Kids in the kitchen is my way of showing you all how easy it is to get kids involved in the kitchen and teach them a little something about food and cooking. With this in mind in conjunction with this month’s theme of “Food Matters,” I think it’s really important to remember that, whether we have children or not, that living by example is the best way to educate.  As I embark on my journey of eliminating all processed foods from my own diet, as well as eliminating any factory raised meat, poultry, and fish, I am thinking of my own nieces and nephews as well as the other children in my life and their futures.

Setting a good example we know is important for kids, so why are we not taking that more seriously when it comes to food?  We should be educating our young, new eaters about where their food comes from, how the food chain works, and what it takes to produce food both from an agricultural perspective and cooking perspective (and everything in between).

Most of us start the New Year eating and behaving in a way that is mindful of our health, and we must apply this concept of living mindfully to our children’s lives as well, understanding a child’s need for nourishment both physically and emotionally in a world stocked with unhealthy, processed food. Learning, listening, and adjusting to the new information we’ve taken in during those processes are key to ensuring a future of healthy, whole, and conscious eating for our kids. Consider what kids eat at school, when you are out on the town, while traveling, and what snack food they consume. Chances are there are simple ways increase the intake of healthier foods at these time which leads to taking greater care of both our children (contributing to stronger minds, bodies, and, therefore, spirits) and the environment. Processed foods still compose over half of American kids’ diets. We can all alter this statistic by taking charge in our own homes on our own plates.

My plate this year 2011 will be filled with nothing but real, whole foods the way that food has been enjoyed in centuries past, and I hope that by setting an example even one child will be educated spawning a future of healthier living. Time is no constraint when we consider the better times our children will enjoy as a result.

Kids in the kitchen is my way of showing you all how easily it is to incorporate kids into your kitchens and teach them a little something about food and cooking.  This month we take you from the kitchen and into the bath.  Children love a good bath filled with herbs!  I used my niece and nephews as guinea pigs for my recipes for an herbal bath article I was writing during my holiday yin Fair Grove and I found that they LOVED the idea of one making the herbal bath sacks and taking a bath with herbs!

  Now take in mind we couldn’t find cheese cloth or kitchen twin in Fair Grove and Wal-Mart didn’t even have them!  But we found an old tent cloth made of net and we used that and dry wall twine!  The art of compromise, back to the theme of balance!

 The basic herbal bath only requires a few items: kitchen twine, cheesecloth, and ingredients like herbs, salts, powders milks, oatmeal, oils, soaps, and whatever else you dream up.  We don’t recommend throwing the herbs loose in your bath as they can be most difficult to clean up and can even cause plumbing issues, and a big plumbing headache defeats the purpose of a relaxing herbal bath! 

 With just a few simple kitchen type tools and some basic recipe ideas your bath with become this winter’s haven. You can create specific herbal baths tailored to your meet skincare needs, or personalize based on scent preferences- so indulge, learn, and allow your skin and your mind to be soothed!

 Here are a few of our favorite winter herbal baths and their easy to follow, alterable recipes! Just throw the finished product into a running bath, and enjoy. Use the pouch to scrub your body, and smell the heavenly scents! It’s time to cut loose, and relax!

 *Each recipe includes one piece of cheesecloth cut into a 12 X 12 inch square and a piece of kitchen twine to tie up the pouch!  Crumble up all herbs before laying them in the cloth which releases all the oils. Lay the cheese cloth out flat, and pile the ingredients into the center.  Tie the pouch with the twine, and toss it into your bath!

Stress Relieving Herbal Bath  ½ cup fresh rosemary leaves; ¼ cup lavender flowers, dried or fresh; 1 cup Epsom salt; 2 tablespoons olive oil
Super Soak Herbal Skin Softener 1 cup fresh peppermint leaves; ½ cup whole oats; ¼ cup almond oil; 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt
Winter Wind Down Lavender & Sage Bath ¼ cup lavender flowers, fresh or dried; ½ cup fresh sage leaves; ½ cup whole oats; ¼ cup powdered milk; 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt; ¼ cup almond oil
Foaming invigorating Ginger Basil Lime Bath 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger; 1 tablespoon lime zest; 1 cup fresh basil leaves; 1/2 cup shaves plain soap; 1 tablespoon almond oil
Winter Skin Refresher ½ cup dried chamomile; ½ cup fresh thyme leaves; 2 tablespoon orange zest; ½ cup whole oats; ¼ cup almond oil; 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt
Spicy & Sultry Herbal Bubble Bath 4 fresh bay leaves; 1 cup powdered milk; ¼ cup almond oil; ½ cup bubble bath
Grapefruit & Thyme Winter Rev UP ¼ cup grapefruit zest; ½ cup fresh thyme leaves; ¼ cup fresh mint leaves; 1 cup Epsom salts

San Francisco and the Bay Area is as I have mentioned is a place where sustainable growth comes from the soil.  As far as children go and kids in the kitchen there is one person who has not only revolutionized the food world but has certainly put her energy and focus to light when it comes to children as well, her dedication and inspiration have encouraged in me not to be a better cook (not that she hasn’t thought) but to be a better mentor towards children.  As many who know me are aware without the ability to include children in my food life and educational life of food and agriculture it would simply not be worth it for me personally.  So thank you to Alice Waters for inspiring myself and others to make children and food and agriculture literacy an important part of our lives.

Here is a manifesto of sorts form Alice Waters ………….be inspired!

Learning to make the right choices about food is the single most important key to environmental awareness — for ourselves, and especially for our children.

Until we see how we feed ourselves as just as important as — and maybe more important than — all the other activities of mankind, there is going to be a huge hole in our consciousness. If we don’t care about food, then the environment will always be something outside of ourselves. And yet the environment can be something that actually affects you in the most intimate — and literally visceral — way. It can be something that actually gets inside you and gets digested.

How can most people submit so unthinkingly to the dehumanizing experience of lifeless fast food that’s everywhere in our lives? How can you marvel at the world and then feed yourself in a completely un-marvelous way? I think it’s because we don’t learn the vital relationship of food to agriculture and to culture, and how food affects the quality of our everyday lives.

To me, food is the one central thing about human experience that can open up both our senses and our conscience to our place in the world. Consider this: eating is something we all have in common. It’s something we all have to do every day, and it’s something we can all share. Food and nourishment are right at the point where human rights and the environment intersect. Everyone has a right to wholesome, affordable food.

What could be a more delicious revolution than to start committing our best resources to teaching this to children — by feeding them and giving them pleasure; by teaching them how to grow food responsibly; and by teaching them how to cook it and eat it, together, around the table? When you start to open up a child’s senses — when you invite children to engage, physically, with gardening and food — there is a set of values that is instilled effortlessly, that just washes over them, as part of the process of offering good food to one another. Children become so rapt — so enraptured, even — by being engaged in learning in a sensual, kinesthetic way. And food seduces you by its very nature — the smell of baking, for example: It makes you hungry! Who could resist the aroma of fresh bread, or the smell of warm tortillas coming off the comal?

There is nothing else as universal. There is nothing else so powerful. When you understand where your food comes from, you look at the world in an entirely different way. I think that if you really start caring about the world in this way, you see opportunities everywhere. Wherever I am, I’m always looking to see what’s edible in the landscape. Now I see Nature not just as a source of spiritual inspiration — beautiful sunsets and purple mountains majesties — but as the source of my physical nourishment. And I’ve come to realize that I’m totally dependent on it, in all its beauty and richness, and that my survival depends on it.

We must teach the children that taking care of the land and learning to feed yourself are just as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic. For the most part, our families and institutions are not doing this. Therefore, I believe that it’s up to the public education system to teach our kids these important values. There should be gardens in every school, and school lunch programs that serve the things the children grow themselves, supplemented by local, organically grown products. This could transform both education and agriculture. A typical school of say, one thousand students, needs two hundred and fifty pounds of potatoes for one school lunch. Imagine the impact of this kind of demand for organic food!

There’s nothing new about these lessons. In a pamphlet published in 1900, a California educator argued for a garden in every school. School gardens, he wrote, will teach students that “actions have consequences, that private citizens should take care of public property, that labor has dignity, that nature is beautiful.” They also teach economy, honesty, application, concentration, and justice. They teach what it means to be civilized.

I’ve seen all this happen at The Edible Schoolyard Garden at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley. I’ve seen the kids sitting around the picnic tables in the schoolyard, eating salads they’ve grown themselves with the most polite manners. They want these rituals of the table. They like them. I’ve seen troubled kids who’ve been given a second chance and allowed to work in the garden be so transformed by the experience that they return to King School to act as mentors to the new students. The Edible Schoolyard creates that kind of clarity — and its potential lies in the multiplication of these epiphanies of responsibility, at school, two or three times a day.

What we’re doing now is building models and demonstration projects, such as The Edible Schoolyard, to prove that this kind of experiential education is truly a viable initiative. In Berkeley we’re about to transform the school lunch program of an entire school district, with over seventeen schools and over 10,000 students, in collaboration with the school board, Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, the Center for Ecoliteracy, and the Chez Panisse Foundation. This is a revolutionary way of thinking about food in schools — it’s what I call a Delicious Revolution.

Wendell Berry has written that eating is an agricultural act. I would also say that eating is a political act, but in the way the ancient Greeks used the word “political” — not just to mean having to do with voting in an election, but to mean “of, or pertaining to, all our interactions with other people” — from the family to the school, to the neighborhood, the nation, and the world. Every single choice we make about food matters, at every level. The right choice saves the world. Paul Cézanne said: “The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.” So let us all make our food decisions in that spirit: let us observe that carrot afresh, and make our choice.

www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/delicious-revolution

I say hiding but the truth is that the Israelis have a way with understanding that good food is in a purer form.  The children in Israel eat lots of fruits and vegetables form a very young age and they want to, they crave it and spices and nuts are not even off limits.  In the little groovy neighborhood of Neve Tzedek, which is where I call home while I am in Tel Aviv, there is an ice cream shop called ANITA.  Its place where true food art is felt in both the décor and the flavors that comes out of this tiny site.  The ice cream is made fresh from scratch and only uses the freshest and purest ingredients and the ingredients they use are interesting and artistic to say the least, but always the ice cream is highlighting a fruit or a vegetable, or a nut in its purest form!

Take for instance all their sorbets, there is usually about 10-12 fresh sorbets to choose from, passion fruit, coconut, banana, anise, berry just to name a few and these sorbets are really just the fruit highlighted.  I see countless children ordering the sorbets and it is such a great sight to see, children choosing fruit over chocolate!

Now for me admittedly, as much as I love, sorbet, I am an ice cream girl so I must speak about the ice cream or should I say the art that is produced in the form of ice cream.  Where to even begin is the hard part, I know this segment is about children and the fascination I have with the Israelis having an easy time getting their children to eat healthy even when it comes to ice cream, but truthfully, the parents take their kids there just simply so they can indulge!  The ice creams are decedent to say the least but not over powering with sweetness and sugar, again the ingredients highlight themselves.  Fresh ginger and berries, fresh pineapple and coconut, plain vanilla with vanilla beans and not flavoring!  In fact there are no flavorings here, just fresh ingredients.  Graham cracker honey, almond peanut butter, chocolate mint, fresh mint, sweet shredded wheat and fig, phyllo dough walnuts and dates, cherry cream,   hazelnut chocolate nougat, and this is just to name a few!

This wonderful spot is a staple on my journeys to Israel and perfect for a hot day indeed.  When I travel to Israel with my nieces and nephews this was their favorite place to go and eat.  I was amazed at all the differ ice creams and sorbets they would try, utterly amazed and again I think in the end there is something to be said about artistry in food and having a food culture that revels in the art of it all, it is encouraging and exciting for children which makes them more apt to try new things, as opposed to simply being addicted to fat and sugars as many of our kids here in the USA are.  So let’s take a cue from the Israelis here and make even our sweets more naturally healthy and highlighting fresh ingredients, the children will be more open to it than we think, we simply must provide it to them!

I can’t stress enough that I don’t have kids so all is certainly easier said than done… but I think what I am about to say is true and I wholeheartedly believe that it is possible for all folks to indulge in the kitchen with their kids and encourage kids to indulge in the kitchen in general.

Allowing kids to have access to the kitchen (supervised of course) is one of the best learning tools for better eating, better health and better cooking skills. These skills likely lead them on to be more independent and creative and, of course, generally healthier.  Playing in the kitchen does not necessarily mean playing with food, although it can. Stavin, for instance, likes to play with spices.  I’ll give him a bunch of spices that go well together and let him mix them up , and we’ll save them in little jars for use later.  He learns about spices, smells, and flavors. Getting used to these hopefully means he will use them in his cooking someday.  Simply allowing children to work on recipes of all kinds together or with us is worth trying.  I have the luxury of having the culinary center at my disposal so I often take the kids there while babysitting for space purposes, so I can work J but also to inspire them.  We have computers here, Televisions all kinds of games, but mostly they want to play in the kitchen, so I am always sure to let them.

Kianna and Yahmina pictured above spent a Saturday making homemade bath and beauty products in the kitchen, avocado masks, mint scrubs and a bunch of other things I didn’t know! Stavin chose the dried beans and spice route. I sat reading cook books fully inspired by them. It was a harmonious day, not without some issues but certainly inspiring in the least!

Let the kids into the kitchen, they belong there too.

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There are few things greater than witnessing children experiencing freedom in their actions, freedom in their learning ad freedom in their creativity.  As adults we have the natural tendency to want to bombard them with rules and systems and although our intentions are pure I’m not sure it’s always the best approach.  I remember years ago when my friends daughter Yahmina  was 5 years old, (she is 15 years old now) and we were baking a cake, it was some dinner party or celebration of some sort, truly I cannot remember, but not important for the story.   The cake making went fine, we mixed and stirred and baked.  The frosting or decorating part was the one that tested my ability to allow children their freedom.  I’m by no means a perfectionist, but truly letting Yahmina frost the cake was way out of my comfort zone because well, it just looked UGLY!!  I called her mother who was at work at the time and with the little experience I had with children at that time I said “what do I do, she’s ruining the cake?” Her mother laughed and simply said you need to let her decorate the cake and see the beauty of it sincerely when she is done! Wow, I knew this would be hard for me, but this cathartic moment, changed my life and my view of kids in the kitchen.  I let her decorate the cake and ever since then I allow children the freedom they need as children in the kitchen and outside the kitchen and I consider this one of the main reasons I tend to attract and crave teaching children’s cooking classes.

One of my favorite things to do is get this………LET CHILDREN PLAY WITH FOOD.   Yeah, go figure, we are taught our whole lives to not allow children to play with food and I simply cannot understand this.  Yes I understand the wasteful element but I am a skeptic that this is the real reason behind our whimsy of control over kids in the kitchen.  There are a lot of areas in which we can concentrate on wasting less I’m not sure this is the best place to start, but rest assured I am not condoning wasting food, just finding the best method of playing with it.

The week of the culinary center’s opening as all of my little nieces and nephews were in town, we decided to do a photo shoot as we typically do every quarter or so and often using the kids for some of our marketing stuff and just for kicks.  So I basically let them just play with all the ingredients in the kitchen, all the tools, no matter what it was it was not off limits, knives of course were monitored and not used so much.  There were six kids in total from 1 year to 8 years.  Typically the kids are at different ages now and they are just starting to have more problems with bonding and doing things together, the oldest of them who is 8 doesn’t want to play dolls with the girl who is 6, she is too cool for school.  But over playing the kitchen the bonding was amazing, the interaction amongst them and the laughter and the smiles were really truly priceless and I know that sounds like a cliché!  For hours the children played the photographer snapped over and over and the concoctions they made were both creative and tasty, blending herbs and lemons and sugar for lemonade, mashing tomatoes and herbs and all kinds of spices.  They learned about kitchen tools and got to experiment with how to use them all on their own.  All we did was supervise a little bit other than that we allowed them total freedom.  The photo posted above is the aftermath of the fun and one of my all time favorite pictures.

So there is an important lesson here that even a control freak like me has been able to embrace with pure openness and appreciation………let the kids play in the kitchen, play with them, let them have freedom in cooking and in life, guide them yes, teach them yes, and most of all allow them to live with some freedom where you can and where it’s safe, the kitchen is a great spot for this.

There is a certain challenge inside me when it comes to American kids that believes fully that the more of a chance children are  given and the more food knowledge they have, good choices will simply follow.  On this family trip to Nosara, Costa Rica as I said we traveled with 6 children between the ages of 8 months and 8 years of age.  To be exact 8 months, 1 ½ years, 4 years, 5 years, 7 years and 8 years.  I cannot say that these kids eat everything or that they never irritate me with their I don’t want to try it kind of talk but in general that are pretty good about eating.  Individually they all have their quirks and limitations but they are also willing when it matters most to step up to the plate, especially when it is presented to them as a unique cultural experience.

It’s amazing to see children choose wisely and be more accepting of trying new foods when excitement and nostalgia are in the picture.  The children were so excited to be in the land their fathers were in as children that the wanted to experience it similarly, therefore they were inviting the newness in with open arms.  The four year old Stavin who previously to the Costa Rica trip, did not like beans, had heard all of us speaking about how excited we were to eat gallo pintos, we told stories of his father eating them as a little boy in Costa Rica.  He too began to crave them before even landing or seeing what they were.  Now gallo pintos are simple beans and rice sautéed together in this really lovely way.  He loved them and asked for gallo pintos every day.  Now Svea who is 5, and really the best eater was in heaven, eating and tasting everything with gusto and a big smile, it was lovely to witness a child with no food boundaries.  Now Kianna and Lief were a bit pickier to begin with but for Kianna it was the lure of the tropical fruits that allowed her to try things like fresh tamarindo juice and fresh banana juice, which even I was even skeptical of. Leif went with the flow as well and was excited to actually see the trees in from of his eyes that he was eating, mango and papaya trees.  Ivin who is 1 ½ had no food issues whatsoever as the third child he eats what is put in front of him and for sure he will look back one day on the pictures and see himself indulging in the Costa Rican tropical faire and be delighted that he was so.  Lexa the 8 month old who had only been eating homemade baby food and formula at this point was difficult to stop from eating the Costa Rican foods.  I am not sure if it  was the food or the fact that she basically wanted what the other children were eating.

At the end of the day, the children ate more that I could have ever imagined they would and the greatest part about it is they loved what they ate and I know form my own experience with teaching children about food and cooking that making eating and learning about food fun is the path towards more knowledgeable kids who make better eating choices and who are not afraid to try new things.

A pretty important part of my food philosophy is teaching children the importance of good eating and how good healthy knowledgeable eating can benefit the world and the people that live here.  We try and teach children the importance of not only eating healthy for their own bodies and minds but the importance of eating well and how what we eat affects the other people of the world and often in negative ways.

Being an American we recognized how unhealthy children eat and even more disturbing how little they know about their food.  For me it’s a sad reminder of how much work we have and have more focus needs to be placed on young children in order to educate them to make the right choices for themselves and their planet.

What I have noticed in Israel and which makes sense as it is an agricultural nation is that the children are much more connected to their food, more willing to eat healthier and with a great understanding of the entire process of eating in general.  The portions here are smaller the amount of vegetables a child consumes is quite substantial and the variety of foods young children place on their pallets is quite astonishing.

Now don’t get me wrong, the children in Israel love sweets and fats and candy like any other children.  But when you see a child scooping up mounds of Israeli salad and bread and olives for breakfast it is a very nice sight.

I have the great joy of having my niece and nephew here in Israel this week, visiting me and traveling around the country.  They are 4 years and 7 years of age.  They are somewhat of picky eaters but growing and improving and expanding their pallets.  They have already impressed me with their will to try new things.  Kianna the 7 years old, with great hesitation, tasted some grilled baby artichokes with lemon, one of my favorites here in Israel, and her response was, its all right, which in kid terms means she liked it well enough and I imagine she will eat them again in the future.  They have been requesting fresh mint in their lemon aide, as that is how people drink it here and I can remember a day where they probably would have said, “get that stuff outta my glass”!

So I guess in the end, as I have rambled and been all over the place here, the point is travel with children, they absorb and soak up so much and are more willing to be open with new foods and cultures when they are in the thick of it!