There are a thousand books out there about feeding children, but most of them are cookbooks, medical books, or self-help books for dealing with specific problems. Almost none of them are actually about, well, feeding children: stories about what it’s actually like, stories that make other parents smile in recognition.
I felt enough of a void in the genre that I wrote my own book, but Betsy Block has happily beaten me to the punchbowl with The Dinner Diaries: Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World. This is not the advice book that the subtitle suggests. It’s about *what actually happens* when one mom decides to try to improve her family’s diet. It’s believable, compulsively readable, and really funny. And it never hectors the reader. I’ll go ahead and spoil the best part, where Block offers her five-year-old, Maya, some carrots:
> “I think you’d like these carrots, My. A *chef* gave me the recipe,” I add, trying to make them sound exciting. “They’re sweet.” She picks one up between her finger and thumb and takes a taste.
> “Yum, they’re good!” she exclaims. I smile, though not too broadly. I’m well aware that if at all possible it’s best to keep a poker face during mealtimes, even if your insides are churning with frustration, or jumping with glee. “That chef who teached you this recipe is a good cook!” she goes on. “But even though I like them, I don’t want you to give them to me for dinner ever again.”
If this sounds as familiar to you as it does to me, you’re going to love _The Dinner Diaries._
About four years ago, I copy-edited an article for eGullet called The Way of the Knife by Chad Ward. In it, Ward talks about taking a favorite knife and customizing it to his own preferences. I had never heard of anyone doing such a thing and didn’t even know it was possible. He used terms like _gyutou_ and _ubersteel._ I had worked in a kitchen store, selling knives, and hadn’t realized there was anything to know about knives beyond Wusthof, Henckels, and Global.
Now Chad has turned his knife knowledge into a book: An Edge in the Kitchen. It covers buying, using, and sharpening kitchen knives. That sounds unbelievably boring, I know. It’s not. I devoured this book. Chad is funny and direct. I loved it when he said people who use glass cutting boards are going straight to hell. He busts myths: you don’t need to look for a full tang or a forged blade to get a great knife.
But beware. The cover price of _An Edge in the Kitchen_ is deceiving. It may say $35, but it will probably cause you buy $500 in new knives and accessories. That said, one of the most exciting things I learned from the book is that there are really awesome Japanese chef’s knives available in the $50-$60 range. I’m never going to buy a $400 custom knife, but I’m certainly going to try a Tojiro DP.
I’m still not confident in my ability to sharpen my own knives. Unlike chopping an onion, which I do every day, knife sharpening only needs to be done once a year or so. So unless I want to maintain a menagerie of knives like Chad does (and believe me, I *want* to, but…), I’m not sure how to do it often enough to get good at it.
But Chad has inspired me to make two changes in my knife use.
First, I’m going to chuck my medium-gauge honing steel, which Chad says is junk, and get a ceramic steel.
Second, I’m going to change the way I grip the handle of my knife. I’ve been using this Henckels 4-Star 8-inch chef’s knife for twelve years, and I’ve always held it the same way: gripping the handle with a fist. Even though I knew chefs didn’t hold their knives this way, I justified it by saying that I have small hands. It’s true, I do have small hands, but I know five-foot-zero female chefs who certainly don’t use the baby-silverware hold like I do.
It’s time for me to grow up and start holding my knife handle with three fingers and place my thumb and forefinger on either side of the blade. If I sever anything important, I’ll bill Chad.
You can read an excerpt from _An Edge in the Kitchen_, with discussion, on eGullet.
