Featuring very kid-friendly and simply-executed recipes with a magical spin, this cookbook will have immediate appeal. Besides the "magic wand" that accompanies it, there are secret ingredients to uncover, a fun conversion dial to twist, spells to cast, and fanciful illustrations that entice children to explore the fun and science of cooking.
This charming cookbook has been the center of attention since its arrival in our home. My own children all gather together to explore the book's pages, deciding which recipes they want to try next. We've attempted a fair portion of them with lots of success. Most contain a "secret" ingredient with a playful name. When children encounter the ingredient "a smear of yelotangy", for example, a turn of the dial reveals its true identity — mustard! Admittedly, in our first cooking attempt with the book, I dismissed the secret ingredient as an imaginary one. Only later we discovered that in fact it corresponded to a very real ingredient (and this is what happens when you jump in without reading instructions first)!
Each recipe has an attached potion — Tempting Tomato Soup, for example, carries the spell "to be less grumpy", and my kids had a giggling-good time feeding it to their father who had had a bad day at work. Interesting tidbits that explain some of the science behind cooking, along with tips and experiments with food, are found on each and every spread. Next to a recipe for fruit salad, for example, is a little lesson on osmosis (demonstrated by the increase in juice after sugar is sprinkled on it). There's an experiment that helps demonstrate crystallization, and a lesson about the center of gravity and a cool trick to tell if an egg is hard-boiled or raw at the same time. My 10-year-old read the information boxes in the book from cover to cover - how many cookbooks have kids doing that?
Children — especially those under the wizard spell that has been going around lately — will quickly embrace this fun set. It somehow manages to turn everyday cooking into captivating cuisine, even if the final product might be as ordinary as a dipped cheese sandwich.
While the tomato soup didn't cast the desired spell on Daddy, this cookbook did manage to work a little "magic" on my daughter, a notoriously picky eater. Truth is, a cookbook with a presentation this fun, coupled with the chance to be involved in meal planning and easy-to-follow recipes, might just charm children fussy about food into a little culinary experimentation.
