My first cookbook, Recipes from the Night Kitchen: Practical Recipes for Soups, Stews and Chilies, (written under my maiden name and no longer in print) was the offshoot of From the Night Kitchen, a take-out shop I owned and ran in Brookline Village, MA for 10 years (and now so old it doesn't even show up in Google). Having spent years cooking for the public (which I loved and then eventually hated) I took to cookbook writing immediately. I still got to cook but didn't have to serve the ever-fickle public. I loved the process of tasting something in my mind, coming up with a recipe, testing it, sharing it with friends and then writing about it. I especially loved the parameters of my book: just soup, stews and chilies, basically stuff I threw into pots that then steamed up the windows. Later I wrote cookbooks with Chefs Todd English and Stan Frankenthaler: the food was theirs but I translated it into the language of home cooks. I kept writing more single subject cookbooks of my own: Party Nuts; Party Dips; a series called Recipe of the Week, that included books on Cookies, Kabobs, Burgers and Ice Cream, and more. Every book had a strict focus, whether it was one main ingredient, one type of meal or a clearly defined concept.
Which brings me to: Why the SNAP TestKitchen blog? Well, honestly I love a good cooking challenge (like having dinner guests with food allergies and/or on wacky diets) but really: I believe in my heart that cooking solves all ills. Well, almost all. I am the type of person who, when a headache strikes, immediately wonders what I ate that sparked it. I love to cook. It's creative, fun, therapeutic, heartwarming to cooks and eaters alike, colorful, entertaining, the list goes on and on. And most importantly, I believe that many food related problems (obesity and allergies, for instance) that exist today are because people don't cook at home.
The limitations of SNAP intrigue me and I wanted to see if I could cook good food on the extremely limited budgets (not foods, as in WIC) that SNAP recipients receive. For right now, it is an experiment, nothing more.
Now, a little bit about ChopChop:
ChopChop, The Fun Cooking Magazine for Families is a non-profit quarterly food magazine, launched as an antidote to childhood obesity. While we know that obesity is a multi-layered and very complicated problem, ChopChop offers a solution that is both simple and easily achievable: Cook real food at home with your family. Engage your kids and grandkids. Or let them engage you if that’s what it takes.
Our message is positive - no finger wagging - and our solution is fun. Cooking builds relationships and leads to better health. It even saves money. Cooking teaches math, science, cultural and financial literacy, really the list of positive attributes is endless.
ChopChop’s mission is to inspire and teach kids to cook and eat real food with their families. ChopChop’s vision is to reverse and prevent childhood obesity. Published in both Spanish and English, the magazine is filled with nutritious, great-tasting, ethnically diverse and inexpensive recipes, as well as interesting and little-known food facts, Q&A’s and games.
more things you should know:
- Since our launch in March, 2010, over 4.5 million copies have been distributed to over 10,000 pediatricians, children's hospitals, and youth-based community organizations, as well as to schools, after school programs including Boys and Girls Clubs and YMCA's. food banks, farmers markets, and grocery stores spanning every state and twelve countries. ChopChop is currently in almost 50% of all pediatricians offices in the United States.
- ChopChop has a stellar and very active Advisory Board, including 18 prominent figures from healthcare, nutrition and childhood education: Walter Willett, MD, MPH, Chair, Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health; David Cutler, PhD, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, Kennedy School of Government; Tina Peel, Creator, Producer, Kids' TV & Media, 15-year veteran of “Sesame Street”; Vivien Morris, MS, RD, MPH, Director of Community Initiatives, Nutrition and Fitness for Life Program, Boston Medical Center; David Ludwig, MD, MPH, Founding Director, Optimal Weight for Life program, Children's Hospital Boston and best selling cookbook author Mollie Katzen. We also have a Kid's Advisory Board.
- Active advocates of ChopChop include Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative, The New Balance Foundation, and, as a National Strategic Partner, the USDA; we’ve also been endorsed by the AAP and named a “Best Practice in Childhood Obesity Prevention” by NAPNAP (the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners).
- ChopChop is published by ChopChopKids, Inc, a 501(c)(3) located in Watertown, MA.
If you want to know more (and I hope you do), check us out at www.chopchopmag.org.
Thanks.
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