How cute are these organic alphabet pasta shapes from Trader Joe’s?! I’m 28 years old and I still couldn’t resist adding the package to my cart. I’m trying to decide what scrumptious dish I should make with them. So many possibilities…so little time. So what do you guys think? Any special recipe suggestions for the most adorable pasta shapes to ever grace my kitchen?
With all the excitement surrounding the announcement of production beginning on the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie, shopping for foodie baby shower gifts, and flipping my lid over the Foodie Babies Wear Bibs book I started remembering all of the stories I loved as a kid that involved food in some way or another.
The Little House books are a prime example of this. They’re full of food. So much so that there’s even a companion cookbook. I was always jealous that Laura Ingalls got to make maple sugar candy, pancake men, and vanity cakes. In real life I just got yelled at if I tried to eat snow, and my grandmother’s attempts at pancake men usually ended up looking slightly decapitated. I guess living on the frontier wasn’t as fantastic as I wanted to believe, unless you were a boy. You see In Farmer Boy, Alonzo got to pull taffy. For some reason that always sounded like an exotic adventure on par with escaping from the Temple of Doom with Indiana Jones. To this day I’ve never had the pleasure of participating in a taffy pull.
I feel obligated to put Blueberries for Sal on this list since I grew up in Maine, but honestly I hated blueberries as a kid. I was forcibly taken on too many marathon berry picking expeditions in the hot summer sun to ever have fond thoughts of the fruit or this classic story. Dear parents: no kid wants to go berry picking for four hours when they can be at home trying desperately to beat Paper Boy on the Nintendo while chain snacking on orange freezer pops.
In contrast, Bread and Jam for Francis is so loved that it’s made the cut out of hundreds of other books I grew up reading and has now been retired to the quiet serenity of my office bookshelf. Very few childhood books received this sort of reverent “put out to pasture treatment.” Even the 60 plus Baby-Sitter’s Club books I cherished were eventually donated to the local library. Why is Bread and Jam for Francis so good? Two words: egg cup. I obsessed about this plot point and pestered my family constantly as to why we didn’t have egg cups. They looked so fancy! I must have an egg cup! It wasn’t the whole jam part of the book, or the not so subtle “it’s good to try new foods idea” that I was enthralled with, but the egg cup illustration on the first few pages. I received my hard boiled eggs in a bowl so obviously in my mind I was very deeply deprived.
Popcorn, pretzels, jelly beans and toast?! What more could a kid ask for?! Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving still knocks my socks off. I honestly think that someday I’m going to have people over for a “traditional” Snoopy and friends shindig. Who wants to be included on the invite?
If we were doing a High Fidelity inspired top five list than Mickey Mouse’s Picnic would have to be included for most read and beloved picture book of all time. Like previously mentioned books, it wasn’t always the story as a whole that would become memorable for me, but a single piece of the plot or artwork. In Mickey Mouse’s Picnic the mention of “paper tape” fascinated me. In the story, Minnie fastens a knife to to the bottom of the cake pan she’s bringing to their outdoor get together with paper tape. Unfortunately, The picnic feast gets stolen while everyone is frolicking at the swimming hole. The day is surely ruined, but wait! Just in the nick of time Donald appears with a picnic to share with the crowd. Hmm…Mickey and Minnie are suspicious and do a G-rated CSI investigation. Flipping over the cake they find Minnie’s knife stuck to the bottom with the now infamous paper tape. For some reason I was completely befuddled by the idea of paper tape, even after it was explained to me that paper tape was masking tape I still focused on this tiny piece of the tale for years.
Ramona Quimby Age 8 has several chapters where food plays an amusing role. Who can forget when Ramona and Beezus have to make dinner for their parents after they complain about their dad’s cooking? Or how about daredevil Ramona cracking an egg on her head to impress the “Yard Ape.” I still get the quivers thinking about that gooey mess sliding through Ramona’s hair. Ick!
Recently, young adult titles Life as We Knew it, and The Dead and the Gone have given me terrifying food related nightmares and essentially scarred me for the rest of my life. Now every time I’m putting away groceries I think really melancholy thoughts like…what if this box of elbow macaroni and this can of diced peaches is the only food I get to eat for a week because a meteor knocked the moon out of whack and the weather is trying to kill us! And then CK forcibly takes the iced coffee out of my hand and makes me go for a run. I think I’m more afraid of starvation now than my 5-year-old self was afraid of the dark. Thanks Susan Beth Pfeffer!
Are there foodie books from your childhood, that stand out for you still? Please tell me I wasn’t the only freaky kid begging for egg cups and wishing for a pretzel main course at Thanksgiving.
As I mentioned previously my good friend Meghan is having a baby girl next month. Last weekend I attended her baby shower and I have to say I agonized over what to get her. I knew she would receive oodles of pretty pastel clothes, blankets, and toys so my goal was to find gifts for her that were unique, functional, and hopefully memorable. In the end I decided on the following items:
I fell in love with these adorable MooMe bibs, packaged to resemble baby food jars, and had such a hard time deciding between the fruit and veggie versions that I ended up just buying both. In addition to being so darn cute the bibs also made of 100% organic cotton.
Future foodie babies need to start young so I couldn’t resist stocking baby Emily’s bookshelf with two timeless food filled storybooks: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Pickles to Pittsburgh.
Feeding Meghan’s baby is obviously my ultimate goal, and until she’s old enough to enjoy ice cream sandwiches and Pistachio Rocket Pops, her mom will be able to whip up healthy and wholesome meals for her with the assistance of the So Easy Baby Food kit and the First Meals cookbook. All of this undoubtedly delicious food can than be served on a whimsical La Mer ocean themed dinnerware set. Finally, just for fun, I included this ingenious Baby Owner’s Starter Kit, which comes with: The Baby Owner’s Manual, a growth chart with stickers for marking baby’s progress, a diaper changing Instructional poster (I could use this since I’ve honestly never changed a diaper in my life), a babysitter’s memo pad, and a decorative magnet.
Now we just have to wait for Baby Emily to make her grand debut so we can all begin her foodie education.
Ladies and Gentleman The Little Pumpkin Book has been dethroned. I think we read that particular book two million times to my sister when she was a baby. I can still recite it to this day. Unfortunately, all reigns must come to an end and Foodie Babies Wear Bibs is by far the most adorable children’s board book I’ve ever seen. The illustrations are whimsical, and engaging while the text is straightforward — as it should be. Flipping through the pages I’m absolutely enamored with Nathalie Dion’s depictions of roly poly babies playing with their food in all manner of locations. My favorite page is simply captioned “Foodie babies say cheese” and is accompanied by happy kiddies hamming it up for the camera while sampling platters of gouda, cheddar, and brie. Those are definitely my kind of babies!
Foodie Babies Wear Bibs is part of the Urban Babies series of Children’s Books which was created by Michelle Sinclair Colman and is published by Tricycle Press (an imprint of Ten Speed). Other titles available include: Urban Babies Wear Black, Beach Babies Wear Shades, and Eco Babies Wear Green. Obviously any of these selections would be the perfect gift for the mommies-to-be in your life. Hopefully they aren’t due for a few more months though. Foodie Babies Wear Bibs has a “delivery date” of October 2008. Fortunately, unlike actual babies, this is available for pre-order.
