Eating Jim's Lunch: Tyler Florence's Start Fresh cookbook

Somewhere, very soon, a grown man may cry over broccoli.

Jim, This Is Just To Say*
I have eaten
the leftovers
that were in
the icebox

and which
you definitely meant
to eat
for lunch

Forgive me
they were delicious
so tender
and so warm.

 It's rare when I jump to a recommendation without weeks of scrutiny, but Tyler Florence's Start Fresh cookbook won me over as soon as I started reading it.

I'm too lazy for most celebrity chef cookbooks. The recipes seem designed to occupy hours shopping for hard-to-find ingredients, doing abundant prep work, and then obsessively observing every stage of cooking. What I need now, with my household of five, is simplicity, clarity, and health.

A mom who was making her baby all-organic baby food recommended the book to me, and I thought, "Lady, you're insane." Every time I cracked the cover of a baby cookbook, I spent at least an hour preparing something that NO ONE in the family wanted to eat (though Jim would very kindly feign enthusiasm for the disgustingly soft, unbelievable bland horror that I dished up). My friends grew an organic garden and made mountains of baby food for their first child, only to have it summarily rejected. I was too smart to do this again (note: with every new Jones baby I buy an expensive sling I hate and a stack of labyrinthine baby/kid cookbooks). Not this time (for the cookbooks, I already gave up on a Moby wrap).

And then came the line that landed the sales pitch, "You make one meal for the whole family and just puree some of it for the baby."

I dream of only making one meal that everyone eats. Somehow, I have become that short-order mom who everyone thinks they won't be. My kids eat fruit, breads, peanut butter, crackers, and cheese. It's like being stuck at a w(h)ine and cheese buffet for life. Jim and I still love the variety and flavors offered through menu planning service Relish! (we've subscribed since '08). So I've been making two meals and feeding the baby from jars and containers.

When (Tyler Florence's) Sprout baby food went on sale at the grocery, I bought a couple packs. If the baby would reject them like the other kids' did another leading organic baby food brand, I could cast out the lingering book recommendation faster than she spits out peas.

The baby all but wept for joy at the first taste. Her joyful face soon turned cynical as I swear she thought, "What else are you holding out on?" Then she banged her fists until she ate every bit. About 10 bags later, I bought the book.

Start Fresh is a pragmatist's cookbook. Recipes call for simple ingredients that are roasted or steamed (techniques that are cheap and easy). Jim has some great 13 gauge baking sheets which are perfect for roasting.

Last night the baby ate pureed roasted broccoli with Paremsan while we tossed the broccoli with some random pasta, Parmesan, and olive oil. It was outstanding. Even Ranger ate the letters in his name (which is something for a 6 year old who doesn't eat pasta). Jim was gleeful when I packed the leftovers for his lunch.

And then he forgot them. (And Jim, should you still be reading this, I actually saved half for you.)

Start Fresh: Your Child's Jump Start to Lifelong Healthy Eating is currently an Amazon bargain book ($7.79).  The first part of the book is purees while the second half is family meals with simple adaptations. About half the recipes are vegetarian (including great foods like beets, quinoa, eggplant, butternut squash). Only four dessert recipes are included- which is a refreshing change from most kids' cookbooks. The included desserts look healthier than average while still sounding sumptuous (e.g. baked pumpkin with peaches, strawberry-stuffed muffins).

While the book has some fancy-pants moments like making your own almond milk, it has parallel slacker instructions for us less motivated readers.

*My deepest apologies to William Carlos Williams, his red wheelbarrow, the white chickens, and the rain.

***Baby Toolkit is one Midwestern couple's approach to geek living with kids. Our opinions and judgement may be questionable, but they are entirely our own. We have no relationship with Tyler Florence or Rodale books. We are however Amazon affiliates, so a small percentage of purchases made through our links helps support this blog (thanks!).

Blackout: We Oppose SOPA & PIPA

Proposed American legislation threatens Internet privacy and freedom from censorship. If you're not already aware of these civil liberties and free speech issues, please see why sites like Wikipedia, Reddit, BoingBoing, and others are falling black on January 18, 2012. Even Google is marking the event (though their services will remain live throughout the day)

*Yes, if you read this earlier, I did correct the title. I meant to say I supported the opposition, but that isn't remotely what I initially published.  The girls have been up and down all night (bedtime is now some sick variation on whack-a-mole) and Ranger has decided  to have an early life crisis this week. I am totally losing my mind.

Up On Blocks: Top Construction Materials for Young Builders

We love blocks. From Jim to the baby, we can lose ourselves in long cycles of construction and destruction.

These simple toys can motivate the baby to army crawl at top speed to topple and me to linger a little longer at the kids' bedtime while we make the ramp just a little bit longer or the tower a little taller. Six-year-old Ranger builds huge marble runs in his bedroom, and three-year-old Scout sneaks into rearrange them while he's at school.

When Uncle Punk is around, we build using all the blocks we can muster. Then we bombard the structures with ping pong balls, bean bags, and old Crossbows and Catapults flying disks.

For the youngest (1 year and under), we prefer cardboard blocks (as she loves knocking towers down on her own head). Our homemade milk/juice carton blocks are a bit too big for her to handle, so she usually plays with Melissa & Doug Alphabet nesting blocks. She isn't much of a stacker yet, but she does like to nest the blocks.

The next step in our ziggurat of block building are old Fisher Price Stack & Build Blocks. These rounded blocks hold together without actually locking. They require less accuracy and motor control to stack and restack independently. Sadly, they're discontinued, so look at resale stores, yard sales, and (in our case) an awesome friend's living room (I promise she gave them to me).

Fisher-Price Stack & Build blocks

 Next in the lineup are MEGA Bloks. When kids' fine motor control and hand strength start improving, big locking blocks exercise their hands and their spatial reasoning. Not that the kids care about that. They're great fun. I chose MEGA over other favorite block brands because I can always find used ones cheap and MEGA seems to have been making exactly the same block for a long time (so there aren't near-fit problems when combining sets). Plus, Ranger's grandma gave him a MEGA Bloks set that he adored.

Melissa & Doug Unit Blocks

Around the same time, we get out the Melissa & Doug Unit blocks. These old school stackers are big and dense hunks of wood that are the mainstay of Jones' building. They are bigger than most home block sets. These are 6-year-old Ranger's most played with toy. Scout got a 2 small sets (2- 30 pc sets) for her 3rd birthday (so she would stop sneaking into Ranger's room during the school day to play with his).

Growing up, Uncle Punk and I shared a similar block set (though ours were covered in suspiciously bright, probably toxic, paint). I can remember sitting down on college breaks with my older brother and building elaborate structures (that we later knocked down with balls). If our geek genes prevail, the kids may get decades of play out of these.

Keva planks

A new block type we like are Keva planks. These unassuming identical planks require more planning than the unit blocks, but they introduce more strategy to block construction. Instead of simply grabbing the double long block to span a threshold, now we have plan ahead. There are often many solutions to each challenge, and it's easy to learn that some solutions are much more stable than others. As the kids get bigger, I think these (and their photo book of suggested structures) will become a centerpiece in our living room.

Research reveals that kids are more likely to read in homes where parents read. It is probably some combination of parental modeling and opportunity (more books around and natural pauses in the schedule to read). With blocks as a regular activity, we're seeing some of the same results. Scout, who has grown up watching us build with Ranger, uses blocks in ways that are surprising for her age (like improvising recognizable structures).

Even if blocks don't develop spatial thinking, they're still lots of fun to stack (and knock down).

***Baby Toolkit is the unbridled geekery of Jim & Adrienne Jones- Midwestern parents of three. We have no affiliation with any of the block makers listed above. We are Amazon affiliates, so we get a small percentage of purchases made through our Amazon links.

Household Essential: 3M Book Tape

Photographed to emphasize tape

It's no secret that we love books. Despite our best intentions, sometimes we even love them to pieces.

Before we had kids (okay, even for a while after we had Ranger), I thought we could maintain an organized library of carefully maintained books. I slowly came to realize that, at least for picture books, I could have readers -or- crisp, clean editions, but not both.

Why have books without readers?

I nearly wept the day Ranger ripped a page out of the hardback copy of On the Day You Were Born that I bought him upon request. He loved that book, and although paper kind of grows on trees, changing that paper to books can be an expensive process.

Then Jim reminded me of book tape. At one point, we both worked in an academic library and regularly traversed the catacombs behind the public areas. In one dark corner of cataloging, dedicated bibliophiles maintained and repaired worn and broken volumes. Little red boxes of book tape sat shoulder to shoulder waiting to assist in the ongoing battle against time, entropy, and abuse.

I use book tape to stitch together damaged volumes, but it also works on puzzle pieces and game boxes. Jim even uses it to reinforce the covers of frequently used reference books before damage occurs.

Corner reinforcement by library (interior)

The tape is slightly re-positionable when first applied (unlike clear packaging tape), but bonds firmly once placed. Its thicker and stiffer than packaging tape. The edges may shed a little adhesive, but it rolls off easily (like rubber cement) rather than creating a gummy mess. The tape can be creased easily over the edge of a softback cover or spine. Our local library even adds it to hardback corners to slow cover wear.

Exterior spine & corner reinforcement by library

Even with three young readers, we don't worry about letting our kids handle books.

A roll of book tape costs about $6 for 15 yards of 2" wide tape. That's far less than the replacement value of most books and a downright paltry investment in independence for a young reader. There's even an 8 roll value pack that might prevent the stink eye when someone abducts a roll "for work."

***Baby Toolkit is the periodic chronicle of a couple geeks crawling the dungeons of parenthood. We're Amazon affiliates, so purchases through our links will help us buy more books and book tape and other bits and bobs. Though we may be categorized as 3M enthusiasts, we have no non-imaginary relationship with the company.