Children's Party Cooking

Children's Party Cooking and other related books at Amazon.com
On my kitchen bookshelf are several cookbooks that have stood the test of time. In the days before video games (for my kids, but not necessarily for the rest of the world) a favorite activity in our house was to peruse the beautiful, colored, photos in cookery books. Pictured on the left is Children's Party Cooking, one of our favorites, which I was rather astounded to find at Amazon.com. I mean, this book was published in the UK in 1993, yet there a good number of copies listed for sale used on Amazon.com here in the good ol' USA.

I'm not necessarily recommending that you rush off and get yourself a copy of this book. For sure, it is a fun book. What I want to alert you to is the power of the imagination that comes with a book like this. We have several other cookery books that have been favorites for just as long. What's different about this book, it's secret if you like, is that kids tend to be fascinated by both attractive food and birthday parties. Combining them in a book allows a child to create dreams. With most of the other cookery books I can think of, a child just dreams of a meal. A party daydream is MUCH more fun! I'm pretty sure that women's magazine editors tap into the same thing when they publish meal ideas for Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. They're not just selling you a vision of food, but allowing you to create in your imagination a wonderful family occasion. Whether or not the real occasion will resemble the fantasy one is beside the point from the publisher's point of view. After all, if they hooked you, you bought!

Well, while I'm at it, I may as well give you the two for one deal here. Delia Smith's Christmas is quite possibly the adult equivalent. It's a little pricey, but both of the above books contain tried and true British recipes, with mouthwatering colored photos - at least all the recipes I've tried worked just fine - if that is any comfort. Of course you could save yourself a few bucks by reading cookery blogs and recipe websites and get almost the same experience. Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but to me sitting back with a book, my imagination, and a cup of tea is somehow rather different than browsing the web. It's also much nicer to get excited and take a book to mom, hubby, daughter, friend etc than to yell out, "Hey, I found this great recipe, come on over to the computer and see it!"

May all of your party planning be a fun escape for you!

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