food picture books

[tasty review] Welcome to Our Table by Laura Mucha, Ed Smith, and Harriet Lynas

~ jama ~ 7 Comments

I couldn’t help but smile upon first seeing the sunny yellow cover with 16 happy kids at the table sharing dishes from their native countries. What an irresistible invitation to join them for a mouthwatering feast!

Even before you open the book, the message is clear: international, diverse, community, inclusive, fun and delicious. When you start reading, it’s so easy to relate: We are different, but we all love food! 

Welcome to Our Table: A Celebration of What Children Eat All Around the World (Nosy Crow, 2023) is an epic smorgasbord featuring hundreds of dishes and ingredients, both familiar and exotic, temptingly flavored with fascinating tidbits about how certain foods are grown and prepared.

Written by poet-author Laura Mucha and her chef-food writer husband Ed Smith, the 64-page compendium is served up with Harriet Lynas’s cheery, drool-worthy digital illustrations, sure to whet the appetite and arouse curiosity.

The mouthwatering menu contains 33 “courses” or topics, most featured on inventively designed, reader friendly double page spreads along with several single page spreads + sidebars. Friendly kids of multiple ethnicities are shown eating, serving, or interacting with various types of foods (interesting asides are conveyed via occasional speech bubbles).

After a brief introduction, Mucha and Smith set the table with descriptions of common eating utensils. Besides forks, knives, spoons and chopsticks, more than 1/4 of the world eats mainly with their hands. In India, Pakistan, Bhutan and Bangladesh, fingers are the way to go! And in places like South Korea, Italy or Nigeria, hands are preferred only for certain dishes (lettuce wraps, pizza, pounded yams).

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serving up a pair of cool picture books about josé andrés and world central kitchen

~ jama ~ 13 Comments

“Chefs like me feed the few, but our destiny is to feed the many. To be an army of goodness where a plate of food becomes a plate of hope…a light in dark times. Together, we can change the world through the power of food.” ~ Chef José Andrés

Since I’m a big fan of chef, restaurateur, and humanitarian José Andrés, I was happy to see both of these recently published picture books about his interesting life and amazing accomplishments.

Chef Andrés’s World Central Kitchen is truly a beacon of hope during tumultuous times of untold trauma, displacement and uncertainty due to natural and man-made disasters. Whether earthquake, hurricane, war, wildfire or pandemic, WCK is right there on the frontlines offering food, comfort, and a helping hand to local communities.

Chef Andrés received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on January 4, 2025. To date, WCK has served 450 million meals worldwide (photo via WCK.org).

You may know that in early January, Andrés received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and that 2025 marks WCK’s 15th anniversary. Just recently, WCK provided free meals to firefighters, first responders and evacuees of the catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles via food distribution centers as well as local restaurant and food truck partners.

So how did this incredible food aid/disaster relief nonprofit get started? What first inspired Andrés to become a chef, what continues to motivate him, and what are some of his core beliefs when it comes to food?

Chef Andrés and WCK volunteers cook paella in San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 2017 (photo by Eric Rojas/NYT).

Both books, A Plate of Hope and José Feeds the World trace José’s life from his childhood interest in cooking, to attending cooking school in Barcelona, to becoming an assistant chef at El Bulli, opening a tapas restaurant called Jaleo in Washington, D.C. (where he also volunteered at the DC Central Kitchen), to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which motivated him to create World Central Kitchen.

When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, José and his WCK team got local people to volunteer after realizing they couldn’t do the work alone and there weren’t any other nonprofit organizations planning to feed the millions of people affected by the catastrophe.

As time passed, each new disaster presented different challenges requiring different solutions, and José found himself wanting to do more and more — establishing food distribution systems, flying in equipment to set up field kitchens, offering Meals Ready to Eat, etc. He also empowered local communities to use their skills and resources to help others as they had helped themselves.

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[chewy review] The Mochi Makers by Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson

~ jama ~ 11 Comments

Soft, chewy, stretchy — pink, white, or green — I love mochi!

Whenever I bite into a Japanese rice cake, it takes me back to my childhood in Hawaiʻi. While we often enjoyed store-bought mochi as an everyday treat, it was most delicious when the extended family gathered on New Year’s Day to make a homemade batch.

My uncle (whose wife was Japanese) was in charge of cooking and pounding the rice with a wooden mallet. At first he did this by hand, but in later years he acquired a mochi machine that largely did the work for him. When the mochi dough was ready, my aunts coated their hands with potato starch and twisted off pieces to form small round cakes. Each family took home a good share. How I loved fresh, oh-so-soft mochi dipped in a little honey!

You can see why I was excited to read Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson’s debut picture book, The Mochi Makers (Beach Lane Books, 2024). In this gentle, heartwarming story, a little girl makes mochi with her grandmother, learns about her family’s heirloom recipe, and then shares trays of mochi with family, friends and neighbors.

Told from Emi’s point of view, the story outlines the steps she and Obaachan follow to make this special treat.

First, Emi and Obaachan wash sweet mochi rice — “Obaachan with her strong, wrinkled hands and me with my small, quick ones.” It doesn’t matter if Emi spills a few grains; Obaachan reminds her “we only need clean hands and whole hearts to make mochi.”

While the rice is cooking, Obaachan tells Emi that the recipe originated from Emi’s great-great grandmother. When Obaachan emigrated to America to marry Emi’s grandfather (Ojiichan), she brought the mochi recipe with her “in her heart and hands.”

When the rice is done, Emi and Obaachan transfer the steaming mass into a stand mixer, where it’s pounded into a sticky mound. Next, they coat their hands with potato starch, twist off pieces and make small round cakes.

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[yummy chat + giveaway] Beth Charles on Apple Pie Tired

~ jama ~ 22 Comments

While I enjoy turkey and all the fixings, for me the best part of Thanksgiving is pie. Hello, pumpkin, pecan, and apple — all are favorites and I’m happy to make quick work of them. 🙂 You can see why I’m especially excited to welcome Vermont author Beth Charles to discuss her new picture book, Apple Pie Tired, charmingly illustrated by Hannah Brinson (Sleeping Bear Press, 2024). 

In this scrumptious seasonal story, young Lola and her parents work together to bake hundreds of apple pies to sell at their family farm for Thanksgiving. Though it’s Lola’s plan to make Thanksgiving dinner while her parents make the pies, Mom and Dad need her help with every stage of this big job, leaving her without time or energy to cook. 

Still, Lola is happy to learn about and participate in the pie-making process, from weighing and combining ingredients in a giant mixer, to making top and bottom crusts with the dough presser; to peeling, coring and slicing the apples with another big machine, before finally assembling the pies after adding sugar and spices to the apples. Can you imagine the sweet heavenly aroma of all those pies baking in the oven? Yummmmmm!

Come Thanksgiving morning, Mom and Dad are still baking as customers “bustled in and out” before purchasing five hundred and four pies! Unsurprisingly, Lola and her parents are “apple pie tired” after all that work. What to do when hungry aunts, uncles and cousins arrive for dinner?

Beth knows well the feeling of being ‘apple pie tired,’ since she and her family bake and sell hundreds of pies at their family orchard bakery every Thanksgiving. I was curious to learn about the logistics of such an undertaking and how she went about writing this appeelingly delicious story.

Thanks for dropping by today, Beth, and for making us extra hungry for more more more apple pie!

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[tasty talk + giveaway] Yangsook Choi on Slippery, Spicy, Tingly: A Kimchi Mystery

~ jama ~ 12 Comments

Did you know that November 22 is Kimchi Day? A national holiday in Korea, this chosen date is significant because there are 11 main ingredients in this traditional side dish and 22 health benefits, including vitamins, calcium, probiotics, and a boost to bodily immunity.

What better way to celebrate than by welcoming author-illustrator Yangsook Choi to talk about her latest picture book, Slippery, Spicy, Tingly: A Kimchi Mystery (Carolrhoda Books, 2024)! 🙂

In this tantalizing tale, Keo’s grandmother pays his family a surprise visit. Although she’s supposedly there to make some SPECIAL kimchi and to spend more time with Keo, he suspects Halmoni is up to something else.

It’s easy to see why. It’s not every day one’s grandmother (even a well preserved one) singlehandedly buries a humongous clay jar in the back yard. Keo is sure she must be hiding a secret treasure. After Halmoni recruits Keo and his parents to help turn a hundred heads of cabbage into spicy kimchi, she disappears as suddenly as she had arrived.

Keo waits and waits. When will Halmoni return for her treasure? Finally, she calls to tell them “it’s time” to lift the lid off the jar. Who or what is Halmoni’s true treasure?

This heartwarming, tastebud-tempting intergenerational story is flavored with good measures of humor, suspense, love, and the joy of families working together. Mouths will water at every slippery, spicy, tingly detail, as kids learn about the virtues of patience, living in harmony with nature, and honoring one’s cultural heritage.

Big thanks to Yangsook for dropping by to tell us more about making this book, the “super senior” who inspired it, and the fine art of savoring well seasoned, fiery-hot, naturally fermented kimchi. Hungry yet? 🙂

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