March 31, Wednesday

Cooking Good

The ubiquitous chef Emeril is at it again and this time he wants to get the whole family into the kitchen. Emeril's There's a Chef in My Family! Recipes to Get Everybody Cooking, is serious about injecting fun into the art of making food.

His new book and interactive site include common sense safety guidelines tailored specifically for kids, basic technical advice on peeling, measuring and cutting cookie dough -- all accompanied by simple, colorful drawings by Charles Yuen. There are 76 recipes to choose from covering every meal of the day plus snacks, holidays and party treats. Mandatory healthy recipes such as zucchini bread and artichokes (the forgotten vegetable) can be found, and among the more kid-friendly dishes are Ooey Gooey Blueberry French Toast and Miss Hilda's Popcorn Cake -- a sugary delight from Emeril's mom complete with dulce de leche flavored M&Ms.

Between the restaurants, cooking shows, weekly cooking segment on Good Morning America, and his previous kid's cookbook, Emeril may be skating on the thin ice of overexposure. But it is hard to argue with his central premise that when you have fun preparing a meal, odds are you’ll have fun eating it. Which, as every parent with little ones at the table knows, is not an easy task.

Emeril's There's a Chef in My Family! Recipes to Get Everybody Cooking (HarperCollins) will be released first week of April, and is available online at barnesandnobles.com and the Emeril site at HarperChildrens.com.