Five thoughts on kids and food

I've been meaning to blog on this topic for a while, but the small debate over at Craig's blog yesterday on kids and food has prompted me to do it now.

Now you're all going to think I'm a food snob or a food nazi or a party pooper, and I'm sure I'll get shot down in flames because hardly anyone I knows shares these views, but here goes. I think that, on the whole, our society has a Bad Attitude when it comes to how we feed kids. It's no wonder there's an increasing obesity epidemic. But it's not just about health, it's also about simple taste! This attitude is exhibited in a number of ways. Here's five of them:

1. As I said over at Craig's blog, it troubles me that junk food is equated with fun. This comes through in what we hand out to kids at their parties (and then give them another bag full of the junk to take home!!!), through to the face of McDonalds being a fun loving clown. Indeed, McDonalds can wear a lot of the blame in my opinion. I have no time for that institution at all. It serves up crap disguised as food, and clothes it in a sugar coating (literally) of fun - kids playgrounds, kids parties, free toys with meals. The one time I took my daughter (then aged only 1) to McDonalds (only because of lack of choice on the highway!), she started kicking her legs with excitement at the sight of the bright vibrant colours - it immediately appeals to kids.

2. The other similar thing that troubles me is that so many restaurants have a "kids menu" which invariably consists of chicken nuggets, chips, hamburgers or anything else battered - once again, crap. I'm not saying I never eat those things (though chicken nuggets I will draw the line at), but when meals such as these are the only things on a so-called "kids menu" what on earth is the message that we are conveying?? What's wrong with sharing some of your risotto with the child? Or serving child sized portions of risotto? This happens also in homes. We have one meal for the adults, and another for the kids, and often the kids meal is stuff warmed up from the frozen food section of Coles.

3. We also use junk food as the reward for "eating your greens". It pits the "nice food" against the "necessary evil food". Again, what's the message this is sending? Why not encourage kids to enjoy avocado, or brocolli, or peas. Cook them in interesting ways. Eat foods raw (my girls love snapping open snow peas and gobbling them up). Give them flavoursome sauces. Get them to help you cook them to increase their interest.

4. Apart from the health issues, there's a broader issue of letting our kids develop a wide taste for interesting and varied foods. Frankly, whether McDonalds is nutritious or not (and we know the answer to that), the simple fact is it tastes like vomit. Why limit them to such garbage when there is a world of interesting and delicious foods out there. In multicultural Sydney there is no excuse - there is such variety to try. Take them out for Vietnamese or Lebanese or Indian. Let them try olives and grilled eggplants and Pad Thai and hommous and curries.

5. Finally, I feel that we often treat our kids like second class citizens. We eat the expensive good stuff ourselves, and give them the cheap stuff. We justify it by saying they're too young to appreciate it. Garbage. My own hypocrisy on this was exposed when we had a family over for a meal and served a cheese platter - a block of blue vein cheese (more expensive) for the adults and block of cheddar cheese for the kids (surely that's all their unsophisticated palates can handle?). Guess which one the kids got stuck into? The blue vein!! And why not - let them enjoy the good stuff too! Why should the adults have all the nice food?

Anyway, there's my thoughts? What are yours?

Five ways to make an impressive sounding menu

OK, this post is aimed at anyone out there who might be running a cafe or restaurant. This is not about how to cook an impressive sounding menu, but how to write an impressive sounding menu. How to describe the dishes so that any foodie will be salivating and not able to resist ordering that delicious sounding dish (note, it is a delicious sounding dish, not necessarily a delicious tasting dish!).

Here we go:

1. Method: refer to the manner in which the dish was cooked - add the words "pan fried" or "oven roasted" or "lightly seared" or "char grilled".

2. Place: refer to the geographical location from which the food emanated - try "Tasmanian salmon" or "Western Australian angus beef" .

3. Fed: refer to the manner in which the original animal was fed - "grain fed beef" or "corn fed chicken" or "milk fed veal".

4. Jus: give it some "jus" (i.e. a posh word for sauce!) - try "Cranberry jus" or "herb jus" or "red wine jus".

5. Bed: refer to a particular "bed" on which the main food item can rest - "a bed of rocket" or "a bed of spring greens" or "a bed of kumara" or "a bed of lettuce".

Add all these ingredients together and you get a scrumptious sounding gourmet (if not somewhat pretentious) treat. Try this:- Oven roasted grass fed lamb with a rosemary infused Barossa muscat jus served on a bed of grilled eggplant.

Five reasons for blogging hiatus ...

I've had a few comments as to why I haven't blogged in a while. Here's five reasons (amongst others ...)






(OK, well, yes this north coast holiday was a few weeks ago now, and it doesn't explain the entire non-blogging period, but it was 2 weeks out of action, plus the week or two beforehand frantic at work getting everything done, plus general busyness on getting back to real life afterwards ...)

P.S. Don't you just love the canefields of the far North Coast? (i.e. second last photo above). There's something about a good canefield that makes you really feel like you're on holidays. Of course, a coffee by the beach helps too ...

Five comments on coffee in London

1. London can't do coffee like Sydney can do coffee. Which I find astounding for a city so close to Italy. We on the other side of the world have allowed the Italians to influence our coffee culture far more, and this has definitely been for the better.

2. London seems more influenced by America when it comes to coffee. People specifically order filtered coffee when coffee orders are taken in restaurants (can you imagine actually voluntarily wanting to drink filtered coffee, as opposed to it being the only choice on offer??).

3. More obvious still is that Starbucks have completely taken over the city. Every second street corner has a Starbucks outlet. Indeed, according to the wikipedia article on Starbucks, London has more outlets than Manhattan! Sorry, but Starbucks do not do good coffee!

4. Order a flat white almost anywhere and be met with a blank stare!

5. If you want a good coffee, go to Monmouth Coffee Company at Borough Markets (Fridays and Saturdays). Mmmmm ... beautiful. I craved good coffee for a whole week before getting there and it was so good I had to go back for a second cup (see photo above). They got the flavour right, they got the crema right. But it's a rare find in a big city ...