Cooking is Not the Only Way to Engage Your Child into the World of Cooking

by | Mar 29, 2019 | Cooking, Parenting

Kim Calichio, owner of The Connected Chef, joins us today to talk about the ways to incorporate kids into the world of food without necessarily cooking with them.

Engaging in a two-way conversation around whole foods is the first step to establishing healthy and independent food choices for your child.

Cooking doesn’t have to be the only path to healthy eating though.

Beginning a conversation around food is the first small step any parent can make when wanting to establish or change the choices that their child (or family) is making around food.

 

Here are some great ways to BEGIN the food conversation in your family…

 

  • Take some time throughout the month to talk with your children about what real food is.

That’s it.

No matter the age of your child, these are conversation can and should happen regularly.

  • Name the ingredients you have!

Even if in just passing or when cooking, state the name of the ingredients you have around and are eating.

You can expand with the color, shape, and size or the various foods.

Comparing flavors is a great way to extend this conversation with older and younger children. We talk about salty, sweet, sour, bitter, umami in all of our classes!

  • Talk about where your food grows

Connect the things your child eats with our planet.

This is a vital step to your child understanding that their food choices are bigger than themselves. Connecting them to the source of their food, even if in conversation, will bring a greater respect for the product and mindfulness over time.

What regions do your ingredients grow?

Does it come from the sky? The soil? A tree or bush?

 

  • Discover what nutrients are in different ingredients

Google different ingredients and find the nutrients they contain & the benefits each different food has on your bodies.

Frame this conversation with pure curiosity. “I wonder why it’s good to eat cucumbers?”

This will likely be a learning experience for you too!

 

We invite you to come along and be a part of our community for additional support and opportunity for continued connection. Sign up HERE.

The Connected Chef works with families to use food as a way to connect with one another. Our children’s gardening and cooking classes and individual family programs both allow us to work with clients to problem solve the struggles of parenthood and food. The results: Kids who feel empowered to make independent & healthy food choices and develop a natural respect for their environment and community; Parents who are able to take a breath and connect with their kids instead of engaging in the ever-present struggle of mealtime.

Join our community and stay connected by following us on Facebook and Instagram.

Kim Calichio, owner of The Connected Chef, releases a new blog series!

by | Dec 13, 2018 | Cooking, Parenting

Kim Calichio, owner of The Connected Chef is offering a new blog series where each month she will dive into a new technique of cooking. By the end of the series you will have the knowledge and confidence to begin to cook with your senses and without a recipe.

We want to tell you a little bit about a new blog series that we’re going to start here at the Connected Chef. Click here to watch the video! 


We have started a really wonderful way to run classes where we don’t just follow recipes – we are learning to cook with our senses. 

What does that mean? It means at the end of the day you’re able to use your intuition and senses to cook a delicious meal without a recipe. 
 
You need to know methods and techniques of cooking. That is what we teach in our classes! Cooking with your senses helps you understand why certain things happen and don’t happen. 

You will have the skills you need to troubleshoot. 

You will be able to easily cook within your budget. 

You will know how to cook with low cost, seasonal ingredients. 

Your meal planning will be easier. Your food shopping will go smoother. 

Our new blog series is going to help give you the tools you need to do these things! Everyone needs to know this information – and that is why every month we’ll be rolling out a new technique or method. Searing, braising…you will finally know and understand all of the methods you need to cook with your senses! 

I’m so exited to be sharing this opportunity with you!
The Connected Chef works with families to use food as a way to connect with one another. Our children’s gardening and cooking classes and individual family programs both allow us to work with clients to problem solve the struggles of parenthood and food. The results: Kids who feel empowered to make independent & healthy food choices and develop a natural respect for their environment and community; Parents who are able to take a breath and connect with their kids instead of engaging in the ever-present struggle of mealtime. Join our community and stay connected by following us on Facebook and Instagram.

We Must Feed Them

by | Oct 2, 2018 | Cooking, Parenting, Truth-Telling

Being a responsible parent always includes feeding my kids but WHY do they put up such a fight?

Children must be fed. It’s part of the job description of being a parent. You must feed and water your kids and make sure they sleep and take them to the doctor and dentist every now and then, and make sure they wear shoes at least in the colder months and these are all part of not being neglectful of your children.

But where is the fucking guidebook? Where is the recipe plan to feed your children? No wonder the food industry has been able to get so many fucking chemicals, high fructose corn syrup and other things down our kid’s throats. Anyone who has ever tried reasoning with a small person over food knows exactly what I am talking about.

I miss nursing. Not actually having someone attached to my nipple, I am so done with that, but the ease of having the perfect food for my child at the perfect temperature, right there ready for them when they were. It was bliss for them and it was so much easier than arguing with a preteen that needs to eat and is just well not eating.

I want my kids to eat good food. We are building a homestead so we can grow better food for them than we can afford to buy in the quantity a family of six needs. This is why we have ducks that lay eggs, bacon seeds growing the brambles and meat birds ready to be harvested in about six weeks. I do this for them! If I didn’t have them I could probably afford to just buy local organic food as it is and not have to grow it all myself. Yes, we would grow some of it because my hubby actually enjoys gardening… me, I feel like it’s just one more thing I need to keep alive most of the time…

But it’s not that simple. For instance, my kids are on a breakfast strike again. It doesn’t matter what I offer them someone isn’t going to want to eat it. You know that I feel that breakfast should be a serve yourself leave me alone and let me drink my coffee and read a book kind of meal right? Like perfect weekend mornings with hubby is when we communally make some yummy food and then eat it on the back porch while drinking our coffee and not necessarily exchanging a word. That’s what breakfast should be.

Not a drama or a tirade, and I am not awake enough to deal with temper tantrums. Please just find something that doesn’t have a lot of sugar in it and eat it! Part of this is coming off of company breakfasts, where I actually bought a shit ton of cheap (and therefore nasty) bread and made toast every morning that they slathered in PB, or had granola with yogurt which is not something I usually stock because my kids could go through a quart of yogurt in a snack, let alone a meal! My budget doesn’t stretch to that. It just doesn’t. Not when most yogurt is devoid of any food like substance left and will give my kids a massive sugar high.

So this morning I thought I would nip the whole issue in the bud. I thought I would go ahead and cut up some of those first Maine apples that we were given from friends yesterday and mix in some duck eggs, and oatmeal and pumpkin spice seasoning because I couldn’t find the straight cinnamon and mix it all up and it would be yummy.

And it sure smelled yummy to me. But my kids rejected any bit that looked like it had touched an egg. Maybe I didn’t mix it well enough, maybe there was not enough water to the oatmeal but I expected those juicy apples to leach out their juices. Maybe I should have cooked it on the stove instead of the microwave because I wanted to get my coffee and breakfast made as well.

I don’t the fuck know.

All I know is that two out of four kids rejected it out of hand and the other two just pickily ate around the eggs. Thank goodness the pigs will eat it. But that’s it. I said I was done helping with breakfast at that point. They could have peanut butter on a spoon, another apple, make themselves a new batch of oatmeal but to please leave me the fuck alone.

Okay, I left the fuck part out of the sentence because I try not to traumatize my kids too early in the morning. And well I guess the smell of coffee had started having an effect.

But oh my goddess they had better come up with a good idea for breakfast tomorrow. Because I am so done with this. I am so tired of this. I think maybe I should make them breakfast the night before when I am fucking tired from getting dinner on the table.

That’s what the Pinterest moms do right? Or they get up super early to make a yummy breakfast for their kids? That’s what you find on Instagram right? Not me when I get up before my kids I am going for a walk with my audiobook, or sneaking up here to get some writing done. I am not making glorious breakfasts unless it is someone’s birthday, a holiday or we are having brunch guests and games. Just not fucking going to happen.

I guess this is how all the boxed cereal companies stay in business.

Pass the fucking milk.

Chase Young is the founder of The Mommy Rebellion a place for judgment-free parenting.  She’s created a place to get tips, tools and support for what it is truly like to be a mother, stories from the trenches that show you you’re not alone.  Tips that real mothers use.  Tools to give to yourself and to your parenting friends to feel more focused, have more patience and energy, and feel less tired and snappy .  
You can follow Chase here on this blog, sign up for her newsletter here and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

Fucking Pumpkin Spice

by | Sep 11, 2018 | Cooking, Truth-Telling

Pumpkin is kinda my thing but after two decades of pumpkin spice I could care less and don’t need it in fucking everything.

I happen to love pumpkin, I always have and I always will. My parents used to tease me and say I liked all things orange, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, oranges because it matched my red hair. I don’t know if that was true or not, I just know that those are some of my favorite foods.

There is even a story that at almost 11 months old for my first Thanksgiving I managed to eat a full portion of everything and even a full slice of pumpkin pie.

So it’s kinda my thing. One of my mom’s favorite recipes has always been a pumpkin quick bread because it makes two loaves so you can take one to a potluck and still have one to eat at home. Full of pumpkin, spices, walnuts, and raisins, what’s not to love?

My mom always canned pumpkin too, so we always had it around. I think we used to even make pumpkin cookies sometimes.

So in my twenties when the first pumpkin lattes came out I used to get them when we would visit Barnes and Noble and the Starbucks inside. I know lots of people are anti-Starbucks but this was the early 2000s, and back in those days they were one of the few coffee shops that had a dairy milk alternative and being married to someone allergic to dairy, it did determine where we shopped to buy coffee (and still does. Starbucks is one of the few places that has coconut milk as my hubby doesn’t like what happens to almond milk in coffee and let’s face it soymilk is not that good to drink if you’re male).

And it was pretty good in the beginning before it was everywhere. Like I said I happen to like pumpkin.

However almost two decades later, um, I could care less. We happened to be in a city recently and therefore stopped at Starbucks (we get our coffee from nice local shops whenever we can, but have yet to find them in Augusta) and I ordered a lightly sweetened (don’t add any sugar at all please) chai. I was really surprised at how pumpkin-y it tasted. Like really if you added some whip cream and nutmeg sprinkled on top it could have totally been a pumpkin spice latte.

Which wasn’t what I was going for. No, I wanted a chai, not the same thing. Chai has peppercorns and turmeric. Yes, it also has cloves, and ginger and cinnamon, but those peppercorns, and turmeric changes the taste quite a lot. Oh and cardamon, a good chai needs that as well and that definitely keeps it out of the pumpkin pie realm.

I still love pumpkin pie and make a couple for Thanksgiving (we often eat it for breakfast because who wants to cook breakfast with everything else on Thanksgiving??). I still eat pumpkin (it doesn’t need any sweetener in my mind). I even put it in my smoothies to change things up.

But I don’t need it in fucking everything.

I don’t need all the back to school, back to fall advertising to be only about pumpkin spice. Let’s face it there is so much more to fall than just pumpkin.

Thereare so many other lovely winter squashes to enjoy and appreciate. Change them up and get some other great vitamins.

Not that a pumpkin latte is actually providing you with anything of nutritional value. Not if you are buying it. If you are making it, possibly depending on the sugar and dairy you are using. But the stuff you buy at a store…. pumpkin flavor coffee and most beers do not have any pumpkin in them! I mean what’s the point. Why not just say cinnamon spicy coffee and beers? Why call it pumpkin when you aren’t even using it.

And don’t get me started on Jack-o-Lanterns. Just don’t.

Chase Young is the founder of The Mommy Rebellion a place for judgment-free parenting.  She’s created a place to get tips, tools and support for what it is truly like to be a mother, stories from the trenches that show you you’re not alone.  Tips that real mothers use.  Tools to give to yourself and to your parenting friends to feel more focused, have more patience and energy, and feel less tired and snappy .  
You can follow Chase here on this blog, sign up for her newsletter here and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

It Needs To Be Easier: 4 Ways I’ve Loosened Up My Health Rules As A New Mom

by | Jan 25, 2018 | Cooking, Parenting, Tips and Techniques

A real look at what eating healthy with an under year old looks like!

 

I’m a new mom.  I’m also a health coach.

Before I was a mom, I thought I was asking other moms (and men and women generally) to do things that were fairly simple.  I knew that I found these things to be easy, but I guess I didn’t fully realize how much something else can become a priority over oneself.

Because, at least for me, that’s what being a mom has meant these past 8 months.  I come in at best (but rarely) tied for first, and more often second to my baby boy.

So I’ve come up with a list of things that I normally did to keep myself healthy pre-baby… and the alternatives I’m using now because even 8 months in THIS. SHIT. IS. HARD.

Big Pot Meals – so pre-Finn my husband and I would make one or two big meals for the week.  It meant that we always had something healthy that we could grab and we didn’t have to purchase crazy expensive lunches in NYC.  What’s hard about this now is that cooking requires a set period of time wherein I can wield a knife without fear of chopping off a baby finger.  And since my kid doesn’t nap much (yea… that’s a thing…) OR care to be put down… that gets hard.

INSTEAD – I’ve started having singular, easy to throw together things ready.  A pot of rice all made, beans, a chicken roasted, veggies roasted, sweet potato roasted… pretty much all things roasted.  It cuts down on overall cooking time and I can quickly get one done before the kid freaks without having the stress of finishing everything overall.

Farmer’s Market – A variety of veggies is best for you.  And often they only have the standards at the grocery store.  I do plan to get back to the market in not too long, but really what this is about is the knife time mentioned above.  I’d love to hand chop everything, but time and available hands often doesn’t allow.

INSTEAD – So pre-chopped and bagged it is.  Frozen veggies (as long as they’re organic) are actually pretty great too, since their flash frozen at the height of the season.  This ensures that many of the nutrients are still available.  Just avoid the canned stuff if you can.  I’ll see you in the spring farmer’s market!  (Maybe…)

Smoothies are SOO EASY! – Lies apparently.  I mean, they should be.  But there’s lots of stuff to get out and put in and you’re trying to look up recipes that taste good but also pack a nutritional wallop and just no.  Not right now.

INSTEAD – I’m usually not a fan of the powders because I want my clients to take in as much real food as possible.  But this right here is the reason they exist.  For those times when it just feels REALLY HARD to get the nutrition you want, but have no hands.  This one I’d say use sparingly and DO take the time to research good brands that avoid unnecessary additives.  Take a look at the ingredients list (not the nutrition facts… the ingredients list) before buying.

Just get ten minutes of exercise in a few times a day! – OOOOOOK.  This one I do think is still great advice when you can.  But when you have the time to do this baby has a tendency to NOT be in the mood to play along.

INSTEAD – This is what specialized exercise classes are for.  I teach and attend Stroller Strides classes specifically for moms with babies who need to get some movement in but can’t do it kid free.  There’s classes like this that will accommodate almost any type of lifestyle.  Even if it’s not your favorite type of exercise, it’s worth it to keep your body moving and strengthening so that when you’re able to get back into your preferred exercise, your body is along for the ride.  (Ahem… this applies to NON-mothers too!)

I don’t just work with moms.  I work with CEOs, performers, managers, entrepreneurs, waiters… a whole bunch of different kinds of people.  And The list above applies to ALL of them as well because every single one of them was better at putting something (anything, really) before their health.  It can be hard to change your status quo so, yea, making these changes isn’t easy.

Let’s take the excuses away and figure out what WILL make this work in your life.  E-mail me at katie@keepingitrealkatie.com if you’d like help figuring out your unique lifestyle of health needs 🙂

Katie Gall helps people discover the full power of their body’s ability to achieve optimal health, create a habit of self-love, and live in harmony with their body.

Katie Gall is a Health, Wellness and Empowerment Coach. She helps people discover the full power of their body’s ability to achieve optimal health, create a habit of self-love, and live in harmony with their body.

It’s Back To School Time

by | Sep 14, 2017 | Cooking, Parenting, Tips and Techniques

It is back to school season around the country and while my kids are homeschooled, my friend Kim Calichio volunteered to say some things about the adjustment period that is going on right now.

Kim runs The Connected Chef in New York and loves helping families connect to each other through the medium of food.  As a former sous chef at one of the best restaurants in NYC, Kim understands food at an intuitive level.  Instead of teaching recipes, Kim teaches techniques, because as a mother of two active little boys, she understands that sometimes reading a recipe takes more brain power than we have!

Join Kim in the video below and get some inspiration for making the adjustment to back to school.

Kim Calichio is the owner and visionary behind The Connected Chef.

The Connected Chef works with families to use food as a way to connect with one another.  Our children’s gardening and cooking classes and individual family programs both allow us to work with clients to problem solve the struggles of parenthood and food. The results: Kids who feel empowered to make independent & healthy food choices and develop a natural respect for their environment and community; Parents who are able to take a breath and connect with their kids instead of engaging in the ever present struggle of mealtime.

You can get your Quickstart Guide to Easy, Healthy Meals as a Family from Kim here.