Cooking with Mother Goose

A one-of-a-kind storybook cookbook that invites parents and their children to discover delicious foods and the beloved nursery rhymes that inspire them… though this book offers so much more.

Cooking with Mother Goose isn’t a cookbook simply for parents to help them prepare healthy meals for kids. Nor is it an instructional manual for parents to help teach their children to cook. Instead, it’s an adventure in reading classic nursery rhymes through a new lens and bringing them to life by cooking and connecting as a family.

Celebrating with Mother Goose

Celebrating with Mother Goose is the companion book from Cooking with Mother Goose, and is your go-to guide for parties and special occasions.

It’s a collection of our favorite snacks, sweets, and sips to share with friends, satisfy you between meals, and make the sweet moments in life even tastier.

There’s also an entire chapter dedicated to crafts and activities, so your little can explore food on their terms.

Eat! Play! Cook!

Join Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and super-mommy, Lacey Mauritz as she bakes, stirs, and folds in firsthand and expert knowledge on meeting your babies’ and children’s needs in the kitchen. “Eat, Play, Cook!” is infused with flavor, fun, and all the nutritional info you need to feed your little one. Whether your child is just starting the weaning process or they’re ready to get in the kitchen and help make a meal—you’ll learn all about their nutritional needs and how to make tasty healthy food for the whole family.

¡Vamos a Cocinar!

¡Vamos a Cocinar! viene a despejar todas las interrogantes que tenemos con la alimentación de nuestros hijos, con información clara y muy didáctica acerca de cómo alimentarlos y –sobre todo– cómo afrontar el siempre complejo paso de la lactancia a la alimentación sólida. Además, entrega más de 90 novedosas y fáciles recetas para todo tipo de ocasiones, que los padres pueden incluso desarrollar en compañía –y en muchos casos, la ayuda– de los niños.

Cooking with Mother Goose

Family-Friendly Meals 

A one-of-a-kind storybook cookbook that invites parents and their children to discover delicious foods and the beloved nursery rhymes that inspire them… though this book offers so much more.

Cooking with Mother Goose isn’t a cookbook simply for parents to help them prepare healthy meals for kids. Nor is it an instructional manual for parents to help teach their children to cook. Instead, it’s an adventure in reading classic nursery rhymes through a new lens and bringing them to life by cooking and connecting as a family.

This book is 400 pages, complete with over 80 original recipes, nutritional info, and so much more.

Foreward by Wendy Bazilian, DrPH, MA, RDN

It’s story time! One of the unique abilities we have as humans to really connect is through the stories we tell. And reading together is one of the earliest activities we can do with children to teach them about our world and beyond. Of course, this cherished together-time with our children typically occurs sandwiched in and between meals and snacks, play and chores, school and sports, work and errands, baths, cuddles, sleep and more. But there’s no question: Reading together is a vital and life enhancing gift for child and parent alike. Classic nursery rhymes like Mother Goose’s are early favorites read again and again, shared from one generation to the next. Why? Because even before they’re understood, the sounds of words, alliterations, rhymes, and repetition imprint in the youngest minds, helping them start to discover and understand language. Nursery rhymes are sometimes silly, sometimes bring life lessons—and frequently, a bit of both. And a good number of them—as Lacey discovered with her boys and you soon will too—involve food.

We feed our children from the moment they’re born, and in only a few months they begin the process of feeding themselves. It’s from that point they start asserting their independence and expressing preferences. This just so happens to be the perfect time to start getting them involved. Once they start picking up objects, even the littlest little can help by holding a spoon as they watch you cook or get involved by simply touching­—sometimes tasting­—the ingredients as they go into a recipe. And their participation advances from there.

Just as reading books aloud together brings a sense of closeness with our children, so does cooking—and playing—with food in the kitchen.

Cooking together can strengthen your emotional bond while you read, talk, measure, and make messes over creating a dish. And that teaches important life lessons about food, mealtime, and nourishment of the body and of the family. Not to mention, it creates memories.

As a doctor of public health, I know there are many factors that make a healthy family and healthy community. Nourishing families physically and emotionally is one of them. And as a fellow dietitian, like Lacey, I know that nutritious meals are a crucial component to overall health, and that at the end of the day, parents want the very best for their family’s well-being. Importantly, we also know that most parents want meal planning and prep to be worth the effort, fit their busy, modern lifestyle, and ideally to be pleasurable. This book delivers on all of these. 

Cooking with Mother Goose isn’t a cookbook simply for parents to help them prepare healthy meals for kids. Nor is it an instructional manual for parents to help teach their children to cook. Instead, it’s an adventure in reading classic
nursery rhymes through a new lens and bringing them to life by cooking and connecting as a family. Lacey has worked tirelessly, while testing with her own family and extended circle of friends and colleagues, to make this cookbook adventure a fruitful, fun and flavorful experience for both parent and child. This book provides an activity-based adventure—in both reading and in executing recipes—that’s approachable for any parent from the novice in the kitchen to the experienced chef, while including specific tips and helpful explanations on steps your children can assist with or accomplish on their own. And the outcome is again and again: delicious.

Importantly, research shows that kids eat a more varied and balanced diet when they participate in meal preparation. That’s quite an amazing bonus you’ll find throughout these pages as you and your littles experience the fun of reading and preparing delicious recipes together. And while this is not a book specifically about childhood nutrition, you’ll get a friendly and welcome dose of that too, woven artfully throughout the pages from an expert mom-dietitian as you explore ingredients, foods, and flavors. But I think the best part—the real gift you’ll get from Lacey’s book—is all the delicious, family fun you’ll have.

Cooking with Mother Goose is personal: You’ll feel Lacey’s sincerity alongside her expertise, and soon you’ll feel she’s your confidant and friend as you explore and experiment within every page. She wrote from her head and from her heart. You can’t miss her love of family and food. In the early stages of writing, Lacey shared with me that she hoped readers would use this book and write in it, splash on it, earmark pages, and spill tears of laughter (and perhaps also, I mused, from chopping onions) marking the pages with memories. This book is so beautiful with the delightful illustrations, and its gorgeous photography and design that you might be tempted to protect it like you would a special edition. But I encourage you to use it—the greatest compliment you can give a cookbook author—and make it your own. Fill these pages with your experiences and memories as you spend time together in the kitchen.

Each time you open Cooking with Mother Goose for either a rhyme or a recipe—or both—you’ll be sharing moments that will last a lifetime. You’ll foster reading and comprehension, planning and action, collaboration and cooperation, all while learning and practicing important kitchen skills as you share time together—skills that will stay with your children as they grow up into adults and parents themselves someday. Like the marks on the wall charting your children’s growth, I have a feeling this book will be with you through every stage of your children’s development marking time and experiences. You’ll go to bed reading and dreaming of this book of nursery rhymes and tasty recipes… and then wake up with it for breakfast.

I wish you many messy and delicious memories ahead!

Wendy Bazilian, DrPH, MA, RDN