Four dyes, many colors

We’re moving soon after Easter, so I haven’t exactly been looking forward to making from-scratch egg dyes this year. It’s not hard. It’s not even time-consuming. But when your house is turned upside down and you’re purging most of what you own, well, who needs one more thing to do, you know? So you’ll understand my recent impulse purchase: a natural egg-dyes kit from the Natural Candy Store (where the resident Easter bunny also shops). I haven’t gotten it yet, but, when I do, I’ll report back on how it works.

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, voices, viewpoints, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.)

*If you don’t have four pots, use a teapot to boil the water for the chlorophyll capsules. That one doesn’t need to simmer, so you can easily pour out two cups of water and mix the green in a separate bowl.

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It’s been nuts in my house since late summer. That’s when my husband and I decided to act on our long-nagging desire to shake things up by paring things down. Things, literally, as in possessions. (It’s been non-stop Craigslisting, Freecycling and donating around here.) But also things in the greater cosmic sense: stress, expenses, responsibilities.

We’re trading our big old house for a loft in a former warehouse downtown. My husband just started a new job close to the new place. We’re ditching the second car. More being. Less doing. That’s the idea, anyway.

We have several months yet until we move, and plenty more to do. So when Tess wanted an ice-skating party for her 8th birthday, it was a huge relief. We’ve run the gamut on parties — from small home celebrations to a “Little House”-themed bash in a log cabin — but this year, the simpler, the better.

So we rented our city’s outdoor rink. Everyone brought their families. And we celebrated our Winter Solstice girl on a clear, gorgeous late December day. No gifts, no favors, no elaborate party fare. (And I’ve been known to put the “labor” in “elaborate.”) We collected donations for the city’s animal shelter. I made snowflake gingerbread cookies (on sticks! using a variation on this recipe). We had clementines and water and hot cocoa. And everyone had all kinds of fun.

Hot cocoa story: We ordered from our local grocer. They make it on-site, then pour it into those nifty to-go boxes with spouts, the ones that stay hot for a few hours. And because I asked (and paid a few extra bucks), they were happy to sub local organic milk for the milk they usually use. Some people see that as fussy. I see it as simple. Asked. Accepted. Who ever said this stuff has to be stressful? (It doesn’t.) 

On that same note: Before she settled on ice skating, Tess lobbied for a party at a local indoor play center. And so I called and had one of those conversations I often have. Me: “We’d like to bring our own food, please.” Play center staffer: “Do you have a concern about allergies?” Me: “No, we just don’t eat the kind of food you serve.” Staffer: “Outside food is against our policy (followed by an explanation that blamed a non-existent state law).”

Well, that led to a phone call with the owner, and wouldn’t you know it? Easy-peasy. After I explained that we don’t eat the highly processed junk they typically serve (OK, not in those exact words), he offered to get whatever food we wanted and prepare it in their kitchen. I was all set to order fruit and veggie trays when Tess changed her mind. But I like knowing that’s an option for the future.

BTW, all this rightsizing and rethinking is why it’s been so quiet on Spoonfed the last several months. But that’s not part of the simplification. Quite the opposite. I’m hoping these changes free up even more time for blogging and the thinky pieces I like so much. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep things lively over on Facebook (where I get my micro-blogging fix). And look for a new post next month that will help get Spoonfed back on track.

Happy 2012, all.

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, voices, viewpoints, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.)

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Tess just spent a week playing a 19th century farm girl. She’s done camps at this living-history museum every summer since she was 4. (You haven’t seen cute until you’ve seen 4-year-olds dressed like Laura Ingalls.) But the previous camps were a little of this, a little of that, a sampler of life in the 1800s.

Now that she’s 7, Tess got to pick a themed camp, and 19th Century Farm Kids it was, held at the Pioneer Farmstead at Genesee Country Village & Museum, about 30 minutes from where we live in western New York.

Over the week, the kids learned about the animals (sheep, oxen, ducks, geese, chickens, turkeys, cows and pigs), collected eggs and dabbled in cheesemaking. They pulled purslane for salads. And soaked flax to extract the fibers for linen-making. They even picked and tasted hops. (There’s a working 19th century brewery on-site.)

There was barn-cleaning and wood-stacking, work followed by the fun of 19th century games. They shelled corn and sewed corn bags (like bean bags), then made them again after chipmunks raided the barn.

Every day they recorded their experiences in journals, using fountain pens and ink.

I’ve written about GCVM before, in posts on maple sugaring and teaching kids about industrial meat production. The village offers immersion-style history, with costumed role-players sharing the mundane yet fascinating rhythms of early American life. That of course includes the routines and rituals of food and farming. And for kids, especially, it’s a great lesson in agriculture at its most basic. Sure, the kids immerse for only a few hours a day, and they go home in air-conditioned cars to houses with refrigerators and snacks in bags, but it all sinks in, you know?

It’s the reason (along with the “Little House” picture books) that Tess wanted a pioneer party for her 5th birthday, which we  managed to pull off by renting a 1938 log cabin (itself a replica of a 1721 fort) in a nearby park. How authentic? No heat. Only a fireplace. In December. Looking back, it seems a little nuts. But there was sledding and butter-making and running around in bonnets and straw hats. And everyone went home with maple candy and an appreciation for central heat. (Oh: Renting a cabin with no heat in December? Cheap.)

This summer, when we visited Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Mass., we found fantastic exhibits and stories about how the Wampanoag and the colonists ate seasonally, in sync with nature. And these museums are everywhere. Check out the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums, with members throughout the U.S. and Canada.

My only complaint about farm camp?  Though kids brought their own snacks and lunches (stored in cloth-covered baskets), the camp supplied drinks. Two choices: Water and “lemonade.”  As in: Country Time. As in: artificial colors and other chemical additives that no way, no how existed in the 1800s. (Though, OK, some other poisonous food colorings did.) And, oh, by the way, no actual lemon. Next time, I’d like to see the kids make their own real lemonade. Just like Mrs. Oleson.

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, voices, viewpoints, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.)

This post is linked into Real Food Wednesdays and Fight Back Fridays.

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This is how we spent Fourth of July weekend, prepping and planting a long-overdue garden. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve gardened for years, but always flowers, never fruits or vegetables. We’ve had token edibles — containers of tomatoes and herbs, squash sprouting from the compost bin — but no proper vegetable patch. Not that I haven’t wanted to plant one. I just… haven’t. With our CSA, several farmers’ markets and lots of u-picking to keep us seasonally sated, it just wasn’t a priority.

But, as happens around here, Tess had other ideas. For her 7th birthday in December, we’d given her Lanie, the tree-hugging, butterfly-loving, camping-happy American Girl doll that Tess had decided was her vinyl doppelganger. Soon after, we read the Lanie books, and before March was over, Tess (and Lanie) had spent hours plotting a tiny stone-bordered garden and building a compost pile. Never mind that both were dismantled for other projects. The proverbial seed had been planted.

As spring brought rain and mud, Tess scrounged some old pole-bean and lettuce seeds (that we never got around to planting last year) and potted them up. Wouldn’t you know it? The things flourished.

Next came the books showing bean teepees, which got my husband the engineer involved. Then the farmers’ markets opened. Tess wanted one tomato plant, then another, then more lettuce starts and some pepper and watermelon seedlings. I kept buying herb plants everywhere I went. And, well, a garden was born. We built a lasagna bed, topping it with several years’ worth of compost (black gold, that stuff, seriously). That it took us until July to plant the darn thing is beside the point. That it got planted at all is my definition of a victory garden.

Are you gardening this summer? (It’s not too late.)

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, voices, viewpoints, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.)

This post is linked into Real Food Wednesdays and Fight Back Fridays.

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The web is awash in tutorials on natural dyes, including this great simple piece from What’s Cooking with Kids. For more detailed techniques and color effects, check out Martha Stewart and KitchenGardener. Onion skins make gorgeous colors, as shown on these Passover eggs and wrapped eggs.

Green can be tricky, but Kris Bordessa of Attainable Sustainable wrote in Kiwi magazine about using chlorophyll capsules (three capsules to one cup of boiling water). And Melissa Graham of Little Locavores shared in a comment on this Spoonfed post that red wine makes a killer purple. Sparkly, too. But the wine has to be freshly opened, so, you know, get drinking while the kids are dunking.

My contribution to this seasonal fare? An eggsperiment, excerpted from last year’s post, in which I used natural dyes to make fake vs. real more tangible for my daughter:

It’s Easter. Time to color eggs. Why not use fruits and vegetables to dye them naturally? And have a little plant-science lesson on the side? Out came the neon dye tablets leftover from last year. (We dyed. We did not eat.) Then the test tubes from a science kit. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz — oh what a fake color that is.

Me to Tess: “Have you ever seen colors like that in nature?”

Tess: a dutiful grimace and shake of the head.

On to the stove, where we filled pots with eggs, water and various fruits, vegetables and juices. (Here’s where I direct you to folks more kitchen-crafty than me, so you, too, can experience the joy of boiling eggs along with beets and blueberry juice.)

We used brown eggs (instead of the recommended white eggs), so the colors were unpredictable. The beets produced a warm dark brown. Spinach didn’t take at all. The blueberry juice, however, made a deep purple that got a “cool” out of my daughter. And because she really wants pink eggs, we’re going to try another batch with raspberry or pomegranate juice.

As each pot filled with the color of the cooking produce, we talked about how plants have so many beautiful natural colors and how each color represents nutrients our bodies need. With color extracts literally seeping into the water, there was no question at all where they came from, or that we can find all the color we need without putting on a lab coat.

And, at the least, we’ll have chocolate. Because in addition to the additive-free candy I ordered, I’ll be making chocolate bunny pops using this fantastic recipe from Food with Kid Appeal. The ingredients? Coconut butter, coconut oil, raw honey, almond butter, cacao powder, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and sea salt. I haven’t even made them yet, and already I’m addicted.

Are you dyeing eggs? Making treats? Otherwise prepping for visits of the bunny kind?

Spoonfed is now on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, voices, viewpoints, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.)

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Last week, out with friends at a new restaurant (a place I wrote about here), my 6-year-old ordered chocolate mousse for dessert. Actually, chocolate avocado mousse. But my daughter didn’t know that. She’s a beginning reader and “avocado” is not yet in her repertoire (though “chocolate” is), so I let her order the mousse without mentioning its secret green ingredient.    

Sneaky greens?

Tess has a fickle relationship with avocado. One minute she proclaims guacamole her favorite food or inhales avocado-laced veg sushi. The next she scrunches her nose and declares anything remotely avocado-ish “gross.” Lately it’s been more the latter than the former. Would it have been fortunate if the mere mention of avocado had turned her off the idea of dessert altogether? OK, sure. But scratchmade chocolate mousse is a beautiful thing. Plus, I got to do this:    

Me: “Guess what? There’s something else in that mousse besides chocolate. Something green. Can you believe it?”    

Tess: Stops licking spoon. Looks at me suspiciously. “Green?”    

Me: “Yes, green! It’s actually avocado! Isn’t it cool that you can put avocado in chocolate mousse?”    

Tess: Pauses. Stares at bowl. Resumes licking spoon.    

So maybe all she cared about was the chocolate. But the thing is that I wanted her to know there was avocado in her mousse. I think it’s important that kids know what’s in their food, and that’s especially true when it’s an ingredient they’ve previously waffled on (or not liked at all). I was reminded of this because a fellow blogger, Naveen over at Little Stomaks, posted a Chef Boyardee commercial that blatantly advocates for hiding vegetables. (The commercial also claims that Chef Boyardee is “secretly nutritious.” What now?)     

As I commented there, I’m not a fan of the stealth vegetable (or, in this case, stealth fruit, since technically avocado is a fruit). Sure, put spinach in your brownies or carrots in your pasta sauce, but don’t hide that fact. Tell your kids what’s in their food so they can learn to love vegetables on their merits. Otherwise you send the message that vegetables are something to be endured instead of enjoyed. (You also enable that dreaded picky eater business.)    

But what do you think? Is there really harm in hiding veggies? Can that hinder a child’s ability to appreciate new foods? Or is it no big deal? And, really, do real-life kids ever hate vegetables as much as TV kids?    

On that note, I’ll leave you with one of the Chef Boyardee commercials. Separate from the example Little Stomaks posted, there’s a new series on the company’s website. Here’s the one that annoys me the most:    

A note about videos: Spoonfed has turned into video central lately. We’ve had 11-year-old Birke Baehr’s amazing speech, news about vanishing bees and a discussion about junk food as heroin. And of course a little love from Jamie Oliver. It’s feeling a little like YouTube lately, which is fun for awhile, but I wouldn’t want to make a habit of it. So not to worry. Video-free posts on the way.  

And a note about Jamie Oliver: The Guardian has a terrific article this week about JO, his critics and his crusade for better school food. It’s long, but well worth the read. Candid, salty, spot-on. Love him or hate him (and, frankly, I don’t get the haters), we’d all be better off if more people cared even half as much about what we feed our kids. 

This post is linked into Real Food Wednesdays, Fight Back Fridays, Vegetarian Foodie Fridays and Wholesome Whole Foods.

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A new Spoonfed post is coming very soon. (So much for stockpiling posts before vacation.) In the meantime, I’m participating in a new monthly blog carnival sponsored by Healthy Child Healthy World, a non-profit that is all about protecting kids from chemicals where they live, play and learn (food included).

This month’s theme, “Splendor in the Grass,” explores ways to inspire kids to connect with nature, sans pesticides and other nasties. My contribution is a recent post called “Clean food and dirty kids,” about how mood-boosting bacteria (found only in healthy, organic soil) is a good reason for kids to get up close and personal with their food. Other bloggers submitted posts on everything from non-toxic lawns to backyard habitats. Here’s the full list. And a few of my favorites:

• “The most expensive egg we’ll ever eat” is Rookie Moms’ riff on the family’s new chickens.
• Adventures with Three Girls takes on green yards and a weed-eater named Delilah.
• Almost All the Truth tackles two words: muddy kids.
• (Apparently I have a thing for chickens.) Mommy Goes Green talks safe lawns and the wonders of something called Chickity Doo Doo.

For more on Healthy Child Healthy World and how even small changes can make a big difference, check out the group’s video, “A Wake-Up Story”:

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Strawberry fields forever

There came a moment during strawberry-picking last week when the 6-year-olds decided they’d had enough. While the grown-ups continued busily picking a flat apiece, my daughter and her friend snuck off to the shade for a drink and a snack. Then the girls plopped themselves in the dirt and set to work, drawing roads and concocting stories about the imaginary travelers at the ends of their sticks.    

I’ve always thought playing in dirt makes kids happy because it’s messy. And sensory. And because kids aren’t hung up on being clean and smelling good and worrying what others think. All they know is that dirt is transformative. Literally, from dust to mud. Figuratively, from strawberry patch to fairy highway.    

Yes and, apparently, no.    

Plenty of research over the last decade and more has shown how kids benefit from gardening and other time spent in nature.*  They’re more confident, patient, responsible and compassionate.  They know (and care) more about food and the environment. They learn more easily. Some of that is simple exposure to living, growing things. But a lot of it is the freedom, fresh air and physical activity that lets little brains and bodies find their groove.    

Healthy soil, happy kid

Now we have studies on the effects of contact with dirt itself. But not just any dirt. Garden dirt. Farm dirt. Soil. The rich, healthy, organic stuff. Because that’s the kind of dirt that contains a bacteria called Mycobacterium vaccae, a bug that’s been getting a lot of attention. A 2007 study found that M. vaccae increases serotonin — the brain’s feel-good chemical — and decreases anxiety. A new study, out last month, reports that M. vaccae’s mood-boosting properties make it easier to learn new things. Get M. vaccae on your hands, inhale it while you dig — even eat some on freshly harvested lettuce — and the research says you’ll feel more relaxed, alive, alert.    

Studies or not, that kind of makes sense, you know? When I think about how my daughter responds to plants and soil, how she both lights up and calms down, it does seem as though something biological is at work. I feel it, too, when I garden bare-handed with dust in my lungs and dirt up my nose. All of which has me newly appreciating the attraction of children to dirt. And the importance of getting kids outside, not just to play, but to plant or pick and otherwise connect in a direct way with their food.    

I’m a longtime and serious — though now seriously lapsed — flower gardener, but I haven’t delved as deeply into edible gardening as I’d hoped. Partly that’s time, and partly it’s the abundance here in western New York and the gratitude I feel for the farmers who supply our food. We usually have a few tomatoes and herbs, some beans or peas potted up at school, a tiny patch of resilient raspberries, and the occasional squash or pumpkin that springs from the compost pile. But mostly we’re happy to just reap the benefits of what the farmers do best.