These days, all three of them — who range in age from 16 to 23 — still turn to water before anything else. Especially in the summer, water is the beverage of choice.

That’s a good thing. Water is essential to health, and people generally don’t drink enough of it.

According to Freedrinkingwater.com, water makes up 95 percent of the human brain, 82 percent of blood, 90 percent of lungs and a drop of 2 percent in the body’s water supply can trigger signs of dehydration: fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, fatigue and difficulty focusing on smaller print. An estimated 75 percent of Americans have mild, chronic dehydration, the site avows.

I recall a long time ago (before children at any event), I went on a canoeing trip out West and was told that, if I started finding myself getting cranky and my vacation wasn’t fun any more, that I was probably dehydrated and needed to drink some water.

So this is a little reminder that kids — and adults — should reach for water before any other beverage, especially in summer. Enjoy!

We recently celebrated JD’s first birthday & what celebration is complete without cake! We were having a small family & friends BBQ so when the local bakery said it wanted $50 for a cake, I thought, no way—i can do it myself. So I pulled a couple boxes of cake mix from the pantry & got to work. I made a sheet layer of chocolate & one of vanilla. After I stacked them, I cut the cake down the center longwise, took 3/4 of one of the sides for the bottom of the “1” and the rest I “glued” to the top with frosting. Then I covered the whole thing in vanilla frosting (I used 6 tubs of frosting total!) added some decorative piping & a candle with JD’s name & voila! (disclaimer: my sister-in-law helped my finish & decorate the cake since I ran out of time.)

Here’s the finished product.

It’s not going to win any awards, but everyone said they liked it. Watching JD’s reaction was great. I put some vanilla cake with frosting on his tray & he loved squishing the frosting first. When he finally put some in his mouth, his eyes lit up. He couldn’t get it in fast enough. And, of course, cake & frosting was everywhere—clothes, hair, face. After he was finished indulging, we headed straight for the tub & a quick bath!

Do you make your child’s birthday cake? Why or why not? What’s the most creative cake you’ve made?

Though he’s fussy, he just loves my home-made oatmeal, a recipe handed down by my grandmother. I thought I’d share it with all of you who are looking for something new to try. It takes about a half hour to make, but it’s worth the trouble. I usually make it as I drink my morning cuppa, so it doesn’t seem that long. Here goes:

Half cup of instant Quaker whole grain oats
2 teaspoons of ghee or clarified butter (you can find it in Indian stores or at Trader Joe’s or at similar stores). If you can’t find it use unsalted butter.
1 cup of warm water
3 cups of whole milk
Sugar, to taste

Heat ghee in a pot. When it melts add the oatmeal. Saute the oatmeal till it become’s golden and aromatic, about five minutes. Add the water and stir till it dries up. Add half the milk and bring it to boil. Let it simmer on low heat. When the milk evaporates/thickens, add the sugar, stir, and add the remaining milk. Simmer till the oatmeal becomes creamy.
If it’s more that your toddler can eat, refrigerate it and it will keep for a couple of days. When you’re ready to serve it again, just mix with more milk and heat.

Let me warn you, though. There may be no leftovers. It’s so yummy that mom may eat all the leftovers. Enjoy!

An organic vegetable garden in our backyard! We planted tomatoes, zucchini, green chilies, basil, cilantro, peppermint, cucumbers and bell peppers.

To our delight, most (R.I.P cucumbers) of the vegetables survived our less-than-perfect tending. And we had our first harvest last week!

The kids enjoyed getting their hands dirty and watching the veggies “being born.” But the best part, they say, was popping the cherry tomatoes into their mouths, soon after harvesting them.

The project allowed the kids to make the farm-to-table connection, and they’ve grown a special fondness for yellow bell peppers.  Bonus!

But we’ve also wondered if that was the right thing to do. And with little ones in the house, that concern has deepened.

So what’s a mom or dad to do? Should we or shouldn’t we rip the moldy crust off the bread and eat it anyway?

Fortunately, ABC News wondered the same thing and asked the experts. (Though, even cooler, there are sensors that can tell when milk’s gone bad or when other food’s been spoiled by salmonella, e.Coli or other bacteria.

First off:

“It may not taste good, that doesn’t mean it’s going to make you sick,” said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia in Griffin. ... “There’s a big difference between spoilage and what’s going to make you sick,” Doyle said. “Often spoilage bacteria will outgrow the harmful bacteria and protect [the food].”

Check the temp in your fridge: For leftovers, “no more than four days at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or 4 degrees centigrade.” Fresh food can be frozen at zero Farenheit and should be good, more or less, forever. And the 40 degrees F is good for three days with raw chicken, ground beef, cuts of beef and lamb.

The slimy film on food or other visual or aural cues can help you realize that the food is starting to get too warm, however.

So wait until the end of your shopping trip to grab the meat/poultry/fish. The less time it has to get warm, the better.

And good news on the mold front, so long as you’re not allergic:

Most mold that grows on bread or fruits isn’t toxic, according to M. A. Cousin, a food microbiology and mold expert at Purdue University.

No one’s looking!

My husband and oldest went blueberry picking last weekend and came home with twice the amount they expected. Apparently the fruit is still in season and the bushes they were directed to hadn’t been cleaned by previous pickers.

So I made a blueberry coffee cake that was vastly improved with a drizzle of icing. My oldest made blueberry crisp and a blueberry slurry with dumplings in it, and we still had lots of berries left over.

She popped them in the freezer. The information from the berry farm said not to wash them first because they freeze in clumps that way, but washed they were. We’re a daring family, we are.

Yesterday, she got out the container, stirred the frozen berries around a bit—they’re more like marbles at that point—and put a handful in a cup. Then she wandered around the house eating the frozen berries as a snack.

She said she put them in yogurt and they created little islands of frost around them.

Just a thought for a family looking for a healthy, low-calorie and entertaining snack for the youngsters. And try the grapes, too.

Colleague and foodie extraordinaire Liz Johnson has a great reader-submitted recipe for zucchini pesto on her blog, Small Bites. It looks like a slam dunk for veggie-averse kids — go Montebello mom Daniela Sepulveda! 

I’m going to try it this week and report back. And since we’ve been talking so much about eating cheaply and locally, this could be a hit on both fronts. My local farmer’s market is overflowing with zucchini right now. 

(And I already know the baby will love it—she was the only one to appreciate the fried zucchini “cakes” I made a few weeks ago and devours anything with basil pesto. I guess one out of three isn’t bad!)

(Poughkeepsie Journal file photo)

The commission studied spending directed at children ages 2-17. Spending on soda marketing came to $492 million, with the vast majority of that spending directed toward adolescents. Restaurants reported spending close to $294 million, which was divided about evenly between children and adolescents. For cereals, companies spent about $237 million with the vast majority of that amount targeted to children under age 12.

I try not to let the little guys watch shows on commercial television. I realized the extreme power of commercials after Rafael had watched a particular episode of Babar a few times. He started insisting to me that we needed a “one-touch jar opener.”

It took me a few minutes to even figure out what he was saying, then I realized I’d seen that commercial once before fast-forwarding through the ads. It was one of those infomercial-type weekend commercials. You know, the ones that have the production quality of the Ronco or Cher full-length infomercials but (blissfully) only last 30 to 60 seconds.

We keep the television watching to a minimum, but when it’s on, it’s usually on PBS Kids or Noggin — no ads. Even so, he so totally wants the pancake puff pan, which he also saw in a commercial.

Which just goes to show that children are extremely susceptible to these ads. Interestingly enough, according to an article in Time magazine, the spending was less than some estimates.

While Aristu munched on his cheerios and fussed through his fried egg, Tilli began her morning with — get this — sprouted mung mixed with chopped red onions, tomatoes, cilantro and doused with lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Then she would eat her egg white and finish off breakfast with cherries and strawberries. Watching her from his high chair, Aristu would poke his finger through his strawberry and later mush it till it ran like blood through his fingers. I got to clean the mess.

My kid sisteer insists her daughter’s love for fresh, healthy food comes from her husband whose family owns a farm on the foothills of the Himalayas. When my brother-in-law recently accompanied me to our local ShopRite, he balefully glared at the bright red tomatoes and asked me, “That’s GM, right?”

In the end I’ve concluded it isn’t that Aristu is a poor/fussy eater; rather my neice is a rare foodie/health freak who inherited her love of fresh food from her father. For the record, my husband loves steak and potatoes. Poor Aristu has no chance.