columns
lifestyles
cooking
by joanna brichetto
b y s y b i l P RATT
an international trifecta
smart activities for kids Introduce kids to bird-watching with Sharon Lovejoy’s My First Bird Book and Bird Feeder (Workman, $21.95, 112 pages, ISBN 9780761165996), which includes a just-right guide and a windowmount feeder. The feeder, made of biodegradable plastic, is easy to fill and clean. The guide’s instructions for making homemade feeders and tips for turning your backyard into a bird haven will ensure even more bird traffic. The author’s joy in her subject radiates from sweet illustrations and enthusiastic guidance. She urges kids to look for clues: the shape of a beak, the sound of a call, the look of a feather, bird behaviors and even bird poop. Readers can
turn to the Bird Guide for simple descriptions, identification clues and fun facts for 34 of the most common species. But benefits of watching birds go beyond fun: In addition to developmental skills, bird-watching builds a love of the natural world and can foster a lifelong sense of environmental stewardship.
STUPENDOUS STORYTELLING
10
“Storytelling is the most perfect, most nourishing food for growing minds,” writes teacher and crafter Emily K. Neuburger, author of Show Me a Story: 40 Craft Projects and Activities to Spark Children’s Story telling (Storey, $16.95, 144 pages, ISBN 9781603429887). The book is aimed at anyone who wants to help kids “begin, develop and play with storytelling.” According to Neuburger’s introduction, stories exercise creativity, expand emotional awareness and encourage children to see connections, practice communicating, solve problems and develop moral thinking. Children can start stories with visual prompts such as
story dice, then develop their tales with a puppet theater, a storytelling jar, memory cards and more. Activities are indoor and outdoor, structured and unstructured, solo or collaborative, gender-neutral and adaptable to any skill level. Photos of materials, projects and games are plentiful and inspirational.
TOP PICK IN LIFESTYLES Unbored: The Essential Field Guide to Serious Fun is a comprehensive program of boredom-killing activities for kids and their parents. From one digestible and graphically enhanced nutshell to the next, this veritable bible of self-reliance would have had Emerson dancing for joy at the assembled ingredients for a productive and well-examined life: You get what you want by understanding who you are, redefining what you want and learning to “create instead of consume.” Authors Joshua Glenn and Elizabeth Foy Larsen (and many contributors from blogs and books) share ideas, activities, projects and resources in four main categories: You, Home, Society and Adventure. Crammed within these are convenient, two-page spreads such as: “Train Your Grownup to Geocache,” “Keep a Journal,” “Explode Things,” “Toaster Science” and “Decorate Your Sneakers.” The activities guarantee something for everyone, be it “indoors, outdoors, online and offline.” Many assume collusion with a willing (and strategically unobtrusive) grownup.
Unbored By Joshua Glenn and Elizabeth Foy Larsen
Bloomsbury $25, 352 pages ISBN 9781608196418
craftS & Hobbies
Though we’ve become a global village, we still eat and cook in wonderfully diverse ways. Now three new, beautifully illustrated cookbooks take us on eye-opening, mouthwatering culinary journeys. Maricel E. Presilla’s Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin Amer ica (Norton, $45, 912 pages, ISBN 9780393050691), with more than 500 recipes that roam through the rich gastronomic landscapes of Latin America from Mexico to the tip of Argentina, is a feast and a fiesta. As you cook your way through adobos, sofritos, empanadas, tangy ceviches, “big” soups and little snacks, meat and poultry (grilled, roasted and braised), salads, condiments and
dulces, you’ll discover how the fusion of native and Iberian cooking customs has made la cocina Latina so deliciously complex. When it comes to conjuring up the splendors—edible and otherwise—of exotic places, nobody does it better than Naomi Duguid. With Burma: Rivers of Flavor (Artisan, $35, 384 pages, ISBN 9781579654139), she opens up the culinary culture of a country that’s long been a crossroads for traders and travelers from China, India and all of Southeast Asia. A celebration of place, people and traditional foodways in vibrant recipes, dazzling photographs and stories that reveal the heart of a land, Burma is a must, and a perfect gift, for cooks and travelers—armchair or actual. Leanne Kitchen (great name for a food writer!) takes on a varied, venerable cuisine in Turkey (Chronicle, $35, 272 pages, ISBN 9781452107707). With more than 100 recipes, and photographs that you’ll want to bite into, she offers an elegant cook’s tour of Turkey’s seven geographic regions, where
Mediterranean, Slavic and Middle Eastern influences mingle and where courtly Ottoman dishes share the Turkish table with more humble, hearty peasant fare.
TOP PICK IN COOKBOOKS Whether you’ve cooked a ton of turkeys or are facing your first—Do Not Proceed without Thanksgiving: How to Cook It Well, Sam Sifton’s charming, absolutely essential manual. Sifton, a former New York Times restaurant critic, spent many Thanksgiving Days as a guardian angel, answering the newspaper’s Thanksgiving help line, saving the desperate from all sorts of disasters. He not only knows his stuff (and stuffing), he loves and honors the tradition, its promise and its joyful indulgence. But he’s strict about the rules: You will make turkey, gravy and cranberry sauce (a nonnegotiable trio), offer more than one starch, more than one appropriate-to-the-season veg and classic desserts (not chocolate, not experimental), no salad, no appetizers, save a few briny oysters. Sifton says, “Thanksgiving ought to be the best holiday of the year,” and he gives the guidance, the indispensable recipes and the moral support you need to cook a great holiday feast (leftovers included) and not lose your mind!
Thanksgiving By Sam Sifton
Random House $18, 160 pages ISBN 9781400069910 eBook available
holiday cooking