KITCHEN SHELF

Egg & Spoon

Alexandra Tylee and Giselle Clarkson HarperCollins, $40

Right from the little egg on the cover with its jaunty golden crown, this book declares itself child-friendly and fun. This collection of recipes from chef Alexandra Tylee (of Havelock North’s Pipi Café) and illustrator Giselle Clarkson is bound to appeal is designed to teach kids (and remind grown-ups) that cooking can be a joy, not a chore – and sometimes just a little bit magic. Many of the recipes are nutrition-packed and/or gluten-free or vegan, but you won’t find earnest reminders to ‘eat your veges, children’ on any of these pages. Instead you’ll encounter playfulness both in the cute illustrations – like the unicorn with a corn-on-the-cob horn (Corn Fritters) – and the text; in the Sesame Noodles with Cucumber, you are urged to suck each individual noodle and get sauce all over your face. Some dishes are doable for the littlest littlie, such as the five-ingredient Walnut Thumbprint Biscuits and the four-ingredient Chocolate Rice Bubble Crackles. However, techniques such as folding and ‘how to melt chocolate’ are also beautifully explained, as are other concepts such as foraging, the basics of a risotto and ‘how to cook a fritter or a pancake’. If you want to feed your children’s creative side (and get some help in the kitchen at the same time), is the perfect place to get cracking.