Nora Sands: Nora's Dinners

By JULIETTE ROSSANT What makes a great children's cookbook? Fun, appealing, imaginative recipes that are easy-to-make, teach basic skills, and introduce children to foods that are good for them to eat. A book like that demands to be picked up, explored and returned to, again and again as children gain more confidence in the kitchen. The pictures need to grab children so that they understand and master processes and feel proud of the results. How does Nora's Dinners and Breakfasts, Lunches and Snacks for You to Cook at Home (Collins 2006) stack up? Nora is Nora Sands, the no-nonsense dinner lady who appeared in Jamie Oliver's TV series, Jamie's TV Dinners. He writes in his foreword: Last year Nora Sands, a dinner lady from Kidbrooke School in Greenwich, became my most powerful ally in the school dinner campaign, where we succeeded in getting the Government to undertake a massive U-turn on our social and nutritional policies for the kids in British schools."(p. 9) Nora (no doubt with Jamie's help and advice) has figured out the power of images. What makes this book so engaging are the photographs by Veronique Leplat and excellent food styling by Felicity Barnum-Bobb that never makes anything look fake or fussy. Nora herself appears with children throughout the book, helping, guiding, and eating and laughing with them. The kids dominate, and though it is a perfect rainbow coalition of handsome, cuddly grinning cooks in freckles, braids, missing teeth, floppy hats and aprons, they seem actually to be cooking with her. The book Nora put together is full of classic home cooking British recipes, geared towards 7-12 year olds. The text is written in a chatty, engaging way, though she does not talk down to children. Nora starts the book with simple sections, the first on tools with definitions and descriptions of simple tools like colander, "this is a special bowl with holes for draining cooked food like potatoes or pasta, or for rinsing fruit or vegetables" (p. 13). There are Top Tips for Food Safety about food storage and washing hands (p. 16) -- useful for most adults to review as well. There is also a section on techniques that explains what simmering and boiling means, and how to break eggs (pp. 17-20). Another section has a very good chart (simpler and superior to USDA's food pyramid) and an explanation of how to eat "sensibly" (p. 21). Best is a section on vegetables, "Making Friends with Your Vegetables" coaxing children to eat more varied kinds, with a wonderful photo spread of different vegetables and another spread of herbs and spices (pp. 23-31). There is even a section on setting the table (p. 32). The recipes in the breakfast section are attractively easy for very young cooks, a wonderful reinforcement for a child just learning how to read, who also wants to master the first meal of the day. The first recipe for Boiled Eggs & Soldiers (pp. 36-37) exhibits a simple explanation for boiled eggs served with toast cut into strips. It comes with a list of equipment, ingredients, and three steps. Ingredients are highlighted in red and equipment in blue, so that it is easy to figure out what to do. The most complicated recipe in the breakfast section, involving weighing and cutting ingredients, and cooking batter, is Caramel Apple Pancakes (pp. 43-45). There are fun lunch recipes for slightly older kids, including one for Chunky Tomato & Basil Soup with Big Fat Croutons (pp. 64-65) that includes instructions to the cook about when to use oven gloves and when to clean up. The Pick'n'Mix Monsterella Pizza recipe has a excellent explanation of how to knead dough, accompanied by step-by-step pictures. There are fine recipes for pasta sauces, Baked Macaroni Cheese (p. 84-85), and Sticky Messy Ribs (p. 86-87). There are more challenging dinner dishes for older children. The ultimate recipe is Mum's Best Sunday Roast with Roast Potatoes & Green Beans (pp. 106-111). It involves a number of children working together through 12 steps, accompanied by a picture of the whole lot of them sitting at the dinner table afterwards. A final chapter of desserts ranges from Zesty Lemon Cookies (pp. 116-117) to Fruity Flapjacks (pp. 124-125) to Carrot Cake (pp. 126-127). Most of the recipes have extra fruit or some other healthy ingredient,­ with the exception of the Choca-Blocks (118-119), Nora's version of brownies. This British-written book is intended for the European market, with some implications for us Yanks. It is more readily found on Amazon.co.uk than Amazon.com (where Jamie's name is misspelled "Jaime"). Many of the ingredients are British, like "strong flour," Double Gloucester Cheese, and "minced beef" (ground beef), most of which are easily replaced with American substitutes or available in specialty stores. Finally, the cookbook is measured in metrics -- a good math exercise (for all ages), converting metrics to imperial measurements. Even without the marketing power of Jamie's TV Dinners series, this is a terrific children's cookbook that should sell well for a long, long time. It meets all the requirements of a great kid's cookbook: layout bright and colorful, recipes for things kids like to and should eat. Nora's Dinners makes for a summer project -- with tangible benefits to parents as well as children. Let's not be too British and understated about the matter: Nora's Dinners is quite possibly one of the best children's cookbooks available -- well conceived, well written, vividly photographed, and fun Fun FUN for kids. Book details: Publisher Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Previous articles: Jamie Oliver Signs Sainsbury's Jamie Oliver New Year: School Lunch Jamie Oliver on Vodafone Live Fat Lady Sings Jamie Oliver Jamie Oliver: Real Guts Jamie Oliver: School Lunch Wall Street Journal: Beef over Chef Sponsorship? Amazon UK's Steamy Xmas Chefs [Cookbook Reviews - update] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, cookbooks --> back to superchefblog