Do not feed the monkey!
A cookbook for children
Marleen Lammers
Penguin Random House
Review: Lauren O’Connor-May
This book is adorable and clever and was an instant hit in our family.
A story and recipe book combined, the quirky book follows the antics of a monkey named Mitch who made an art out of begging at the tables of a restaurant at the edge of the Savannah until a fed up chef puts up a sign warning patrons not to feed him.
The monkey is devastated until the other wild animals share their recipes with him.
What follows is a series of simple recipes, all of which my children wanted to try.
We eventually settled on Hippopotomousse and my eldest and middle daughters had a ball of a time making the three-ingredient mousse for dessert one evening after supper.
The recipes in the book range from super simple, such as lettuce wraps, Don’t Hurry Oats (soaking oats and other healthy ingredients overnight) and a Grape Mocktail to slightly more difficult recipes for older children, like chicken kebabs, soup and bobotie.
The book also has a nice mix of sweet and savoury to suit a variety of tastes.
My children liked this book so much that they would randomly pick it up to read or leaf through, even when they weren’t in the mood to cook. Sadly, my littlest child even took a bite out of it.
This is the kind of book that should be on every budding mini-chef’s shelf.
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