Book Review: What Chefs Feed Their Kids

Most parents would agree that it’s important to teach children to appreciate a wide variety of healthy, nutritious foods from a young age. To professional chefs who are also parents, however, it’s easy to imagine that this principle holds more weight than it does in the average home. Fanae Aaron, a new mother, found herself wondering what chefs put on their own kitchen tables as she took on parenting for the first time. She began to make inquiries of chefs around the country, and the result is the cookbook What Chefs Feed Their Kids: Recipes and Techniques for Cultivating a Love of Good Food .

The recipes in the book are diverse in both flavor and nutrition. As an added bonus, most are relatively simple to prepare, as most chefs have little time to devote to their domestic kitchens before rushing out the door to work in professional ones. You can view some sample recipes on the book’s website above, or in a New York Times article about the book.

Not only are the recipes appealing, but the book itself is very user friendly. Aaron demonstrated keen insight when she recognized that different foods appeal to children of different ages; she chose to divide the book into chapters based on a child’s age instead of by types of dishes. The first chapter, meant for parents of infants, features a series of tasty purees, while the next few chapters are for toddlers (ages 1-2 ½), preschoolers (ages 2 ½ to 5), big kids (ages 5-8), and early adolescents (ages 8-11). Here’s hoping that the tasty dishes in this book will elevate your child out of his grilled cheese rut!