Great Reads for Culinary Kids

This is a truly charming story-plus-cookbook by a culinary royal. Alice Waters describes how her young daughter, Fanny, spends her days at mom’s famous Berkeley restaurant, sorting tiny eggplants, hiding in stock pots and watching chefs at work.

Frances will only eat bread and jam, so her mother gives it to her for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If I wrote this book? It'd be "Deep Dish Pizza for Marilyn."

I was lucky to inherit a stack of 60’s-era Eloise books, and Paris was my favorite. Her champagne cork necklace! Baguettes! Dinner at Maxim’s! It was all rawther delicious.

The Caldecott-winning, classic picture book of blueberry picking, a bear cub, mothers and life in Maine.

Though there was controversy over the depiction of a nearly baked-in-a-cake naked boy, all I saw was a fantastical look at how a bakery worked overnight. Sendak’s illustrated world — especially with flour and sugar — never fails to stop me in my tracks.

I always liked the many good qualities of free-spirited Amelia Bedelia: she was a tall, skinny smiler, and she cheerfully screwed up absolutely everything. I particularly admired the way she could neutralize any angry person by feeding them lemon meringue pie.

A wise Italian witch with the power to conjure up pasta. What’s not to love?

The classic caterpillar eats every food in sight, until he finds all he really needs is one plain and perfect green leaf. The truth? I didn’t want him to eat the leaf. I wanted him to keep eating salami and ice cream.

I could write all day for a year about the Ingalls family and how they rest in the mind of most every woman I know — but for now I’ll just serve highlights: maple syrup snow, sideboard of pies, sour pickles, a crackling pig’s tail. Onion wreaths in the root cellar. Makes you want to move to a log cabin, doesn't it?

So memorable were Laura’s food passages in the book above that they eventually filled this cookbook. You and your child could enjoy many a blizzard-filled afternoon recreating the frontier delights within. Johnny cakes, anyone?

One of my all-time favorites, the story of a Swiss girl and her grandfather in the Alps is really about toasting golden cheese, curing sausages, warm goat’s milk, and soft white bakery rolls. Don't be fooled by the jacket copy — it’s all about the food.

I love — absolutely love — this book about a mouse. Yes, a mouse. But a mouse who wears a beret and tastes cheese in the cheese factory. When I first read it I was dazzled by his little scarf, and all those Bries and bleus. Ah, to be une souris.

A terrific book I never forgot — Lois Lenski’s story of hard living for rural Florida "crackers," a detailed, often sad picture of Birdie Boyer and the tough world around her. Strawberries are everywhere, all about growing them, picking them, eating them. A classic for 9- to 12-year-old readers.

This book made me dream of waking up, rolling over and eating chunks of peach from the wall. Enough said.