Kenji's "Every Night Is Pizza Night"

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I work in a library.  This afternoon I was shelving a cart of children's picture books.  Mistakenly I believed I had purchased the entire Kenji corpus, but with evidence in front of me I was forced to do a doubletake.  How many J. Kenji Lopez-Alts may there be I wondered?

 

(eG-friendly Amazon.com link)

 

Worth twice the price if only for the pizza recipe.

 

[blue_dolphin]

8 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I work in a library.  This afternoon I was shelving a cart of children's picture books.  Mistakenly I believed I had purchased the entire Kenji corpus, but with evidence in front of me I was forced to do a doubletake.  How many J. Kenji Lopez-Alts may there be I wondered?

 

(eG-friendly Amazon.com link)

 

Worth twice the price if only for the pizza recipe.

 

I think it's a sweet book.  I've given it as a gift several times. When the book came out, Kenji did a little Food Lab Jr. series that included recipes from the book for pozole verde, bibimbap, kid friendly dumplings and red beans and rice and I made sure to send the links along with every gift book.  

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Apologies for appearing to be a curmudgeon, but as the grandmother of three for whom I have bought a zillion books, and who are now all avid readers, I find both prose and most certainly illustrations over the top.    Engaging young readers is a good thing, and appealing to their sense of hilarity is am effective tactic, but I think we underestimate their ability to follow a thread as well as their attention span.    It's a cute book, but I'm not sure that a simpler approach might have achieved the same thing, if not as many sales.

[heidih]

13 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Apologies for appearing to be a curmudgeon, but as the grandmother of three for whom I have bought a zillion books, and who are now all avid readers, I find both prose and most certainly illustrations over the top.    Engaging young readers is a good thing, and appealing to their sense of hilarity is am effective tactic, but I think we underestimate their ability to follow a thread as well as their attention span.    It's a cute book, but I'm not sure that a simpler approach might have achieved the same thing, if not as many sales.

I agree that young humans are extraordinarily more perceptive than we give credit.  Serious Eats has left his self congratulatory essay about how he got his toddler interested in food and cooking up for weeks at a time. You had ONE child and you are an expert.  Barf bag please.

[blue_dolphin]

23 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

It's a cute book, but I'm not sure that a simpler approach might have achieved the same thing, if not as many sales.

I’m always looking for recommendations. Any good examples of the approach you find preferable?

[Margaret Pilgrim]

An excellent question.    My group are into a different level reading now so I am out of this loop.  But what we tried to imbue them with were books that portrayed different cultures in more realistic, rather than cartoon, portraits.    And instruction more straightforward,    We tend to talk down to our kids.   They don't need it and it is in the long run a disservice.    Let them reach.   They CAN.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Our group has always been on board for boots on the ground instruction, so we've not sought out kid cookbooks.   When they have made a dish, we copy out the recipe, put it in a plastic sleeve and they take it home to add to their binder.

But here is a very sweet book that all three have enjoyed from probably age 4.   Cooking With Grandma   which chronicles a week of a young girl staying with her grandparents.   And the kitchen mischief she and her grandmother get into.  

[blue_dolphin]

18 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Our group has always been on board for boots on the ground instruction, so we've not sought out kid cookbooks.   When they have made a dish, we copy out the recipe, put it in a plastic sleeve and they take it home to add to their binder.

But here is a very sweet book that all three have enjoyed from probably age 4.   Cooking With Grandma   which chronicles a week of a young girl staying with her grandparents.   And the kitchen mischief she and her grandmother get into.  

Thanks!  That sounds good. Kenji's book isn’t a cookbook, no recipes in the book  and nothing much about actual cooking so the story approach you described sounds like a good complement in that same category. 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

I am loathe to suggest another wildly successful if vulgar series, “Fancy Nancy”.   The kids love them because of Nancy’s excess and gaudy taste.  Mothers appreciate  the language expansion while I  nod to the implicit moral story behind each book.  

[JoNorvelleWalker]

2 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

Thanks!  That sounds good. Kenji's book isn’t a cookbook, no recipes in the book  and nothing much about actual cooking so the story approach you described sounds like a good complement in that same category. 

 

Not entirely true.  Have you actually read Every Night Is Pizza Night?  As stated, there is a recipe for pizza made from frozen storebought pizza dough, as well as a recipe for pizza made from scratch.  Measurements are in grams.  Which is more than may be said for some less mature pizza books purportedly written for adults.

 

Speaking as a grandmother of three who in the course of an honest day's work sees far too many children's picture books for comfort, Every Night Is Pizza Night is exceptional -- an opinion shared by amazon reviewers and The New York Times.

 

Professional secret:  whether fortuitous or not, very few children's picture books are actually purchased by four year old grandchildren.  Most copies of picture books are paid for by adults.  I showed Every Night Is Pizza Night to a Spanish speaking friend.  She said Pipo's father looked exactly like her Moroccan husband who has every sort of high tech pizza gear.  She added that the tagine pictured in the book was beautiful.  And remarked favorably on the pairing of chicken and apricots.  She was moved to write her Moroccan niece in law for her cheesecake recipe.

 

Beyond Kenji's text, Gianna Ruggiero's illustrations are memorable in all their little details.  Not least the HRC logo in the neighborhood grocery store window.

 

Admittedly If you do not embrace Kenji or grams or human rights, you will not love Every Night Is Piza Night.

 

[blue_dolphin]

8 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Not entirely true.  Have you actually read Every Night Is Pizza Night? 

Yes, I actually have read it!  And I read it again when you mentioned it here. Though I confess that I did not read the pizza recipe tucked back on the last pages so it was the story that I remember rather than the recipe.  

I stand by my statements that it's not a cookbook, and that it's a sweet book, though we can all have our own opinions 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

While I adamantly support metric and social justice, I’m not so keen on Kenji.   But my major lack of enthusiasm for this book is its comedic and stereotypical portrayal of the characters.    We introduce different cultures to children in this way then are offended when they exhibit bias as adults.   Maybe I’m just too buttoned-up but I’d like a straighter representation.

[blue_dolphin]

3 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

While I adamantly support metric and social justice, I’m not so keen on Kenji.   But my major lack of enthusiasm for this book is its comedic and stereotypical portrayal of the characters.    We introduce different cultures to children in this way then are offended when they exhibit bias as adults.   Maybe I’m just too buttoned-up but I’d like a straighter representation.

 

See, we all have our own opinions.  The fanciful but detailed style of the illustrations captivated several of the kids I gave it to.  A serious anthropology text, it's not but the 4-year old, especially, loved poring over the pages, noticing all sorts of little details, recognizing some things and asking about others.  We spent tons of time on each page, far more than it took to read the very brief text.  I was worried the 8 year old might find it too young for her advanced self but that was not the case.  She could read most of it but enjoyed sounding out unfamiliar words and answering her younger sisters questions where she could. 

[Anna N]

6 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

See, we all have our own opinions.

And each child is unique. Not every moment has to be an earnest teaching moment. Kudos to you for recognizing the importance of just plain fun.  I know it’s a stretch but from what I have seen of the Lopez book I am reminded of the Whole Earth Catalogue. Now that was fun! 
 

 

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Also, as bd reminds me, kids love detail. 
 Pouring over complex pictures.discovering and rediscovering minutiae.   Learning the names of things and their joy of remembering them in subsequent reading.

[FlashJack]

6 hours ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

I’m not so keen on Kenji.

Let me exercise my childless inner grump.

 

I like Kneji well enough. He brings good science and ideas.

 

He is also objectionably over indulgent about the darling wife and precious child.

 

I like my recopies without the barf-making domesticity. In short, he needs a more tough-minded editor who sees these as put-offs, not endearing. Murder your darlings. as Dickens said.

[CookBot]

2 hours ago, FlashJack said:

Murder your darlings. as Dickens said.

 

I was about to waggle my finger and claim that adage as the property of William Faulkner, when I thought perhaps I should make at least a cursory effort to verify that.  And then I came upon  this rather entertaining essay which claims that it's actually attributed to "the English writer and surname collector Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch". 

 

[FlashJack]

7 hours ago, CookBot said:

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

At risk of digression, thank you for that. I read Q's lectures etc 40 years ago. Now quaint but I expect still good.

[Dr. Teeth]

On 9/14/2022 at 8:15 PM, heidih said:. You had ONE child and you are an expert.  Barf bag please.

Agreed.   His shameless promotion of “Hungry Monkey,” alone should fate him to one of Dante’s higher circles of hell.   That book managed to make me like John Thorne’s work less.   And I revere Thorne.

 

Also, has there ever been a NON kid friendly dumpling?   What next, kid friendly cupcakes?  

On 9/15/2022 at 8:33 PM, FlashJack said:

 

I like Kneji well enough. He brings good science and ideas.

 

Only if you consider economics and other social sciences.   He would endorse anything if there is a buck to be made.

[Dr. Teeth]

Oh, and Silver Spoon for Children is superb.

[SLB]

I have a little niece/god-daughter (we haven't figured out what we are to each other, besides in love -- her mother is my best friend, and both of her parents have become kind of shattered in the wake of their divorce, so we spend a lot of time together with me loving her up.  Especially with food -- )

 

Anyway.  I gave her the Kenji book, and while I often rue the fact that it's TOO LONG FOR A BEDTIME READ, AAARRGGGHH -- its plot makes magical sense to littles who live in New York City buildings, where so many children live wondrously multi-culti lives.  And NYC -- parts of it anyway -- is still a place where small children can end up at some neighbor's table for a snack without it being, you know, an Administrative Project.  

 

The book's refrain "we need more data", is now our shorthand for eating some more food.  We love it.   

 

I'm ordering all the other suggestions, right this second.  

[Anna N]

12 minutes ago, SLB said:

I have a little niece/god-daughter (we haven't figured out what we are to each other, besides in love

Such a lovely, lovely story. Thank you for sharing. Brought some sunshine to my day. (It’s a bit drizzly and dull at the moment!).