What We’re Talking About This Week
Cooking with kids, a speech that brought us to tears, the myth (and magic) of quality time, Stevie Wonder, and top awards for great writing. That’s what we’re talking about this week.
1. Cooking With Kids: 5 Reasons You Should Be Doing It
We’ve seen plenty of articles about cooking with kids—and how important it is—over the years, but we appreciated that this one didn’t beat around the bush and flat-out acknowledged how daunting, intimidating, and plain hard cooking with kids actually is. Thank you, NYT. But we also loved that it didn’t let us off the hook, either. The article offers inspiration and gives us five reasons to make cooking with the kiddos a priority. It’s the right blend of practicality and motivation—and we loved it. Give it a read here.
2. The Myth of Quality Time
We loved this recent op-ed in the New York Times, ‘The Myth of Quality Time’, in which author Frank Bruni spoke with beautiful fondness of his family’s annual tradition of renting a cottage and spending seven days and nights as a family. Is that a lot of togetherness? Yes, which he acknowledges, and he also recognizes that such time is very hard to come by and hard to arrange. But he also tells us that this is when the magic happens, that physical presence means you’re more likely to be around when kids, with ‘unusual candor’, will spontaneously reveal gems about their thoughts, emotions, and lives—supplying generous answers to questions that had previously not amounted to much. Bruni says that, ‘…sustained proximity is the best route to the soul of someone; that unscripted gestures at unexpected junctures yield sweeter rewards than scripted ones…’. Food for thought.
3. The Beauty Pageant Contestant Who Brought Us to Tears
We don’t normally pay much attention to the ins and outs of beauty pageants, but this video came across our radar this week and took us by surprise. For the talent portion of the show, Kelley Johnson, aka Miss Colorado, a registered nurse, unwaveringly recited a monologue about a patient who had touched her deeply. Her story touched us in turn, and we think it’s worth a watch. We’re rooting for Miss Colorado now—she’s obviously beautiful inside and out.
4. James Corden Asks Stevie Wonder to Call His Wife, Stevie Makes Everyone’s Day
You may have seen James Corden’s (host of The Late Late Show) carpool karaoke series, in which he ostensibly ‘carpools’ with famous musicians. They inevitably end up singing along with the music James ‘happens’ to have cued up in his vehicle, always the singer’s own. It all makes for some very funny, very high-level karaoke. The latest musician to sing along with Corden is Stevie Wonder, and the episode went along as usual until Corden asked if Stevie wouldn’t mind calling Corden’s wife. When Stevie did, Corden’s composure cracked and he became a teary bundle of nerves and joy. We never see his wife on the other end of the phone line, but even Corden’s happiness is infectious. Clearly Stevie made everyone’s day—and together they’re making ours. Give it a watch—we promise you it will give you the warm fuzzies.
5. Our Savvy Storytellers Are Cleaning up This (Writing) Awards Season.
We were pleased as punch to learn that thenewfamily.com was nominated for best blog or column at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards for their series ‘The 1,000 Families Project’. The ‘1,000 Families Project’ aims to show that there are ‘1,000 different ways to be a family’—and so many of our Savvy writers, editors and Storytellers have been featured and have had a chance to share their family’s unique story. Thenewfamily.com is part of the Savvy family, and we’re pretty proud of this nom. Congrats, guys! Check out their series here.
Meanwhile, we eagerly await the news of the Taste Canada Food Writing Awards. Gatherings: Bringing People Together with Food is nominated in the general cookbooks category, and the authors Julie and Jan are long-time writers and editors, respectively, for Savvy. We love Gatherings and can’t say enough about its refreshing approach to family meals. The awards are this Monday night, and in our minds Gatherings has already won by encouraging families to spend time together around the dinner table, relishing both each other’s company and simple, flavourful and fresh meals. Bravo to Jan and Julie and all their hard work—you’re winners already.
Have a great week.
