The Kitchen Reader

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The first book I read for The Kitchen Reader was hungry monkey by Matthew Amster Burton.  hungry monkey is hilarious and a must read if you like to laugh out loud.  However, if you are looking for a book on how to get your little ones to eat a variety of different foods all the time and with gusto, you will not find the answers.  Burton finds what the rest of us with young children find out, kids are picky eaters.  They will eat something one day, maybe for a week, maybe even an entire year, and then decide they don't like it.  This food which they ate regularly and you relied upon is now "YUCKY!" But the message is clear; introduce different foods to your kids all the time. You never know what they will like from one day to the next. And most importantly, to look at it with a little humor, and to not get so upset when they don't want to eat everything we give them.

What fascinated me the most was how Burton and his wife were so willing to feed Iris (who starting before she was even one) anything they were eating. And I mean anything.  Spicy noodles, different types of fish, even peanuts! So many of us follow the feeding schedules set out by our pediatricians, such as when to introduce cereal, fruits and vegetables.  They were fearless, when many of us are afraid to stray from what we are told to do with food and our infants.

Because my youngest has a nut allergy this statement from Burton really hit home;

"Peanut allergies are not funny.  Having a serious nut allergy is like living in a world full of shiny sharp objects that you can blunder into at any time - and being a parent of a nut-allergic child must be even harder."  

Yes Matthew, it is the hardest, most scary thing I must deal with everyday.

Some of my favorite parts of the book are when Iris eats not one, but both the eyeballs of the stuffed trout.  Yikes!  And I loved the part when Burton became so excited about being the snack "Dad" at Iris's preschool.  How he, even with the kids in the class, started planning all types of different things for them to eat.  He went in one day and made pot stickers with the kids!  I thought that was super cool and adventurous. 

A funny and enjoyable read.