Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous - Tapa dura

A memoir about the joys of food and parenting and the wild mélange of the two

Matthew Amster-Burton was a restaurant critic and food writer long before he and his wife, Laurie, had Iris. Now he’s a full-time, stay-at-home Dad and his experience with food has changed . . . a little. He's come to realize that kids don’t need puree in a jar or special menus at restaurants, and that raising an adventurous eater is about exposure, invention, and patience. He writes of the highs and lows of teaching your child about food--the high of rediscovering how something tastes for the first time through a child’s unedited reaction, and the low of thinking you have a precocious vegetable fiend on your hands only to discover that a child’s preferences change from day to day (and may take years to include vegetables again). Sharing in his culinary capers is little Iris, a budding gourmand and a zippy critic herself who makes huge sandwiches, gobbles up hot chilis, and even helps around the kitchen sometimes. Hungry Monkey takes food enthusiasts on a new adventure in eating and offers dozens of delicious recipes that "little fingers" can help to make.

"Amster-Burton is equal parts Mario Batali, Ray Romano, Dr. Spock of toddler cuisine, and Mr. Spock of toddler logic. He's a national and intergalactic culinary and literary treasure." -- Steven Shaw, author of Turning the Tables

"With its incisive wit and hilarious stories about Iris, Hungry Monkey made me want to have a child-- just so I could start feeding her." -- Shauna James Ahern, author of Gluten-Free Girl

"Amster-Burton cast some sort of enchantment over me as I read about his all-too-real-life culinary adventures with his daughter. The proof? I actually found myself thinking: if Matthew were my dad, I don't think I'd mind being a little girl... or even a sock monkey... if I got my share of every meal." -- John Thorne, author of Outlaw Cook and Mouth Wide Open