Potluck Party! Dumplings for Lili by Melissa Iwai

IT'S A SPECIAL DAY! NAI NAI SAYS, "LILI, DO YOU WANT TO HELP MAKE BAOS?"

Lili is delighted. Bao are little bundles with a delicious things inside, soft and warm and juicy dumplings! And Lili loves making them with her grandmother. But there is one problem. When Nai Nai goes to her refrigerator she finds she has no cabbage! How is that possible? She always has cabbage--except when she doesn't! Nai Nai's recipe's secret is big fresh cabbage leaves to line the steamer to simmer the dumplings properly!

"ZAO GAO!"NAI NAI EXCLAIMS IN EXASPERATION!

But... no problem! Her Polish friend Babcia on the sixth floor usually has cabbage. She sends Lili to borrow some. Lili discovers that the elevator is out of order, so she dashes upstairs, where Babcia is having a problem with her special recipe for pierogi. Her potatoes have sprouted. She hands Lili a big cabbage but asks her to run down to Granma's apartment on the sixth floor to see if she has some potatoes to spare. Lili thanks Babcia and hurries down with the cabbage to Nai Nai and back up to Granma's kitchen to borrow the potatoes for Babcia. But Granma has her own culinary emergency, too!

"HOWDEEDOO!" SHE SAYS, HUGGING LILI.

She has potatoes, bu she's making her special Jamaican meat patties and her garlic buds are all wrinkly and dried out. She wonders if Lili would run down to Abuela on the fourth floor to see if she has some to spare for her recipe. Lili agrees and runs upstairs with the potatoes for Babcia and back down to Abuela's, who has plenty of garlic to spare for Granma, but she is fresh out of cumin for her tamale fillings! She asks Lili to run down to see if Nonna on the third floor has some to spare. Nonna does, but by the way, she asks, could Lili trot up to Teta's to see if she has some olive oil to share for her ravioli recipe?

By this time Lili's trot has slowed down to a tired trudge, but there's a heavenly smell coming from Teta's kitchen.

TETA IS MAKING FATAYER!

Teta has a big bottle of olive oil for Nonna, so Lili treks up to make her delivery to the waiting Nonna and finally heads back down to Nai Nai's kitchen on the ground floor to recount her grocery delivery adventures. Nai Nai and Lili laugh at the ups and downs of her travels as they take out the dumplings steamed with cabbage leaves "imported" from the top floor.

The tall building is filled with the smells of irresistibly delicious finger foods, so what else is there to do but to leave their hot kitchens and take their special dishes downstairs to the cool courtyard to share a potluck party for everyone, in Melissa Iwai's just published Dumplings for Lili (Holiday House, 2021).

Little Lili has certainly worked up an appetite procuring ingredients for the tasting party feast, and author Melissa Iwai includes the recipe for baos and even saves one big surprise for Lili (and her readers) for the ending. Iwai's sprightly, colorful, and joyful illustrations of cooks from all over the world making their specialties set off a funny story that proves that many cooks definitely don't spoil the broth in this modern multicultural version of the old folk parable of Stone Soup.

Says Publishers Weekly, "A resonant portrait of intergenerational care, and a toothsome celebration of how food unites a multicultural community.

Here Comes the Neighborhood! Miracle of 133rd Street by Sonia Marzano

It was Christmas Eve.

Jose' was decorating the tiniest Christman tree ever. It was practically a twig--and what was he supposed to do with all the left-over ornaments?

Now his Mami is yelling from the kitchen.

"This oven is too small for the roast! We should never have left Puerto Rico. Everything is too small here!"

Papi rushes into the kitchen and surmises that there is no way the Christmas roast is going into that little oven. But he quickly comes up with a solution--to take the roast over to Regular Ray's Pizzeria and ask them to cook their roast in one of their ovens. Papi calls for Jose' to come along with him. On the way Mrs. Whitman pokes her nose out of her apartment's door to complain loudly that her kids are driving her crazy.The noise brought Mrs. Santiago out to see what was going on, and Mr. Franklin stepped out to glare at Jose' and Papi's big box.

"I thought someone's TV was being stolen!" he said, suspiciously."

Papi explained that they were taking their meat to the pizzeria to be roasted.

"Are you nuts!" grouched Mr. Franklin. "All the muggers are out and it's snowing!"

Down at the street level, Jose' is greeted by his friend Yvonne, whose brother complains that they will be shovelling snow all night!

Jose' and Papi trudge for several blocks through the snow, until they see the bright lights of Regular Ray's pizza place. Ray is tidying up, in case he gets to close early, but he cheerfully agrees to cook the roast. And when it comes out of the big oven, it smells delicious!

"FELIZ NAVIDAD!" said Ray! "Why don't you join us?" asked Papi. "We celebrate on Christmas Eve!"

Regular Ray agrees happily, and the three of them, carrying the roast with its irresistible aroma, trudge back to Jose' apartment house. Along the way the fragrance seems to make everyone feel better. A Christmas tree seller stops haggling and gives away his last big tree to a buyer. At their apartment house, the inviting savory smell of the roast brings all their neighbors back out, and Papi invites them all to come along and share their Christmas celebration. The neighbors smile and bring along their own specialties, and the tiny apartment seems to be big enough for all of them.

"It's a miracle!" says Mami.

And it is indeed the old Christmas miracle story, retold, in Miracle on 133rd Street (Atheneum Books). If there is a Christmas saints in this story, it's not Santa, or Tiny Tim, or the Magi, but Papi, whose good spirits never falter and whose kind invitations turn this lonely Christmas in a new home into a neighborhood festival. The award-winning author and illustrator Sonia Marzano and Majorie Priceman, come together to bring the spirit of Christmas magic to this story, and the family's tiny apartment proves as big as their host's welcoming heart. Priceman's jolly, swirling illustrations are filled with a variety of characters and the potential for the joy of the season that an open heart brings.

Share this one with Tomie de Paola's equally benevolent Merry Christmas, Strega Nona.

Staff of Life! Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard

FRY BREAD IS FOOD.

Fry bread, usually associated with Native American people, was born of government subsidies of commodities like white flour, salt, oils, and white sugar, but it is like many of the ancient breads of humankind, simple mixtures of grain and liquid cooked by people without ovens to bake the standard oblong we call "bread."

Fry bread is the first cousin of many breads--the tortilla of the Southwest, the hoecake of the South, the Johnnycake or "journey cake,"of the American pioneer, the ubiquitous crepe, the na'an of Asia, the pita of the Middle East, the sailor's hardtack, even the pigkeeper's wife's hlaf that King Alfred of Wessex famously let burn on the fire stone. Made from many ground grains, leavened or unleavened, they are the historic "staff of life," the daily bread of all of us, round like the sun and like the earth that grew it.

There are many recipes, some puffy and risen with baking powder and yeast, some thin and flexible, some sweet and some grainy, sometimes brown, sometimes white, sometimes tan.

FRY BREAD IS HISTORY.

It is a bread of necessity....

THE LONG WALK, THE STOLEN LAND, PLACES WE CALL HOME.

FRY BREAD IS NATION.

It takes a mother or a nana, plenty of kids to fetch and stir and eat, a meal for a family, and someone to grow it, to make it all together, in Kevin Noble Maillard's multiple award-winning Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story (Roaring Brook Press, 2019), in which the author's lyric text and Juana Martinez-Neal's soft pencil and acrylic illustrations bespeak the universal aspects of breadmaking and sharing. Recipes for several sorts of fry breads are included and illustrated.

"Fry bread becomes a metaphor for resilience. born ironically; Fry Bread celebrates the thing itself and much, much more . . . . Maillard and Martinez-Neal bring depth, detail, and whimsy to this Native American food story, with text and illustrations depicting the diversity of indigenous peoples, the role of continuity between generations, and the adaptation over time of people, place, and tradition.” writes Booklist.

Pied Beauty: The Imperfect Garden by Melissa Assaly

In the spring, we plant seeds in the soil. This year Mom says I am old enough to help pick the fruits and vegetables.

In June, we find cucumbers growing on vines in all kinds of twirly-whirly shapes!

Little Jay finds one cuke in the shape of a J, the beginning of his name, and one in the shape of the number six.

"Why are the cucumbers at the supermaket all straight?" I ask Mom.

Jay's mom tells him people like only straight cucumbers. And when Jay helps dig the carrots, he find one that seems to have two legs, but he also finds that carrots taste same, no matter how many legs they have.

And late in the fall the apples are ripe. Some are yellow and red, and some are just red.

Some are bumpy. I find one that looks like a funny face.

But Mom and Jay use all of the apples to make two pies, one for them and one for their neighbor.

I am glad we had enough apples to make two. If we had thrown away the bumpy apples, we would have only had enough for one pie!

And when all the food from their own backyard is eaten up, Mom and Jay have to shop at the supermarket. He notices there are no apples with faces, or carrots with extra legs or curly cucumbers.

Don't grownups know they all taste the same?

Melissa Assaly's The Imperfect Garden (Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2019) is a story that celebrates home gardens and the value of less-than-perfect produce, most of which sadly goes to waste. Illustrated with charm, this picture book is perfect for school gardening units and an effective plug for spring planting in home gardens. Author Assaly provides an appendix, "Tips for Planting with Children," for big backyard or balcony and window container gardens. Artist April Milne fills the endpapers with delightfully shaped fruits and veggies, seed packets, and garden tools.

Says Booklist, "Here's a book that's clever, sweet, and provides some very useful information. . ."

THAT for Dinner? Octopus Stew by Eric Velasquez

When grandma saw my painting of Super Octo, she got the idea to make pulpo guisado, octopus stew, not exactly my favorite dish.

"But Dad makes that," I said.

Grandma snapped at me. "I've been making pulpo guisado since your dad era un nino, since he was a boy!"

Ramsey knows better than to argue with Grandma when she's on a roll, so he follows orders to remove his superhero cape and keep his phone in his pocket and goes shopping with her to find just the right octopus.

And when Grandma cooks, she goes BIG.

Grandma picked the biggest octopus in the store.

It looked like it was still alive...

and kind of creepy.

Ramsey googles directions for prepping octopuses for stew, but Grandma orders him to put that phone away, so he watches from a safe distance as Grandma washes the octopus and drops it in her biggest stew pot on the stove. But when he hears some scary noises from the kitchen, Ramsey has to investigate.

BRRRR! BLOOP! THUMP!

BUT IT WAS TOO LATE!

The giant octopus is out of the pot and grabbing Grandma!

It's up to Ramsey to use his superhero powers to rescue his grandmother...or is this just another octopus tall tale?

In his latest, Octopus Stew (Holiday House, 2019), for extra fun, author-illustrator Velasquez offers two alternate endings for this wild tale: in one, donning his superman cape, Ramsey fights his way through black octopus ink spray to free Grandma--and in a four-page gatefold there's an alternate ending, as Ramsey's dad questions his story as too far-fetched.

"DAD! It's my turn to tell the story tonight! May I please finish now?"

And in a surprising conclusion, the whole family sits down with an octopus for dinner--in more ways than one. Not only does the author offer a glossary of Spanish words, but also the family recipe for octopus stew. The award-winning Velasquez is a master story teller in words and in vivid acrylic art work, this newest picture book goes big in exaggerated tale-telling. As Publishers Weekly describes it, "Oil paintings by Velasquez have a lush, generously sculptural feel—a heightened comic realism that's perfect for this domestic tall tale, its multi-armed nemesis, and the wonderful gatefold twist that occurs at the action's height."

Now You're Cookin'! And the Winner Is... (Next Best Junior Chef) by Cherise Mericle Harper

Caroline turned from the studio door and studied Rae's face. "Friends...... to the end," they finished the sentence together. After two tough weeks of slicing and dicing, they were the only ones left. Now it is the battle to see who would be the winner.

"CAMERAS!"

"ROLLING!"

It's time to cut the mustard! Caroline and Rae are the last cooks standing in the reality TV show "Next Best Junior Chef." They've beaten out the competition--Tate and Oliver--and now it's a week-long cook-off for the culinary crown--with the grand prize the winner's very own custom-crafted food truck.

The theme of the finals is "innovation." Caroline and Rae think they are already creative cooks, but now the fat is really in the fire!

But after the first day's competition, the producers throw a pickle into the porridge. They bring back the vanquished boys, Tate and Oliver, for a second-chance round! Rae's temperature rises to a boil, and Caroline is steamed. The two guys are talented, but... well, arrogant. Both of them think they're the big cheese, and they are not above trying to curry favor with the three top chefs. The girls vow to remain friends through the finals, but the two boys are all too ready to send each other to the bottom of the food chain. The girls are determined that both Tate and Oliver are going to have to eat crow.

The competition is as stiff as an over-beaten meringue, as the junior chefs rise to their best efforts to be inventive. Rae mixes candied jalapenos in her deviled eggs, and Oliver uses mac and cheese instead of bread in his bruschetta. Caroline comes up with a chive-spiced potato-cake taco with creme fraiche, and Tate "dies at the pass" when his cranberry concoction fails to jell and his creativity caves. He's eliminated, and at last it's Ta ta, Tate!

Now it's down to the terminal trio and the heat is truly on, in Cherise Mericle Harper's The Winner Is (Next Best Junior Chef) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018.) The finale to her Next Best Junior Chef series is fresh, with plenty of gastronomic improvisation in the young chef's creations. Winning is never a piece of cake, but the girls remain friends and a good time is had by all in this latest fest for young chefs. This take-off on the reality chef TV competitions is, in a nutshell, the cream of the crop for competitive cooking comedy. A culinary battle with the boys, best friends to the end, and lots of foodie fun make for a satisfying summer read, and as in all her books, Harper's own drawings add zest to the savor of the story.

The author of the mega-popular Just Grace series (see reviews here), Harper's earlier books in her culinary series are Lights, Camera, Cook! (Next Best Junior Chef) and The Heat Is On (Next Best Junior Chef).

It's the Berries! Little Ree: Best Friends Forever by Ree Drummond

"I have a new friend. Her name is Hyacinth.

Hyacinth is the greatest! She's a country girl like me, and we like doing exactly the same things."

Playing dress up with a best friend is fun, but today the two farm girls are doing something new. Little Ree's grandmother has invited Hyacinth and her grandmother to come over and make pies. Little Ree rolls out the pastry dough, and Hyacinth gets busy cutting out cute animals from the scraps. There are plenty of fresh berries, so Ree and her friend decide to make their own pie, too.

Their first finished product looks a bit strange, but the two friends agree that for taste, their first pie is a success.

Grandma says someday we'll be champion pie makers.

I think we need more practice!

And when the two friends find out about the County Fair Pie Contest, the girls are inspired!

Hyacinth says there are lots of ripe berries to pick on the ranch, so with Hyacinth's lucky berry basket, the two girls set out across the pasture, with their pets Puggie the dog and Patches the cat riding shotgun. Hyacinth says she knows a way to find where the wild berries are:

"Look for critters!" she advises. "They love berries."

For a while the pickin's are slim. The only critter they see is a skunk! But then they spot Pepper the pony, grazing happily in a blueberry patch.

SHOO! Pepper! SHOO! Quail!

They fill their basket and hurry home to make their pie and pop it in the oven with Grandma's, while they design a fancy entry card. But the pie has so much juice that it runs out, all over the sides of the pie pan. It smells delicious but it looks messy! But Hyacinth has a plan. They moisten her cut-out pastry critter creations and stick them all around the sides of the pie. Voila'! Creativity!

Although Grandma's Banana Cream Bonanza takes first prize, Little Ree and Hyacinth's Berry Blast Surprise earns a red ribbon, in Ree Drummond's Little Ree: Best Friends Forever! (Harper, 2018). In this sequel to her first title, Little Ree (read review here) television's celebrated homey cook, The Pioneer Woman, is on track to provide an alternative rural version of Jane O'Connor's Fancy Nancy adventures with Nancy Clancy and best friend Bree, in Drummond's case done up with artist Jacqueline Rogers' jolly country-styled illustrations, with best friends forever and plenty of down-home family farm doings in store.

Chef Challenge! Lights, Camera, COOK! (Next Best Junior Chef) by Charise Mericle Harper

While the judges got themselves seated, Chef Nancy whispered last-minute instructions to the junior chefs.

"Cameras are on. Remember: Don't look at the cameras. Look at the judges."

Then comes The Question:

If you become the Next Best Junior Chef, what will your food truck be?"

Artsy Rae calls her truck the Crafty Cafe'. The supremely self-confident Oliver titles his truck Bistro Revilo (Oliver spelled backwards, of course.) Creative Caroline names hers Diner Francaise, an amalgam of the lowly diner Americaine with a French twist, and little Tate, the youngest at only eight years old, declares his truck the Stuff My Face, with daily-changing multi-ethnic menus.

Chef Gary called Tate's truck "clever" Chef Aimee said it was "funny."

"It's fine," said Chef Porter, looking like she'd just eaten a super-sour pickle. Tate withered like spinach in a pan.

It looks like the Next Best Junior Chef Contest is going to be a dog-eat-dog competition!

Let the best chef win is the motto, and in Charise Mericle Harper's Episode One of her new series, readers are plunged into that timely trope, the reality TV cooking contest. Rae, Oliver, and Caroline are already accomplished in cookery, and even little Tate wields a mean chef's knife, and the four 'tweeners are thrown into an intense four-day rivalry. The kids are all skilled cooks, masters of umami, with sophisticated palettes, contending with each other to concoct unusual combinations way beyond just sweet and savory and to master presentation skills, "plating," that shows off the dish.

Finally it comes down to the last cook-off. Each junior chef is first asked to choose a vegetable and use it as the base for a dessert. Caroline works her baby eggplants into a caramelized apple-eggplant filling, layered in puff pastry, garnished with caramel sauce and ground pistachios. Oliver opts for sweet potato fritters, with lavender-honey sauce, and a slice of trigger melon filled with sweet potato-cream cheese ice cream, with yam crisps on the side. Rae serves up a simple spiced lime and mango tart with spicy poblano brittle on the side, and Tate concocts a molten chocolate beet pudding cake with chocolate web crust, set off by candied yellow and red beets.

But there are some slips 'twixt cup and lip in the final face-off. Tate forgets to taste his pudding and it's not sweet enough to please Chef Porter. Caroline's puff pastry is a bit soggy on bottom, while Rea worries over how much poblano is too much for brittle and Oliver frets over whether his fritters will be fluffy enough.

They all know that after this round, one of them will be asked to turn in his or her apron!

It's high stakes cuisine in Harper's first in her planned trilogy, Lights, Camera, Cook! (Next Best Junior Chef) (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), as the production crew rushes the young chefs through training and tasting trials and pushes competition to a fever pitch for the final showdown. But along the way noted author Harper manages to portray strong friendships, develop mutual understanding, and learn grace under the pressure of reality television. Harper also provides plenty of cooking lore for any budding foodies among her readers, even an appendix on "Essential Knife Techniques." This one is an appetite-teasing, tasty treat for summer reading, which just may, perchance, induce some forays into the kitchen along the way.

Harper even offers an excerpt from the next book in the series, forthcoming in February of 2018, in which the challenge continues to heat up among the three remaining contestants, The Heat Is On (Next Best Junior Chef).

Flour Power: Amelia Bedelia Bakes Off by Herman Parish

"SHHHHHHH!" said Mr. Rogers, as Amelia Bedelia came in.

"Don't mind him," said Mrs. Rogers. "He's watching his favorite television program."

Chef DuJour was saying, "I'll pick the winner of my Big Bake-Off prize, $1000!"

"Wow!" said Mr. Rogers. "That's a lot of dough!"

"Not really," said Amelia Bedelia. "A thousand bucks is a lot of deer, but there's no doe there."

Amelia Bedelia is the queen of the misunderstood homonym, and even on her day off, she's off and running. Mr. Rogers suggests that Amelia should enter her famous lemon meringue pie in Chef DuJour's Bake-Off, but Amelia points out that she's too busy subbing as chief baker at Grace's Cookie Shop for the day, assisted as usual by her partner in malapropism, Cousin Alcolu.

And soon, over at Grace's shop, Amelia Bedelia and Alcolu set out bravely to follow Grace's plan for the day. First on the list is to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and immediately there's a problem when Alcolu reads Gracie's added instruction:

"Cut the recipe in half."

Amelia Bedelia takes care of that expeditiously. One snip of the cooking shears and the recipe is cut in half. But chipping up all those tiny pieces of chocolate takes a lot more time.

Finally they two are ready for the second item on Gracie's list.

"Bake twelve pound cakes"

"That's a mighty heavy cake!" says Amelia Bedelia.

But math is Alcolu's strong suit, and he suggests they make twelve pound cakes and stack them up. But when they follow Grace's recipe, they come out with enough batter for 13 loaf pans full.

"Baker's dozen!" says Amelia Bedelia cheerily, but when they stack all thirteen cakes up, number thirteen falls off and breaks into pieces

And the last item on Grace's note is a bit confusing.

"Make one crumb cake."

A crumb cake? Oh! So that's what the thirteenth cake was for! Amelia Bedelia packs the crumbs into another pan, adds a topping, and declares the crumb cake done, such as it is.

But there's still one more culinary challenge ahead for Amelia Bedelia, in Herman Parish's funny, punny Amelia Bedelia Bakes Off (I Can Read Level 2) (Greenwillow Books, 2016).

In this brand-new I-Can-Read paperback edition, Peggy Parish's linguistically challenged housemaid carries on with her tussle and tangle with the English language, earning heaping cupsful of snickers from young independent readers.

In this continuing series by the beloved Peggy Parish's nephew Herman, the half-baked housemaid is highlighted by the comic artwork of Lynn Sweat, who also illustrated some of the original Amelia Bedelia books (including one in which Mrs. Rogers requested a sponge cake and Amelia Bedelia made one with chopped up kitchen sponges.) But, this time Amelia's baking is not only edible, but a real winner, in a jolly ending to this merry culinary mixup. Some of Amelia Bedelia's doings may be a bit hard to swallow, but, as School Library Journal" says, "..."fans of the series are sure to eat this up."

Cupcakes Conquer All: Close to Famous by Joan Bauer

There are lots of life lessons on the Food Network.

And Foster McFee needs all the life lessons that she can get.

With her beleagered mother, a backup singer whose dream is to be a star, Foster flees Memphis with her mom's boss and one-time boyfriend in hot pursuit. Huck ("Call me Elvis,") has threatened her mother when she plans to leave him and blacked her eye when she persists, and once out of town Mama just keeps driving, all night and all day, until they find themselves "somewhere" in a deep fog on a mountain road in West Virginia. Rescued from the brink (in more ways than one) by tow truck operators Lester and Kitty of Gotcha Towing, they take Lester's offer of free housing in his Airstream travel trailer behind their house in Culpepper, West Virginia.

Foster has a lot of baggage--not in her Bake 'n' Take carrier, which only has the remains of pre-departure muffins and cupcakes, nor in the plastic bag with her scanty wardrobe, but in the sad memories of her father's death in Iraq and her own skin-of-the-teeth promotion to sixth grade, achieved, despite her total inability to read, only through the cupcakes supplied to her teacher. Left behind in the hurried flight from Huck the crazed Elvis impersonator is her only treasure, a pillowcase filled with letters and mementos from her beloved father.

Culpepper doesn't look too promising either. There's the Church of God FOR SALE, Fish's Hardware, Angry Wayne's Bar and Grill, and a store called simply FOOD, which even Foster can read. And the residents are a strange lot, too--a very short boy named Macon who dreams of filming documentaries, a tall boy who wants to be an Olympic runner, a lady named Perseverance Wilson who is determined to block the sale of the Church of God, an ambitious girl her age named Amy Fish who wants to expand her father's down-at-the-heels hardware store, and a reclusive Emmy-winning actress, Miss Charleena, who nevertheless dreams of returning to the stage.

It's a potent mix of personalities, and when Foster, whose dream is to emulate her idol Sonny Kroll and star in her own Food Network show, fires up her oven and puts her extraordinary cupcake skills into action, she definitely stirs up the leavening in everyone's dreams. Persuading Angry Wayne to take her muffins and cupcakes on consignment at fifty cents each, Foster soon proves herself a potent ingredient in the mix that is Culpepper. Joan Bauer is an author whose specialty is character and setting, making her characters and places so real that you feel as if you've spent a couple of weeks with them by book's end. Her latest, Close to Famous (Viking, 2011), is one such book. Foster is a real girl who goes with what she's got and with her considerable talents shakes up the lives of her mom and the people in the going-nowhere small town where they find themselves and cooks up a new batch of possibilities for herself in a funny and poignant book, a worthy successor to Bauer's earlier award-winning Hope Was Here, as well as the notable and top-selling Rules of the Road and Peeled. A lot of laughs and a lot of heart make this one too good to miss!