I don’t know about you, but these days I’m finding the buzz around food a bit daunting–and I love to cook. Recently I’ve spent some time thinking about how the average home cook must be feeling about food in general. If we just take television as an example of what’s going on out there, it’s an eye opener.

At one extreme we are inundated with amazing food shows.  I’m stunned by the number of cake shows alone.  There are shows about strange foods, people consuming enormous amounts of food, and many shows featuring chefs creating things no one could even imagine making in their home kitchen—six-foot tall cakes are just the beginning!

At the other extreme we are bombarded with programs about weight loss and inspirational stories about communities working to help kids get healthy. We both glorify and vilify food, creating a mystique around it that, in my opinion, is making the average person feel stuck.

I think a lot of us feel like we’re missing something, and it’s not just the time to cook. I mean, let’s face it, we’re spending a lot of time in front of screens these days—even after work. Someone is watching all these shows or they wouldn’t be streaming into our homes in such incredible numbers. I believe that most people are feeling rather intimidated by cooking, and it has a lot to do with the opposing messages we’re getting about food.

We’ve lost personal, everyday food knowledge. Parents and grandparents aren’t passing down the old food traditions anymore and now cooking seems like an exotic undertaking to most people.

Is there no middle ground? No safe place for people to learn the basics anymore?

The mini camps I did over the holidays were all about baking and sweets. Every single one of them. The cookie decorating one was especially sugary. As an advocate for healthier eating for kids I suppose I could have had a crisis of conscience over those classes, but I didn’t. In fact, I felt great about offering them because they were fun. We did some serious old school, home-style cooking. And even though we used a lot of butter and sugar at least it was butter and sugar and not some weird list of chemicals. We made traditional holiday cookies, built things out of homemade gingerbread, and chopped dried nuts and fruits for sugarplums until it felt like we couldn’t chop another thing. Both the kids and parents loved it.

When I was a kid it didn’t feel like Christmas until the cookies were baked. I’m hoping these mini holiday camps helped add a little old-fashioned holiday spirit to my campers’ holidays this year.

Happy New Year to all the Camps.com readers out there.  I hope everyone out there will make it a resolution to cook more at home in 2011. I doesn’t matter what it is, just get in the kitchen and try something new or ask a parent or grandparent for a favorite childhood recipe.

Chef Lisa Holmes
The Childrens Culinary Academy
Tel. 774.392.1711
www.childrensculinary.com

Books by Lisa Holmes
Bitter Harvest
In Mother’s Kitchen
Lunch Lessons

Summer is over, but camp doesn’t have to be!  Some camps are created just for the summer, but many organizations offer school vacation camps throughout academic year as well.  Taking a “staycation” doesn’t have to be boring for the kids—in fact making camp part of family’s week off is great for the kids who will have an engaging and unique experience away from the television and video games,  and the parents who will undoubtedly find ways to put their free time to good use.

In the past, I have run week-long themed cooking camps for kids during spring and winter vacations. The possibilities for themed camps, particularly in the kitchen, are endless.  One of my favorites is Kids Cook Around the World week. We’ve mashed chick peas for falafel, rolled dumpling skins for fresh potstickers, soaked rice paper for fresh Thai spring rolls, and marinated skewered chicken tenders for flavorful, earthy chicken satay. We have experimented with Taiwanese bubble drinks complete with tapioca pearls and giant straws, rolled our own California rolls, and have even made our own puffy pita bread.  Seeing the kids every day for a week gives me the opportunity to create a more in-depth curriculum and helps create a stronger bond among the children.  One week we might focus entirely on Asian cooking, another might be all about European food, still another could be centered on something as simple as seasonal snacks.

If you’re a camp director or teacher, think about running mini camps around holidays. For example, having a couple of Saturday “camp” days around the winter holidays can give parents the freedom to have some time alone to go shopping or wrap gifts. I will be offering holiday cookie-making mini camps for kids ages 5 and up on the weekends leading up to the holidays. Three free hours for parents can be priceless at that time of year and they get added bonus of holiday cookies without a mess in their own kitchens. What could be better?! A Valentine’s Day camp is another great opportunity for mom and dad to get away without the kids for a romantic dinner. For the kids it sure beats being stuck at home for the night on such a special day!

Though they’re not special occasions, Friday nights are also perfect for the same reasons. A themed series of classes (these ideas are not limited to food camps!) is always fun. Working towards a goal of some kind, like cooking for and serving the parents, or studying and practicing for a cooking contest, like a Kids “Iron Chef” event on the final day adds a level of excitement and keeps the kids engaged and interested from week to week.  We recently had a fantastic little Kids’ Iron Chef event at The Children’s Culinary Academy. We kept it simple. All they had to make was salsa and baked tortilla chips. We were all surprised by the individuality they showed and were impressed to find that every recipe was uniquely flavorful.  The parents couldn’t have been more pleased.

Do you run a unique mini camp during the school year? Has your child participated in one? If so, we’d love to hear about it!

I started thinking about teaching kids to cook right after I graduated from culinary school. I didn’t have kids at the time (I have two now), but I’d always loved working with children and had come up with what I thought was a great concept for a children’s cookbook. By that time I’d written enough books to know that understanding the competition was essential, so I started doing some research.
I was surprised to learn how simplistic and silly most of them were. Cartoon fruits and vegetables with carefully crafted personalities clearly took more time to conceive than the recipes, which were composed of canned foods thrown together and, at best, heated in the microwave. The rest didn’t involve cooking at all—sandwiches with silly faces, tortilla pizzas, fruit kebabs, and the old standby, ants on a log, were ubiquitous. I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t figure out why parents would invest their time or money in cookbooks that aren’t about cooking. I think underneath it all a lot of people believed, and still do, that children aren’t interested in cooking real food.

Children’s cookbooks have changed a bit since then, but I’ve noticed that most people are skeptical when I tell them I teach cooking classes to three year olds. When they ask what we cook they grow wide-eyed with disbelief. The truth is that the three year olds are some of my best students. One reason is that they are virtually fearless. (Which is also the reason they should never be trusted in a kitchen alone!) Some may have begun to develop a few idiosyncratic eating habits, but in general they are still willing to try new things. One of their recent favorites was Blueberry Clafoutis. The five to nine year olds will consent to trying new things if they’ve had a hand in making them. Recently they loved eating Mediterranean roasted vegetable sandwiches with fresh basil and mozzarella on bread we made in class that day. Another time, on a whim, I brought in some Gruyere cheese for their roasted root vegetable galettes and they went absolutely crazy for it, both on and off the galettes. Yesterday we made Filipino-style empanadas, loaded with garlic, onions, peas, and carrots, and seasoned with soy sauce and rice vinegar. The majority loved it.

Not every kid likes everything we cook and I’m okay with it. When that happens we engage in conversation about it and I remind them that the important thing is they made something new and tasted it. Sometimes they surprise me and like something I don’t expect (like caramelized onions). It’s my job as their teacher to help them expand their palates, and it’s satisfying to see their excitement and pride as they discover new flavors and become more independent in the kitchen.

I haven’t gotten around to writing that cookbook yet, but after everything I’ve learned from my students over the past few years, one thing is certain—when I do finally put that book together, there won’t be a single smiley faced sandwich or ant on a log in it because I know that kids enjoy complex flavors on their plates too!

Chef Lisa Holmes
The Childrens Culinary Academy
Tel. 774.392.1711
www.childrensculinary.com

Books by Lisa Holmes
Bitter Harvest
In Mother’s Kitchen
Lunch Lessons

1) Do you spear your marshmallow and then hold it carefully at a perfect distance from the flames, rotating it slowly until it takes on a lovely golden hue like a perfect slice of toast from the perfect breakfast buffet they serve in heaven? That’s so nice. Your marshmallows are perfect. Every time! You will probably excel at everything you set your mind to, and you were probably the valedictorian, or at least the salutatorian, of your graduating class of college (or kindergarten, depending on how old you are). You will do well and go far. But remember: Pleasing authority figures and conforming to institutional expectations will not provide all the nourishment you need in this life. Push yourself to take more risks. This is how we grow.

2) Do you light your marshmallow on fire? And then do you blow it out and eat the delicious burned part, pulling it away from the raw, melty white goo underneath the blackened crust? If so, you are a person of substance. You are unafraid to challenge conventional ideas of “beauty” and correctness. You are a risk taker. You speak directly and you are decisive. Sometimes you make mistakes, but they only make you stronger. Just remember: The burned part is really not very good for you. Try to limit yourself to fifty or so of these at a time.

3) Do you skewer five marshmallows on the end of your stick at once and then toast them and then shove them all into your mouth simultaneously? You are a person who tries to get the most out of every minute of every day. You live fully. You have a passion for life and also for marshmallows. But remember: we only brought ten bags of marshmallows. And now the store is closed. So when these are gone, they’re gone. Slow down. Here– fill up on graham crackers for a while.

4) Will you refuse a marshmallow, no matter how well toasted, if it isn’t handed to you in s’more-form? Are you a smore-only marshmallow eater? If so, it is clear that you prefer the finer things in life and will not settle for anything less than the best. You are a person of discriminating taste. You know what you want. You know what you like. You are a connoisseur. You will be very happy when you are old enough to start in on yellowfin sashimi and Château Latour. But remember: If you want to live the high life, you will need to stay in school and study hard. I’m not kidding. If you intend to slack off, you may as well accustom yourself now to scratchy linens, cheap coffee, and plain marshmallows.

5) Do you accidentally let your marshmallow fall off your stick and into the fire where it becomes lost forever? Do you do this often? Keep trying. Eventually this whole process will come together for you. And when it does, the moment will be all the sweeter because you had to work a little harder for it. Here’s a new marshmallow, a fresh one. Just let the old one go.

6) Are you so busy helping children toast their marshmallows without poking each other or getting burned by the fire that hours have gone by and even though you have a stick, you haven’t used it to toast a single marshmallow of your own? If so, you are probably a counselor, and I like you. Later after the children are all in their sleeping bags, we can hang out by the smoldering coals of the burned down fire and eat all the leftover chocolate. No, it isn’t gone—not all of it. I brought a secret stash. What did you say? Oh…they found my secret stash? Well. That’s okay. I guess. I like you, anyway. That’s all that matters.

- Erin Sweeney

I have yet to meet a parent who doesn’t struggle with getting their children to eat better. What that means, exactly, varies from family to family, but in general parents seem to be aiming for less sugar and fat, and more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. We all know that parents and care providers play the biggest role in the way kids eat—we buy, prepare, and serve food, and in doing so, pass our own food habits on to our children. Those habits take root early in life. In fact, a recent study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine has shown that it happens as early as age two.

A lot of us are worried about childhood obesity right now. Every time you turn on the TV or open a newspaper or magazine there’s a story somewhere about childhood obesity or someone who is trying to help kids eat better. We all want our kids to be healthy and happy. The recipe for that seems simple—good, healthy food, and lots of exercise, just like the old days, right? The trouble is, since so many of us who now have small children grew up in the age of convenience and fast food, most of us have no idea what good healthy food is or how to go about creating it for ourselves. If we don’t know, how will they?

Fortunately there’s a kids’ culinary movement afoot, and believe it or not, kids as young as age three are learning to cook. And I mean really cook. In my classes they’re not cooking from boxes or heating things up in microwaves, they’re making Chinese dumplings, blueberry muffins, roasted tofu, and even bread from scratch. They’re learning to chop, peel, grate, and mix, and they’re loving every minute of it. The youngest ones are easy because little kids and cooking just go together. They enjoy the kitchen’s abundance of sensory experiences and are thrilled when they get to eat and share their creations. Older kids are a little tougher because many have already established their food habits by the time they come to my classes, but they love the experience of cooking and creating something beautiful and tasty. And because they know who made it and what’s in it, they will often try something new. In the end, usually even the pickiest of eaters can’t resist the aromas and textures they’ve created with their own hands.

In my experience working with kids, teaching them to cook is an essential weapon in the fight for our children’s health. It’s like the old adage, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” If we feed them something healthy they learn to choose the same healthy foods we’ve chosen, which is great, but it’s limited. If we take the time to teach them to cook they’ll have the tools they need to expand their palates and their horizons. And if your kids are fortunate enough to attend a cooking class in your neighborhood, they might even teach you a thing or two.

Chef Lisa Holmes
The Childrens Culinary Academy
Tel. 774.392.1711
www.childrensculinary.com

Books by Lisa Holmes
Bitter Harvest
In Mother’s Kitchen
Lunch Lessons

If you’re sending your child to camp with meal requirements, be specific. Write down your instructions– Do not trust a verbal description to be interpreted correctly. “Vegetarian” can imply different things to different people, and camp life requires energy and nutrients– You don’t want your vegetarian child to be simply handed an empty bun with the hot dog removed. Camp meals are usually nutritious, but they can be very simple. Be clear and direct. Also, encourage your child to speak for him or herself when making camp meal decisions.

There is nothing more fun than going off to summer camp to enjoy the great outdoors with new friends. One thing that is often most memorable to young campers is the delicious and fun summer camp food that is served and even cooked together around the fire. Here are some easy and convenient but fun and delicious summer camp food ideas that will make the summer camping experience even more fun!

There is no better way to start out your day at camp than with a hearty and energizing breakfast. One excellent camp breakfast is the classic breakfast burrito. Simply cook eggs and sausage together in a pan and wrap the filling in a large flour tortilla with cheese and salsa. This is one breakfast that keeps the campsite clean and is very filling and packed full of protein. It will keep a camper full for hours while you partake in your summer camp activities! When lunch rolls around, dig into some turkey or ham sandwiches with fruit. Make sure to stay hydrated throughout the day with plenty of water.

Between lunch and dinner, you may get a bit hungry from all the activity of camp. If you need it, reach for a healthy and hearty snack like trail mix, fruit, celery with peanut butter, granola bars, or a small piece of cheese. Keep your snacks light and healthy so that you don’t become sluggish for the evening activities and as the day winds down!

Dinner is a fun meal that’s to be shared with your fellow campers and camp leaders. A great way to share the cooking with the whole group is to cook dinner together over the campfire. A classic meal cooking method for campers is preparing a meal in aluminum foil. You can make astoundingly tasty camp meals this way. You can place a meat of your choice into the aluminum foil with some hearty veggies and potatoes seasoned to taste. Just seal the edges of the foil leaving enough room for expansion from the steam and place your foil-tented meal over the fire for 30-45 minutes. When your food is ready, peel back the aluminum foil and enjoy!

A list of summer camp food would not be complete without mention of dessert, every camper’s favorite meal! The most famous classic campfire treat is of course the s’more. To make the perfect s’more, roast your marshmallows carefully and patiently over the fire being careful not to burn them. If you like your chocolate fully melted, break it up into smaller pieces on your graham cracker before adding your roasted marshmallow. When you do, the heat of the marshmallow will melt the chocolate and delight your mouth with the gooey sweetness! Now that’s how you end your delicious summer camp food day!

- Valarie Edmon