My first cookbook

The other day, I walked by a bakery in my neighborhoood.  On the door, there was a beautiful photo of a sole pristine piece of bread with perfect little pat of butter on it.

"That bread looks like it needs some food coloring on it," I thought to myself.

What!?

I thought hard about where that idea had come from and finally remembered the source. 

Monster Toast!

Reader, get ready to meet "Kinder-Krunchies"!

This book is especially dear to me because it's inscribed "To Becky, your first cookbook, from Grandma and Grandpa - March 11, 1989."  This is even better because my grandma has since proclaimed that she doesn't even really like to cook!

"Kinder-Krunchies" was published in 1982 by Karen Jenkins and I think it's geared toward a progressive audience.  (I'm basing this assumption almost entirely on the fact that there's something about adding carob powder to an ice cream recipe, okay?)  I would be curious to see a later edition or a similar cookbook published more recently to see how it incorporates this national conversation going on about where our food comes from.  Regardless, I will save it forever because it opens the door to those questions, and it really is a cool introduction to food and nutrition and cooking for kids.  Each spread has a recipe on the left page and a series of "food for thought" (ha!) questions on the right page. 

It's black and white, but obviously, I took it upon myself at an early age to convert the pages to full color.

Some recipes are definitely more complicated than others.  Some require help from adults.  Some are recipes that use the oven that I would actually still like to cook now!  (That's a future post, I suppose.)

Others are more simple.

My favorite parts are the questions for kids to consider. Some are about health and portion control and how to approach treats.

Something must have gone wrong in how I processed this lesson, because I would quite like to eat large quantities of Kindness Cookies every day!

This last one is my absolute favorite.  Read #5.  Oh my!  Remind me to get some Vitamin C, pronto.

Simply put, this cookbook rules.  Now, excuse me - I have Monster Toast to make.