Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs [Paperback]

Rozanne Gold (Author), Phil Mansfield (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2009

Make It Fresh. Make It Fast. Make It Awesome.

Renowned chef Rozanne Gold has assembled an All-Star Team of teen chefs—kids who love to cook and love to eat good food—to create more than eighty mouth-watering recipes, attuned to the seasons, refined for the kinds of food teens want to eat. With plenty of snacks, smoothies, school lunches, burgers, fabulous pizza, desserts, and more, each delicious bite is made with the freshest, best-for-you ingredients you can find. Fully illustrated with photos of this cooking team in action, here is a cookbook no aspiring chef will want to miss.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6–10—This attractive title includes 80-plus recipes. From "Bread, Butter & Breakfast" to "Desserts & Drinks," there's a strong emphasis throughout on fresh food. Some of the dishes are remarkably simple. For example, "Sun-dried Tomato and Carrot Meatloaf" has just 5 ingredients. Others are imaginative (and usually healthier) variations on classics, like "Eggless Caesar with Toasted Pecans and Green Apple Croutons." And the veggie-burger recipe, "Chickpea Burger with Fresh Mango Salsa," is a winner. Step-by-step instructions are clear, with just the right amount of detail. The lively design is another plus, as are the numerous color photos, showing a good mix of food and people. The introduction includes general nutrition and safety information as well as advice about choosing organic ingredients. The book concludes with suggested menus and an extensive index. Many of the recipes are vegetarian (and some are vegan), although they are not designated as such. All in all, this is a wonderful book with a contemporary style that will entice teens to try delicious recipes for family meals and get-togethers with friends.—Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

Chef Gold, who wrote Kids Cook 123 (2006), addresses teens in a cookbook that emphasizes fresh foods and healthy eating. Instead of concentrating on snacks, it offers a full range of items: breakfast foods, soups, sandwiches, pasta, pizza, salads, dinner courses with vegetables, side dishes, drinks, and desserts. Recipes list ingredients and provide instruction; the occasional sidebar explains how to slice a mango, boil an egg, or roast a vegetable, but novice chefs may need some hands-on help along the way. Excellent color photos appear throughout the book, showing ingredients, stages of preparation, and finished dishes. Among the best are the pictures showing members of Gold’s multicultural teen brigade of “happy sous-chefs” at work. A far cry from the stiffly posed shots in many kids’ cookbooks, they capture the fun of young people actively engaged in cooking—and eating. Enticing. Grades 9-12. --Carolyn Phelan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens; 1 edition (October 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1599904454
• ISBN-13: 978-1599904450
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,969 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Teens > Sports & Hobbies > Cooking

More About the Author

Rozanne Gold, renowned chef, author and international food and restaurant consultant, began her career at age 23 as first chef to New York Mayor Ed Koch. Considered one of the most prominent women in the food world, she is a four-time winner of the prestigious James Beard Award and winner of the IACP/Julia Child Cookbook Award.

As Chef-Director of the restaurant consulting group, the Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co., she helped re-create New York's magical Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center (where she was co-owner and consulting chef for 15 years), the legendary Windows on the World, and three of New York's three-star restaurants.

The author of 12 acclaimed cookbooks, Ms. Gold has been the entertaining columnist for Bon Appetit magazine where her "Entertaining Made Easy" column was read by five million fans. She has written and produced stories for The New York Times (her work can be found on the Op-Ed page, the Dining Section, and Sunday Magazine), and has written for Oprah, Gourmet, Cooking Light, More, FoodArts, Modern Maturity and The Montessori Magazine.

As Chef to Mayor Koch, Ms. Gold cooked for President Jimmy Carter, Prime Minister Menachem Begin and dignitaries from all walks of life. Business Week named her a "Mover and Shaker"; Cooking Light magazine named her one of "America's Top 5 Enlightened Chefs"; Chef magazine nominated her "Innovator of the Year"; the Food & Beverage Association of America honored her as 'Hospitality Professional of the Year" and Drexel University deemed her Distinguished Visiting Professor.

Known as the "diva of simplicity", she has set the Gold Standard for a style of cooking that has inspired professional chefs and home cooks alike to "keep it simple" with: Little Meals: A Great New Way to Eat and Cook (1994), Recipes 1-2-3: Fabulous Food Using Only Three Ingredients (1996), published in four languages; Recipes 1-2-3 Menu Cookbook (1998), Entertaining 1-2-3 (1999) and Healthy 1-2-3 (2001). Desserts 1-2-3 (2002) landed on the L.A. Times "Hot List" and was chosen one of the year's best cookbooks by Food & Wine Magazine. Cooking 1-2-3 (2003) was chosen as one of the year's best 10 books on NBC's Today Show.

Gold's books have garnered starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and chosen as Editor's Selections in the New York Times Book Review. Her seminal book, Healthy 1-2-3 won the coveted IACP award, was nominated for a James Beard award, and chosen as "one of the year's best books" by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Known as a food-trends pundit, Ms. Gold invents concepts that give restaurants and food companies their competitive edge. An early proponent of American regional cooking, she helped create American Spoon Foods, the first specialty food company to focus on regional ingredients. She invented Hudson River Cuisine, turning the idea into a three-star restaurant, the Hudson River Club; and was responsible for developing New York's first pan-Mediterranean restaurant (Café Greco), featuring "Med-Rim Cuisine".

Ms. Gold is a frequent guest on national television, including four recent appearances on the Today Show and is a regular guest on National Public Radio. A recent appearance on WNYC's "Leonard Lopate Show" won her a fourth James Beard Award.

A graduate of Tufts University with honors in psychology and education, Ms. Gold studied cooking in Italy and France. She is past President of Les Dames d'Escoffier, New York, and is a trustee of Arts Horizons, a nonprofit organization that brings the arts to city schools. She is a major proponent of the movement to help teens eat more healthfully and has just published her 11th book -- "Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs" (Bloomsbury USA, October 2009.) Gold lives with her husband and teenage daughter in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Her son Jeremy Whiteman lives in Silicon Valley.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review from www.firrkids.com, November 19, 2009

By 

www.firrkids.com - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs (Paperback)

Wow! I really don't know what I was expecting from a teen cookbook, but it sure wasn't this. The fresh ingredients and gorgeous photographs on each page make me want to try nearly every single dish. I'm years away from being a teen - I can only imagine what a great tool this would be for people unaccustomed to making their own meals.

The emphasis of this book is on making sure all the recipes presented are both healthy and delicious. Fruits and vegetables are the real stars here, with a focus on nutrition and flavor. The whole point of the book is to steer teens away from processed foods, to learn to prepare healthy foods that are better for their growing bodies. The result is a very inspiring cookbook that will jump start even the most reluctant or inexperienced cooks.

The recipes are segmented into seven chapters: (1) Bread, Butter & Breakfast; (2) Bowls: Soups & Pasta; (3) Sandwiches, Burgers & Pizza; (4) Salads, Big & Small; (5) Dinner Specials with Vegetables; (5) Side Dishes and (6) Desserts & Drinks. I like that the dishes really cover a lot of ground. Some are very simple, like the Tower of Peaches, while others are slightly more complex and involved, such as Crepes with Fresh Blueberry Sauce. There are comforting, down home dishes (Loaf of Whole Wheat Bread) and the slightly more exotic (Asian Summer Rolls.) There are comforting soups, great big sandwiches, lovely breads and tasty desserts.

The cooking directions and explanations are so straightforward that anyone could pick up this book and follow a recipe start to finish. And at the end, I'm confident you would have a beautiful, impressive dish chock full of fresh ingredients!

Some of the recipes I would have passed right by if it weren't for the delectable photos. Definitely, I would have flipped right past Overnight Vegetable Tabbouleh, but the photo stopped me in my tracks. Chicken Parm with Roasted Grape Tomatoes (pictures below) immediately was marked as must try, even without reading the ingredients. I don't care what's in it - based on the photo alone I know I will be eating it. The same holds true for dozens of dishes; they look so fresh and appetizing that it makes me want to ravage the produce aisles immediately so that I can begin cooking.

This book is an absolutely wonderful way to entice your kids into the kitchen and get them helping with the preparation of some very healthy food. Teaching your children to cook with vegetables, fruits and grains is one of the very best things you can do for them. All the recipes were prepared and tasted by an actual team of teenagers. If they can do it, so can you and your family! This week, we will be trying the Carrot Ginger Tomato Soup and the Silver Dollar Potato Pancakes.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovin' Eat Fresh Food, November 19, 2009

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Amy H. (Philly area) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs (Paperback)

I am so happy to have discovered this book. I have others written by Rozanne Gold and this is one of my favorites. My daughter loves to cook and so we poured over it to find what we want to make. There are many great recipes to choose from. We started with the caesar salad with green apple croutons..loved it! Easy to prepare and tastes great. Another favorite is the rosemary lemon custard cakes..simply delicious. My daughter's new favorite dessert.
My daughter has decided to order these for her friends for the holidays. This is a very important book for all teens to have. And the recipes and not just for the kids, they are for everyone to enjoy. And healthy too! By the way..check out how great the photos are.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No superlative sufficient, May 4, 2010

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Rabbit Bronte (Shenandoah Valley, VA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs (Paperback)

I picked up EAT FRESH FOOD at the bookstore and couldn't put it down. I bought it, took it home, and have been cooking daily from it since.

I'm not the book's target demographic. I'm 45, and have been cooking since I was 15. I've always had a difficult relationship with food. Since I became a wife and mother, I've been determined to cook and provide healthy homemade meals for my family, but I've long felt like a failure. I love food, I love the creativity of cooking, I love reading and buying and collecting cookbooks (I have 100 of them) but my family never ate my cooking.

My meals would become leftovers, go in the fridge, then get thrown out 1 week later.

Lots of money wasted. Lots of my pride hurt.

Meanwhile, the kids made themselves box macaroni and frozen pizza.

I'm not sure what magic has happened since buying EAT FRESH FOOD and I began cooking from it, but my kids are eating and enjoying my cooking. My ex husband didn't like my cooking. Now, my new fiance can't get enough of what I cook. When I made the cauliflower cheese sauce for the broccoli, he licked the pot clean.

Yesterday my notoriously finicky 19 year old daughter said, "Mom, everything you've made in the last week has been absolutely delicious." I nearly fainted with joy. This girl never eats anything except frozen pizza. Now she's eating...carrot soup?

Some of our favorites include the pasta primavera, macaroni and cheese and cauliflower, the pizza with the baking powder crust, and the cantaloupe sherbet.

I have around 100 cookbooks, but I think they may be going in storage for now. I'm planning on simplifying life and simplifying my kitchen. This book will be the basis of what I cook for my family for a good time to come. I'm not sure what Rozanne Gold does with recipes that makes them so different and enjoyable for kids and adults, but my guess would be simplicity, fresh ingredients and last but not least creative genius. I'm hoping Rozanne Gold writes more cookbooks like this one! How about MORE EAT FRESH FOOD?