First Meals (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There's a popular game at baby showers in which the new mom-to-be has to taste jarred baby food and guess its contents. Inevitably, the first comment is "Yuk! How do they eat this stuff?" The answer, of course, is that babies don't know there's an alternative--fresh, delicious, wholesome food made at home. In the beautifully and extensively illustrated First Meals, Annabel Karmel explains how simple and satisfying it is to make baby's food yourself--from the earliest mashed banana and steamed carrot purees to Singapore Noodles for 3- to 5-year-olds.

Karmel begins with an extensive section on early nutrition, pointing out that while grownups are often encouraged to follow a high-fiber, low-fat diet, "the under 5s need significantly more fat and concentrated sources of calories and nutrients to fuel their rapid growth during the early years." Continuing her "Basics" chapter are sections on keeping a well-stocked pantry; the equipment you'll need; illustrated, step-by-step instructions on preparing your first purees; and notes on freezing and reheating food. Close-up views of spoonfuls of puree are especially helpful for nervous first-time chefs. Chapters of recipes and feeding information are then broken down by age--4-6 months, 6-9 months, 9-12 months, 12-18 months, 18 months-2 years, 2-3 years, and 3-5 years, with each chapter addressing the particularities of the given age (questions about starting solids are answered for parents of 4-6-month-olds, while maintaining a healthy and varied diet and packing lunches are the concerns for the preschool child), along with 20 or more recipes appropriate to the child's level.

First published in England, the book has been "translated" well--ingredients are measured both in cups and in grams, and while there might be more parsnips called for than one normally sees in a North American diet, nearly every ingredient is obtainable at your regular supermarket. Karmel is up-to-date on the most recently accepted food recommendations as of 1999--she advises families with food allergies to avoid peanuts until a child is 3 years old, and while she cooks with cow's milk after 9 months, she doesn't recommend offering it in a cup until baby has reached his first birthday. Most importantly, she preaches a gospel of variety and of fun at mealtime. Cheesy Pasta Stars are made with tiny "stelline" pasta, and homemade Chicken Nuggets (made with grated apple and parsley in the breading) are formed in the shape of hearts--enough to break down the barriers of any picky eater. Stuffed Baked Potatoes become sailboats with cheese triangle sails and red pepper flags, and "Mock Fried Egg" looks just like the real thing--except it's vanilla yogurt with half an apricot on top! So trust your taste buds and leave those jars at the store--Annabel Karmel's First Meals will inspire you in the kitchen and leave your kids pounding the table for more. --Rebecca A. Staffel

Review

"Annabel Karmel's First Meals may be the perfect new-mom gift... it's real charm is for the decoratively challenged (or the desperate); fun food-presentation ideas, like chicken-sausage snails, above [picture shown]." -- Time magazine

"For help from an expert, try First Meals, a beautifully illustrated, easy-to-follow guide to cooking for kids up to the age of 5." -- Newsweek

"If your little darling is a food snob who has you jumping through hoops at every meal, Annabel Karmel's First Meals may be just the inspiration you need...an all-round nutrition guide, with lots of pull-out charts, photos and lively graphics." -- New York Daily News

"Recipes little kids can sink their teeth into." -- Parenting magazine

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: DK ADULT (September 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789441772
• ISBN-13: 978-0789441775
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (186 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #75,670 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

451 of 468 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Presentation But Short on Substance, August 15, 2000

By	bethlovesbooks (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

I've read most every baby food/nutrition book on the market. This book is by far the prettiest: it has beautiful color illustrations that make you feel as if feeding your baby will be an exciting and colorful journey. However, once the romance of the first feeding is gone (and after you've scrubbed dried brown banana off your child's tray for the thousandth time), I fear that this book will get lost in the dusty recesses of your kitchen bookshelf, as my copy has.

My main criticism is that the book doesn't deliver what the cover promises: "Fast, healthy, and fun foods." The book should be subtitled "Fun foods to make if you are in culinary school and have a whole lot of free time on your hands." Check out these suggestions: vegetable croquettes, apple, mango & apricot muesli, paella, chocolate profiteroles & puff pastry mice. Even the purees are exotic and complicated: dried apricots with semolina, spinach, potato, parsnip & leek, tasty ground meat with rutabaga & tomato. Now if someone wants to really knock themselves out for a special occasion, I think that these menu suggestions could be very inspirational. But, the average parent just needs someone to tell them that they can steam carrots in the microwave with a little water then mash them with a fork.

I really lost hope when I noticed that they devote an entire page to "making purees with a mouli." Where would I even begin to find a mouli, and if I did, where the heck would I find room to store it? Have these folks never heard of a food processor or blender? Why make life so complicated? I've got to imagine that the authors of this book live a very priveledged life or that they've never had small children clinging to their legs!

I also think that the time estimates for the recipes are inaccurate. Many of the recipes involve quite elaborate decoration suggestions, yet the prep time is listed as only 20 or 30 minutes. Again, the pictures are lovely, and I really do wish my food could be so inventive. But the pictures remind me of the Christmas cookie covers of magazines that showcase all those elaborately decorated cookies that I could never hope to reproduce. Hey, we are not talking high art here, a good day for me is when there is more food in the baby than there is on the floor.

Another complaint I have with this book is that it covers too much ground without much depth. This book begins at birth and goes to five years, and it's only 145 pages. With so much space taken up with glossy pictures and exotic recipes, there is not much room to cover any one topic effectively.

All in all, I think this book might be a good supplement cookbook to have. You might pull it out some day when the sun is shining and you are feeling especially ambitious. But, on the average day, I can think of five other cookbooks I'd pull out before it.

134 of 139 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Are you sick of PB&J? Are you ready to actually cook?, February 7, 2001

By	LeeAnn Balbirona (Washington state) - See all my reviews

If you are looking to move beyond the usual middle American repertoire of macaroni & cheese, fish sticks & fries, chicken nuggets, etc. then I think you will be very pleased with this book. I am a mother of two toddlers (ages 14 mos and 3 yrs) and I am sick to death of prepackaged foods. I checked this book out from the library before deciding to buy it because of the mixed reviews.

It is very presentation-heavy, but that's what makes it fun to look at and gets you inspired. I wouldn't really make mini pizzas with vegetable toppings cut out to look like animal faces, but I would still use the same ingredients to top my pizzas. Just because the author makes her homemade chicken nuggets in star shapes doesn't mean you HAVE to do that too! But it's a good trick if you have a really reluctant or picky eater.

Many of the recipes use "exotic" ingredients, like parsnips, shallots, etc. (OK, you foodies, stop snickering.) They are exotic to most mothers of babies and toddlers who can't remember the last time they ate something you wouldn't find in a school cafeteria. But part of the appeal of this book is branching out into new foods, almost all of which are available at your local Safeway.

Another reviewer complained that some of the food choices were unsafe (choking or allergy hazards), but obviously you have to use your common sense and listen to your doctor's advice too. I found many references in the book where the author warns against giving berries, nuts, honey, etc. too early, marked prominently in the sidebars.

The meal planners for the different ages were great. Most of all this makes you think about what you are feeding your child instead of slinging out just whatever you have in the cupboard. I don't have any of this fancy equipment (mouli, food grinder, etc.) but most of that is only needed for the baby food recipes. If you have a food processor and a blender, you're probably fine.

If you're ready to move beyond Gerber pureed peas or Easy Mac N Cheese, give this book a try!

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for baby, with a few shortcomings, December 26, 2002

By A Customer

First Meals seems to be about how a Cordon Bleu chef, obsessed with nutrition, cooks for her own kids. It is very healthful approach to infant's needs, challenging to the ordinary mom's cooking skills, and tends to yeild a few disappointments the more you use it.

I started using this book for my 8 month old son about 5 months ago, with great results-- at first. The baby is in excellent health and spirits, after eating home prepared baby food that was easy to make. Ms Karmel's baby recipes are wonderful, resulting in foods far superior in smell and taste to what comes in jars.

The first sets of recipes taste good: Ms. Karmel is dead on when she gives advice about the foods that babies like. My son really does enjoy parsnips, for example. I am grateful for the first sections of the book, where Ms. Karmel opened my family's world to a lot of new and healthy foods. In addition to this, the charts and suggestions I found dead on for my son's introductions to solids, as well. His pediatrician has approved of all the advice for feeding my son that was in this book, so for my infant's needs, this was a very happy fit.

Ms. Karmel's recipes for toddlers and older children did produce some disappointments, unfortunately. While the time allowances for the baby foods and purees were accurate, it took me much, much more time to prepare foods in the latter sections than was indicated by the recipe.

In addition to taking more time than she allows, many of the latter recipes simply didn't taste very good. This was particularly inconvenient, because many of the recipes in these sections are merely variations of each other, sometimes resulting in one flop after another. Ms. Karmel's Tomato Soup, for example, was a busy mom's nightmare. It called for three steps of proceessing and after two hours of cooking and a big mess to clean up, I ended up with soup that was less than tasty. Both of my sons refused to eat it (and I didn't blame them.) Other recipes suffered because they simply call for too much onion, in my opinion. For example, my whole family found the Turkey Balls and Pepper Sauce particularly objectionable, being too spicy and greasy.

My final complaint is that the recipes are too fatty for the whole family to enjoy. I know that this is good for the baby, but it seems to me that a Cordon Bleu chef can invent some way to adapt the recipes for so that you could prepare meals for not only your baby, but for older kids and adults at the same time. Ms. Karmel should also become more aware of how much time her recipes really do call for, including clean up time afterward. Not all of us are trained cooks working in a well equipped lab kitchen.

In sum, I like this book and use it, but I think it could be more realistic about the cooking needs of an average family. I don't want my children's memories to be of me slaving away at a stove. I want more time to play with my kids; I'd like to cook once for everyone and get it over with! That in mind, I'd like to see a revised edition of this book that includes more basic recipes for the whole family to enjoy. I would like to learn how to modify the recipes so that my baby can get the fat he needs, but in a format that can be modified for my husband, my older son and myself.