The first 3 times I did my Cooking with Kids program went SO well, I had the *brilliant* idea of doing it 7 MORE TIMES. 3 before my summer programs and 4 after. From here on out, I'll just do one post per program. The first one I decided to do was Asian themed. Why? Because I'm absolutely crazy, that's why. This was such a hard program to do - 1. Because I just don't have the skills to pull this stuff off the way I wanted to. 2. Because it wasn't well attended. 3. I was asking kids to eat stuff they may have never tried before - and that's always an interesting prospect. Let's just get to the books.
Yoko by Rosemary Wells. It's a about a cat named Yoko from Japan, who now lives in the United States and is going to school. The kids make fun of her lunch, so the teacher sets up a world food day. Still, no one touches the sushi they bring, until one little boy tries some and they become good friends. It's such a cute little story. I've been eating sushi since I was 8 or so. My parents thought it would gross us out like a lot of the food they made, but we loved it! I was in NO WAY prepared to make sushi for my patrons, BUT a few of my regular patrons own a restaurant called Wasabi and were awesome enough to donate some for me! The kids loved it (we did shrimp tempura and maybe some spicy tuna) and so did the parents, of course.
Dim Sum for Everyone by Grace Lin. It's a good thing I got the sushi donated, because this next one killed me. If you've never had dim sum before, this just talks about a family that goes to a restaurant and they all get little plates and share. A lot of the time you go, and there's lots of little dumplings. I decided I was going to make some steamed pork dumplings - from scratch. This is actually not that impressive because I've been making them for years, but normally I've been boiling them. STEAMING IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT BALLGAME, PEOPLE! I'm talking hockey vs. tennis. Whoa. I totally ruined half my dumplings before I gave up and boiled them. Ugh. What I managed to salvage were tasty though.
Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park A simple rhyming book about a kid trying to help cook bibimbap. There's a recipe in the back that details out instructions for the kids and the parents. It's great! This dish turned out the best, and I think people liked it, though I def. had enough leftover to have as my lunch the next day. The dish doesn't take long to make, you just have to cook everything separately.
Other books I'd recommend for this theme (but I just didn't have the resources to cook):
Cora Cooks Pancit by Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore.
The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin.
Round is a Mooncake by Roseanne Thong.
No comments:
Post a Comment