Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Much Ado About Nothing

Nothing....

such a lonely, horrible word, that is unless you make do about it. With a respiratory infection looming around I was bound to get it too. To think all the garlic, onions and vitamin C I've been eating could ward it off. Nope!

So while I have been (mostly) stuck at home with it, I've also been pretty busy. I perfected my pumpkin empanada recipe (I had to make a few changes to it) that I want to include in one of my books! At least by my standards, I even managed to make them LOOK delicious. So the workshop for today was getting acquainted with perfection, recipe perfection. Which is quite important if it might possibly go in a book.

Here they are: "scrumdidlyumptios" is what my DH calls them.



This got me thinking about books that have recipes in them. OR books that explore food but don't necessarily have recipes in them. Books like this one:


Thunder Cake is so easy to make, and quite delicious. My children definitely enjoyed making it with me, but mostly they just licked the batter. Tomatoes and all! Here is the recipe for it.

Here are some more along with some recipes or activities related to the kidlit--so that you always have something to do about nothing. 

Walter the Baker by Eric Carle

 Here are some pretzel recipes along with a bit of pretzel history.
Have some fun with Carle and his books here
or just play with some Play-Doh here.

There is always much ado about popcorn with:


Learn about de Paola and his books here.
Or make a popcorn cake with this recipe and read the fun poem/song while you munch away. 
Explore an overload of popcorn madness, find the encyclopedia popcornia, find more great popcorn reads, and ask Poppy anything you like with this website.


Read Wende and Harry Devlin's  Cranberry Thanksgiving for some a berry fun secret recipe. 

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World is just as fun but so is Enemy Pie. I couldn't find the Enemy Pie recipe but here is one with Granny Smith apples so that you can make An Apple Pie for Dinner.

There are so many good ones! Too many to list! 

Like:
 What can you do with a Paletta by, Carmen Taffola 

Here, here, and aqui are are a few things you can do with Paletta! 


Or: 


This book contains 2 recipes! Here is a link to a multicultural bakery Los Bagels where you can find recipes and a bit of the history of the bagel and the bakery itself.


So when there is much ado about nothing...I challenge you to try to find something to do. Writing or not, much ado about something is better than nothing.  You get the point.

What are some of your favorite kidlit book/recipe combo favorites?



































7 comments:

  1. Those empanadas look delicious! I like pumpkin.

    I am also sick with a cold, and spending a lot of time in the steamy kitchen feels kind of good.

    I'm pregnant with my first baby, so I haven't read many new children's books so far, but my mother-in-law just sent me a bunch of kids' cookbooks, including American Girls and Winnie the Pooh recipes. The Pooh ones are adorable and have cute pictures, but British cooking--ugh. I don't know about that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. These are making me hungry! I just remember all the food passages from my childhood books vividly. The dinner the beavers made in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe...the sandwiches they ate in the first chapter of Wrinkle in time. Food in books is awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Genie: Congrats on the pregnancy! You have quite the adventure ahead of you. Kid cookbooks are fun! There is a Sesame street one that I like.

    Lydia: Oh I love the different foods they come up with for books, etc. Funny thing is I have an easier time remembering it if it is in a movie though. LOL. I suppose it is because I am more of a visual person. I think it is so fun when there is a story to go with the recipe. It makes for some good culinary fun with children.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your webpage keeps freezing up on me for some bizzare reason. This is 5th time lucky! I am always ravenous when I read people writing about food. I long for a cup of coffee and a cake after reading Debie Macomber and after reading Angela's Ashes where the author had a childhood of starvation my stomach gurgles at his vivid descriptions of food.LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Madeleine: Ravenous for sure. I'm sorry you had trouble with the webpage. I used to have that problem myself and then I got google chrome and it never froze on me again. You could also look into firefox or some other browser. Just a thought. It might help...unless you already use them. I don't know why it froze up.

    I love it what author's describe food!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi! I had the same problem with the webpage, but I think it was a pop-ups block issue. Anyway, Angela! I was just looking for books with recipes and can't wait to see your book with your pumpkin empanada recipe! We just read a book called Eight Animals Bake a Cake, or was it Ochos Animales...I forget. Anyway, it had a Pineapple Upside Down Cake Recipe and it was lots of fun to make. Thanks for this post! Lynne Marie (www.mywordplayground.blogspot.com)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ohhhhh how I love empanadas....and now you had to add that you made PUMPKIN empanadas!

    and adding recipes or even describing food in children's books is awesome, especially if it can encourage them to try something new!

    ReplyDelete

Comments that are inappropriate for younger audiences will be deleted. Keep it clean!

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails