Hungry Monkey

A memoir from restaurant critic and food writer Matthew Amster-Burton about the joys of food and parenting, and the wild melange of the two.

Matthew Amster-Burton's experience with food has changed...a little. Since becoming a full-time, stay-at-home Dad to his daughter, Iris, he's come to realize that kids don't need puree in a jar or special menus at restaurants and that raising an adventurous eater is about exposure, invention, and patience.

He writes of the highs and lows of teaching your child about food--the high of rediscovering how something tastes for the first time through a child's unedited reaction, and the low of thinking you have a precocious vegetable fiend on your hands only to discover that a child's preferences change from day to day (and may take years to include vegetables again).

Sharing in his culinary capers is little Iris, a budding gourmand and a zippy critic herself who makes huge sandwiches, gobbles up hot chilis, and even helps around the kitchen sometimes.

Hungry Monkey takes food enthusiasts on a new adventure in eating and offers dozens of delicious recipes that "little fingers" can help to make.


About the Author

Matthew Amster-Burton is a restaurant critic, food writer, and former rock journalist with credits in The Best Food Writing, The Seattle Times, Gourmet, Seattle Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Parent Map, culinate.com, and egullet.com--as well as his food blog, Roots and Grubs. He lives in Seattle with his wife Laurie, a school librarian, and his daughter Iris.