NIAM! COOKING WITH KIDS

McCluskey’s cookbook offers kid-friendly recipes while providing a glimpse into the Inuit way of life.

Inspired by a kids’ after-school class the author leads in Apex, Nunavut, this cookbook is suited for use at home or in a group environment. While the direct audience is Inuit communities, any child who loves pizza or meatballs will enjoy learning and cooking from it. Each recipe aims to teach basic kitchen skills such as measuring ingredients, cracking eggs, and dicing vegetables, and little cooks will find the simple recipes easy to follow. Sugar cookies require only seven ingredients and are ready in nine easy steps. Certain recipes highlight Indigenous ingredients like caribou, musk ox, and seal meat. Readers below the Arctic regions need not worry—there are always store-bought substitutions. Palaugos—hot dogs or sausages wrapped in traditional Inuit palaugaaq (bannock)—is one recipe children will devour. Additionally, many recipes offer examples on community involvement. Cookies and muffins can be served at school events; the mini-quiche recipe can be timed with egg-gathering season in Nunavut or World Egg Day. Full-page photographs and a well-organized layout make the cookbook fun and easy to use. Backmatter offers practical steps to setting up a cooking club, from finding funding to developing a weekly schedule and community involvement, plus a glossary of Inuktitut terms.

So much more than your typical kids’ cookbook!