Too many cooks : kitchen adventures with 1 mom, 4 kids, and 102 recipes

**Hilarious and wise, __Too Many Cooks__ celebrates a year in the family kitchen with one mom, four kids, and a picky pediatrician husband.** Emily Franklin's food memoir __Too Many Cooks__ was born of two simple loves: food and children. A foodie and former chef, Franklin wants to pass on her love of food and cooking to her kids; she wants them not only to enjoy what they're eating but to __know__ what they're eating. So, over the course of a year, she introduces her children to new dishes—some exotic, some thrown together with whatever she has in her cabinets—with varying degrees of success. Undaunted by failure ("This tastes like sand!"), Franklin pursues her culinary mission from the heartland of Indiana to the Umbrian countryside. Some meals conjure visions of pleasure while others are utter catastrophes. Along the way, she discovers how a delicious (or even disastrous) meal can bring families together and feed the soul. As Franklin chronicles her family's year around the kitchen table, season by season, she shares original recipes. From comfort, kid-friendly food like Mummy Nuggets, to the more adventurous Saffron Fish Chowder, to food made on the fly like Orange-Oatey I-Don't-Know Cookies, each recipe follows a charming or bittersweet or laugh-out-loud anecdote that captures the chaos of cooking for four young kids. Franklin seasons her stories with how-I-did-it advice on cooking and parenting that makes this such a delightful and inspiring read. And with more than 100 simple, mouthwatering dishes, __Too Many Cooks__ is a happy mix of recipes, memories, and good storytelling. A former chef on yachts and now married to a pediatrician, Franklin wants to pass on her love of food and cooking to her four children, but she also wants the meals to be healthy and varied. Over the course of a year, she introduces her children to new dishes--some exotic, some thrown together with whatever she has in her cabinets. Some meals conjure visions of pleasure while others are utter catastrophes ("This tastes like sand!"). Along the way, she discovers how a delicious (or even disastrous) meal can bring families together and feed the soul. She punctuates her chronicle of her family's year around the kitchen table with original recipes -- from publisher description