Niam! Cooking with Kids

Inspired by the Mamaqtuq Nanook Cooking Club

Written by Kerry McCluskey

Inhabit Media

978-1-77227-255-0

72 pp.

Ages 5-12

December 2019

Any time there is an opportunity to encourage children to learn basic recipes and acquire cooking skills is a chance to help youth become independent, feed themselves and others, and gain confidence in trying new things. For many, the holidays is a great time for cooking with children, whether it is baking cookies as gifts or to have at home for visitors or learning how to work in a kitchen and prepare meals for the family.  The Mamaqtuq Nanook Cooking Club, a weekly after-school program at Nanook School in Apex, Nunavut, kid-tested all these recipes to ensure hearty concoctions that were both tasty and fun to make.

From Niam! Cooking with Kids by Kerry McCluskey

The cookbook provides background on starting a children's cooking club, as well as a glossary of basic terms and measurements. The recipes cover seventeen dishes from smoothies and snacks like sandwiches, mini quiches, and palaugos, to main courses such as chili, bird fingers, jerk chicken, pizza and meatlove. Several sweet treats such as love muffins, and sugar and gingerbread cookies are also included.

From Niam! Cooking with Kids by Kerry McCluskey

Because the Mamaqtuq Nanook Cooking Club is located in Nunavut, there are some ingredients like the recommended seal or muskox meat for the ground meat in meatlove that may be perplexing to readers from away. But that just means that these recipes can be used as opportunities to teach young readers about cultural differences, bringing communities together. Community involvement is a big thing for Kerry McCluskey who finds ways to involve her own community in the club's activities. For example, an Iqaluit resident Joanna Awa talked to the kids about the importance of seals to the Inuit and a portion of this discussion is included with the meatlove recipe. Moreover, no worries if you don't have seal meat or ptarmigan in your freezer–Kerry McCluskey always uses generic ingredients like ground meat or poultry so that anyone can try out these recipes.

From Niam! Cooking with Kids by Kerry McCluskey

When people come together to cook, good things happen. Good food, teamwork, skills development, and confidence are all positive outcomes of cooking with kids. With Niam! Cooking with Kids reinforcing that premise while highlighting the specific efforts of the Mamaqtuq Nanook Cooking Club, children everywhere are encouraged to join these young Nunavut chefs in the kitchen and make a difference in all their lives, one dish at a time.

The Munchy Munchy Cookbook for Kids: Essential Skills and Recipes Every Young Chef Should Know

Written by Pierre A. Lamielle

Familius

978-1-64170-156-3

170 pp.

Ages 8-13

September 2019

As a teacher-librarian, I loved purchasing cookbooks for the school library. Kids love looking at photos of great food, dreaming about sweet desserts and baked goods, and emboldening them to try their hand at some kitchen magic. With Chef Pierre A. Lamielle's newest cookbook, this one for children specifically, they'll get a good start on developing their culinary skills and creating some tasty treats.

More than a recipe book, The Munchy Munchy Cookbook for Kids covers important lessons, all told via quirky illustrations and a group of distinct characters called the Munchy Munchy Bunch which includes Sal, Pepper, Ragu, Ziti, Sage, Rose, and Bean. The first lessons focus on avoiding dangers that involve sharp objects, fire and hot items or sources of germs. From learning how to slice, hinge and saw with a knife, to dealing with burns and fires and avoiding Salmonella, Cyclospora and E. coli, Pierre A. Lamielle's "Safety Pages" are an excellent beginning to this cookbook.

From The Munchy Munchy Cookbook for Kids by Pierre A. Lamielle

While introducing the Munchy Munchy Bunch, Pierre A. Lamielle also presents the basic tastes of salty, bitter, sour, sweet and umami, and makes a case for ketchup–with recipe included–being a balance of all five tastes. (Who knew?)

From The Munchy Munchy Cookbook for Kids by Pierre A. Lamielle

The remaining sections–Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Sweets–focus on basic recipes but always offer up more. From cooking eggs six ways to making jam for breakfast, or preparing soup, salad, or sandwiches for lunch, and serving up schnitzel, butter chicken or pizza with homemade dough, each meal becomes an exploration of ingredients, techniques, history, and culture. The photographs, most of which are double-spreads that extend across the hardy hidden wire o binding (making scanning of the images near impossible for me), are appealing and never unsophisticated. The recipes are for restaurant quality food from the pumpkin pie soup to the soy delicious lettuce wraps, veggie chili with mini cornbread muffins and browneapolitan dessert. For vegetarian to meat-eaters, and those who prefer savoury to sweet or vice versa, everyone's tastes are covered within the recipes of The Munchy Munchy Cookbook for Kids,

From The Munchy Munchy Cookbook for Kids by Pierre A. Lamielle

Calgary's Chef Pierre A. Lamielle, who has appeared on Top Chef Canada and Chopped Canada, has his spoon in a lot of creative bowls from cooking and writing, to illustrating and teaching, all related to art and food. By mixing both here in The Munchy Munchy Cookbook for Kids, Pierre A. Lamielle has found a way to teach and entertain young readers with the promise of developing their culinary skills, of feeding themselves and others, and of making tasty food a source of sustenance and joy.