Liz’s Healthy Table Podcast Episode 40: Home Ec is Hip with Carolyn Federman + Cookbook Giveaway
October 31, 2018 | Liz Weiss
On this week’s show, food educator and author, Carolyn Federman introduces budding cooks to the concept of seasonal, organic, and local food with easy and delicious recipes that they can easily tackle on their own. Want to learn how to handle and use a real knife? Curious how to choose fresh and nourishing ingredients at the supermarket? Eager to treat mom and dad to pancakes this weekend? This show empowers parents to teach their kids how to cook and offers easy ways to bring home ec back to schools with Carolyn’s mobile kitchen classroom, The Charlie Cart Project.
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GIVEAWAY News!!
We are giving away a coy of New Favorites for New Cooks: 50 Delicious Recipes for Kids to Make by Carolyn Federman. Post a comment at the bottom of this post and tell me about the recipe or recipes your kids love to make on their own (or with your help) and/or tell me why you’d love to win a copy of New Favorites for New Cooks. (U.S. entries only, please.) Giveaway ends on November 14th at noon.
“Educating kids is the key to changing school food programs.”
– Carolyn Federman
Check out Carolyn’s cookbook on Amazon.
To learn more about The Charlie Cart Project, watch the video below. Want to bring a cart to your school? Visit The Charlie Cart Project for all the details!
The Charlie Cart Project from The Charlie Cart Project on Vimeo.
Inside the cookbook, you’ll find all sorts of how-tos, like how to cut a mango. Any kid can do it!
Here’s the mango and cucumber salad we talked about on the show. Easy peasy.
On the show, Carolyn shares her kids’ favorite recipe for Pioneer Pancakes. The recipe calls for buckwheat flour. Have you ever tried it?
[Tweet “TUNE IN to the Liz’s Healthy Table #podcast for an interview w/ Carolyn Federman, founder of @gocharliecart and author of New Favorites for New Cooks, and hear about how Home Ec in school is hip again.”]
Show Highlights:
- Carolyn shares that she lives in Berkeley, CA and is the mother of two teenagers.
- Carolyn worked with Alice Waters (Edible Schoolyard Project) 20 years ago and considers her a mentor even today.
- Liz and Carolyn share a passion for teaching kids how to cook.
- Carolyn’s Charlie Cart Project is an integrated educational program that connects food and cooking with lessons in Math, English Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies.
- The Charlie Cart Project costs about $10,000.00 and combines a rigorous curriculum with a mobile kitchen classroom on a cart so that educators can use it in any room at a school to deliver hands-on nutrition education.
- The Charlie Cart Program is in about 100 organizations and about 75 of them are schools. Currently, the program is in 31 states.
- The inspiration behind the book was to offer kids approachable recipes with sophisticated flavors.
- Carolyn says her book demystifies cooking, allow kids to try new flavors, and does not talk down to them.
- Along with recipes, Carolyn’s book teaches children the proper way to use a knife.
- Looking for a “gateway” recipe to entice young kids to cook and eat nourishing foods? Carolyn recommends trying a simple salad with dressing. BTW, dressings teach kids about ratios.
- Carolyn talks about her favorite pumpkin soup recipe made with roasted pumpkin, sautéed onions, and chicken stock — Just whir everything together in a blender.
- Carolyn serves up tips for getting kids to eat more vegetables.
- Carolyn says the Pioneer Recipe in her book is her favorite because they are made with buckwheat flour, which doesn’t taste as doughy as pancakes made with all-purpose white flour.
Links:
My email: [email protected]
- The Parents On Demand Network
Resources:
Carolyn’s book, New Favorites for New Cooks: 50 Recipes for Kids to Make
@gocharliecart on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter
Liz’s Healthy Table Blog
Have a question about the show or a suggestion for a future show? Ask away by posting a comment below or joining my Podcast Posse.
We don’t have kids but I’m trying to expand on healthy meal options for me and my husband.
My niece loves to make spaghetti Bolognese. Her mother doesn’t cook and she’s starting to take over the family meals. I would love to give the book to her to expand her meal options
I am an RD and working with a new family that is having trouble with their picky eater. Family-style meals have been working a treat for them and I think this book would work wonders too! Great podcast! I always love to listen in to see what Liz is talking about!
So glad you tuned in. Please share the podcast with your family and remind them to tune into my interview with Sally Sampson from ChopChop Magazine on picky eating!
Have been working hard to have family dinners together at the dinner table and could really use some healthier, but simple recipes that my kids will actually eat.:)
Having more family dinners together is an awesome step in getting kids excited about trying new foods! LMK if you need tips on making that happen more often. Or … check out the podcast I did w/ Jill Castle on that very subject: https://jillcastle.com/podcast/the-benefits-and-barriers-to-family-dinner/
My son loves to make Mac & Cheese from a Williams-S0noma kids cookbook! We are always looking for great kid friendly cookbooks!
Would love to win this so that I can try and get my kids more interested in helping me cook!
my granddaughter who is 8 loves to cook,, this will be great for her.
My daughter loves baking cookies. She makes them for church activities, for school, and of course for us when we need a cookie fix!
We do homemade pizza night. It is so much more healthy than take out and the kids just love creating their own.
My kids love making breakfast for dinner. My youngest daughter loves your pumpkin pancake recipe.
This is a great episode, and the Charlie Cart is a miniature version of my career! Today, “Home Economics” is called Family & Consumer Sciences, and we do teach kids all about nutrition, sustainability, and COOKING! I teach in NW Ohio and have two school gardens, one outside, and one inside, and have a fabulous time with my 7th and 8th grade students, where they learn about the Nutrition of their food, where it comes from and how to prepare a multitude of healthy foods for themselves and their family. I have shared your cookbooks with students, and am very interested in checking out Federman’s cookbook, too!
You have a dream job! So this is in middle school? That’s a great time to get kids cooking.
I would like this book for my 11 year old niece who loves to cook, especially healthy food.
I would love to have this book for my son as he is always trying to cook in the kitchen.
My teenage son loves to make homemade pizza! He found the recipe in a cookbook and made everything from scratch…the dough, the sauce and the pizza. AND it tasted delicious! I’m encouraging him to try cooking other recipes so this cookbook would be great!
My 6 year old is always asking to cook, but usually chooses desserts. I would love to give him his own cookbook filled with healthy recipes for the whole family!
My son loves to help make any meal that requires him to chop something….but it doesn’t mean that he will try it! 🙂
I have been learning as I go and also cooking and baking with my girls since the very beginning. Both of them have gotten to make the main course for dinner at age 10. They are now 13 and 10. I’m trying to get my 10 year old not to be scared of knives and ovens, ha, ha. My 13 year old loves to bake and decorate cakes and has been making her own birthday cake, at her request, for several years now.
We recently pulled out frosting tips and decorated cupcakes, which my 7-yr-old absolutely loved doing!
My children are 8 years apart; my daughter is 10 and my son is 2. I’ve involved both in grocery shopping early- picking out lots of colors, textures, and varieties of foods to try. Both are excellent eaters, and I continue to involve them in more food activities as they grow older. I started recruiting my daughter’s help for holiday dinners, then packing lunches, and now she makes her own breakfast each morning. The first thing she asks after school is what we are having for dinner and how she can help. I often just let her make the sides, but I would love to get her more involved with entrees and produce prep. Hoping this book would be a great tool to help bridge this gap! Thanks!
Thanks for sharing. Your daughter sounds like an awesome sous chef!
My 8yo son loves to make homemade pepperoni rolls, popular in W.Va. He wants to learn more, so this book would be perfect!
My 3 kids (8,7&4) love to help mix and flip crepes on the weekend!
My daughter is just starting to learn how to cook and this easy to follow book with plenty of healthy options would be perfect for her and her younger brother. They love to have ‘chopped jr’ style competitions with each other in the kitchen with their dad and me being the judges 🙂
The recipe on the cover looks amazing!
I love that your kids have chopped jr. competitions. How fun!!