The Food Journal – A Great Way To Encourage Writing
You ask your son or daughter: “Honey. What do you want for dinner?”
“Um, that thing you made last week.”
“Do you remember what it was called?”
“Um, it was red and bumpy and it tasted good. I liked it. I want that.”
Red and bumpy? Are they describing a rash? That didn’t help at all. And all you want to do is get something onto the table that they will eat. But they can’t remember what it was. Here’s a trick I learned from my friend’s Matt and Lisa.
I was over at their house one evening for dinner. I arrived just as their son had finished eating. He was sitting at the table with a box of crayons, drawing in a journal.
“What are you up to?” I asked.
“Writing in my journal.” their son answered as he continued to draw.
I looked at Lisa perplexed.
“After each meal, if he likes what he ate, he draws a picture of it and writes it down in his food journal. That way, when he feels like a certain food, he can look back through his food journal, find it, and tell me what he wants.”
Sheer brilliance. How did she think of it?
“I was tired of guessing what we wanted for dinner. I still surprise him, and cook things that I want him to try, but some evenings I give him the choice as to what he wants to eat, so he looks through the journal. And I figure it isn’t bad that he reads and writes about it as well.”
Make a Food Journal. The paper can be lined, no lines or a blank scrapbook. Set out a box of crayons, a few pencils after dinner and get them writing.
Good cooks have been doing this for ages. My wife, Carlin, a professional chef, takes notes after she prepares especially good dishes, and she refers to those notes later on.
And after a little while, maybe see if your child can cook you their favorite dish, too!
September 13th, 2009
[...] Awesome idea! Have the kids keep a food journal—you encourage writing AND have a log of what they do and don’t like for dinner (no more blank stares when you ask them what they want to eat)! (via The K5) [...]
This idea neatly combines two of my own favorite things: eating and words. For most kids, the main obstacle to writing is not being able to think of anything to write about. In the Food Journal, they’ve got that recent experience to refer to — with plenty of information about how things look, smell, taste, feel and in some cases, even sound. Crunch, slurp. If there’s a lapse of memory, they can refer to the stains on the tablecloth!