver poem and some delicious baked french toast.
In this season of renewal, growth, and fresh starts, it’s good to remind ourselves that something wonderful may be waiting for us just over the horizon. As someone once said, “you can’t turn back the clock, but you can wind it up again.”
So let’s toast this new morning, this new day, with all the positive energy we can muster up and nourish ourselves with food for the mind, heart, body, and spirit.
This gorgeous photo essay features an adorable, diverse group of kids reveling in the pleasures of growing, preparing and eating healthful foods. They’re shown in a variety of everyday settings (kitchen, playground, grocery store, garden) stirring oatmeal, pouring milk, devouring fruits, sandwiches, pizza, yogurt, and soup (!), picking fresh veggies, assembling tacos and green salads, making fruit shakes and freezer pops, even reading package labels in the supermarket. Just look at those happy, eager faces on the cover — who wouldn’t want to eat exactly what they’re eating?
Of course since it’s actually parents and caregivers who buy and cook the food, Shelley and Sheila have also included helpful tips for them, all in accordance with the new USDA MyPlate Guidelines. Additional photos showing kids engaged in active play illustrates the importance of daily exercise along with a healthy diet, reinforcing the overall theme of “Good Food Makes Me Strong!”
I’m happy to welcome Shelley and Sheila, who are here today to tell us about how they created Yummy! You’ll be inspired to share this delectable book and eat some feel-good food with your favorite munchkin(s) very soon!
Note: Because of copyright restrictions, the photos used in this post are close facsimiles rather than actual photos from Yummy!.
They’re light and buttery, a little chewy, just a touch of brown around the edges. The fragrance of vanilla and cinnamon wafts through the kitchen as they gently puff up in the oven.
Some describe it as a soft, old-fashioned sugar cookie; some say they are neither cookie nor cake, but most agree that Southern tea cakes are all about childhood, family, and a big ole batch of feel-good memories. If a bite of Southern cuisine could hug you, the tea cake would be it.
I would be lying if I didn’t confess that Tea Cakes for Tosh (Putnam, 2012) had me at the title along with the picture of the grandmother and grandson on the cover. Certainly their special bond is the heartbeat of this tender, multi-layered intergenerational tale so lovingly told by Kelly Starling Lyons and masterfully illustrated by Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Award winner E.B. Lewis.
What do you do when even your dog won’t eat your math homework?
Eat it yourself, of course! If you’re someone who shudders at the mere mention of fractions, integers, algorithms, formulas and polygons, you’ll be happy to know you can actually eat your way to a better understanding of these concepts and have a lot of fun doing it. 🙂
Author Ann McCallum and illustrator Leeza Hernandez, math chefs extraordinaire and creators of the delightfully delectable, Eat Your Math Homework: Recipes for Hungry Minds (Charlesbridge, 2011), are here today to take the lid off the dreaded “fear of mathematics.”
Their charmingly illustrated, yummy collection of edible math projects, served up with generous sides of kitchen tips, fun facts, and chewy appeteasers makes what is often puzzling palatable and transforms numerical drudgery into drool-worthy deliciousness.
Getting past the anxiety of numerators, denominators, diameters and circumferences is as easy as whipping up a batch of Fraction Chips — cutting fried tortillas into equal pieces to share with your friends. Learn about the very cool Fibonacci sequence by skewering the right number of strawberries, marshmallows, grapes or any other favorite snack onto sticks. Yum!
Help yourself to a Fibonacci Snack Stick, or two, or three . . .
Understanding constants and variables is duck soup when you make your very own Variable Pizza Pi, and don’t even get me started on the Tessellating Two-Color Brownies. Not sure what tessellations are? Chocolate is the answer, my friend. I love how this book shows kids the beauty of math at work in everyday life. Pass me another brownie, please. 🙂
#46 in on ongoing series of posts celebrating the alphabet.
Food + ABCs together in one book — what could be better?
Steve Charney and David Goldbeck serve up a fun and delectable two course meal sure to satisfy a variety of appetites in The ABC’s of Fruits and Vegetables and Beyond (Ceres Press, 2007). This alphabet book with extended activities contains just the right ingredients to feed hungry minds and hopefully get kids excited about incorporating more fruits and veggies in their diet.
In Part One, (the first “course”), Charney presents a chewy, crunchy, giggle-inducing platter of rhyming alphabet poems (E is for Eggplant, K is for Kiwi, W is for Watermelon). Each page turn showcases one letter/one fruit/one veggie with a photo set against a bold-colored background on one side, and the illustrated poem on the other.
The focus is on familiar, kid-friendly produce as well as the more elusive Jicama, Quince, Ugli®, and Xemenia (a wild yellow plum from Africa). Food-related extras like Vanilla, Herbs, Farmer, and Organic round out the menu. Littlest munchkins will enjoy the lively, comical poems and poring over the cartoony illustrations, perhaps not realizing they are consuming lots of ‘good-for-you’ facts at the same time.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 