Galette des Rois - A French Tradition

On the Epiphany day (January 6), it is a custom in France (as well as in other countries) to serve a cake known as "The Kings' cake" (Galette des Rois). There are some variations of it. In Provence, for example, it is made of brioche and in Paris it is made of puff pastry with marzipan or almond cream, which is the case of the one shown in the picture above.

A figurine (la fève) is hidden inside. The cake is then divided into equal pieces and the lucky person who finds the fève becomes "king" for a day and receives a paper crown. 

I wanted to introduce the tradition at home for some time, but I couldn't find a ready made galette. I even looked at some recipes, but since I'm not a great cook, I was fast discouraged. However, this year I found out that the cake is actually sold in many French bakeries here in New York. And, since traditions tend to evolve with time, nowadays, the galette can be found during the whole month of January. So if you like the idea, you still have a whole week to buy yours.  

We bought our first one last weekend. P didn't understand really what was going on and F was absolutely overexcited about the perspective of being king of the house for one day. Unfortunately for him, I was crowned Queen. Which made him extremely frustrated. So the next day, I had two figurines and two happy kings (not very educational, I know, but it is supposed to be fun). 

Ice skating in NY - a new rink

Temperatures have dropped vertiginously here in New York. Thus, I thought that an ice skating subject would be perfect for today. Although I wouldn't recommend anyone to go now with these inhuman temperatures.

Everybody probably heard of the traditional open-air ice skating rinks in New York (Rockefeller Center, Central Park and Bryant Park). However, there are a few others (usually smaller ones) spread around the city. Last week, as I was walking in the Meatpacking District, I discovered this one, just at the front door of The Standard Hotel, on west 13th street. 

We took the kids over the weekend and they loved it. It's not as charming as the other ones, but I thought that for younger kids it was just perfect. Small, not very crowded and they have a few (too few actually) plastic penguins that the kids can hold while skating. That is really useful for the newbies. And, I was almost forgetting, it doesn't have that annoying music playing all the time.

They also offer some classes on a first come first serve basis. You can then grab a snack at their "Après Skate" cafe or plan to have lunch at the Standard Grill afterwards. Make sure to reserve in advance though, cause it's really crowded. 

F holding one of the penguins

What to do with the kids now?

With almost every school in New York closed, parks closed and almost any outdoor activity out of the question, it will be hard (but not impossible) to find ways to entertain the kids over the coming days. Here is a short list of some ideas on where to go with them. Hope it will help!

Museums:

• American Museum of Natural History - reopens Thursday November 1st;
• Children's Museum of Manhattan - reopens Thursday November 1st;
• Moma (they offer some family programs over the weekend) - opened normally;
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art - reopens Thursday November 1st (they offer some daily family programs, check their website for date and time);
• Whitney Museum of American Art - reopens Thursday November 1st (they also have some family programs);

Shows/Theaters/Concerts:

• The New Victory Theater - reopens Friday November 2nd;
• Puppetworks - normal showtimes on Saturday and Sunday;
• Movie Theaters - most of them are operating normally. Check Fandango for more information;
• Jazz at Lincoln Center - Family Concert: who is John Coltrane - Saturday at 1pm and 3pm;

Farming in New York

About a month ago, we took the kids to Stone Barns Farm. Like many other farms in the region, they offer educational programs for kids and adults and hands on farming experiences. On that day, the kids participated in the "Gardening" program and picked-up some fresh carrots. There's also an egg collecting program or a cooking class for kids (they pick their vegetables and then cook them). The kids had a really great time. They loved their "gardening" experience. They had a chance to breathe some fresh air, run around, see some animals and enjoy nature. 

The farm is lovely and is located at only 45 minutes drive from Manhattan. There's a nice restaurant onsite (Blue Hill at Stone Barns), but it's not recommended to go with young children, since they only serve multi-course menus. The coffee shop - Blue Hill cafe - serves light snacks and fresh baked goods. I would have liked to have an intermediate option, though. We are not huge fans of doing pic-nics and we missed being able to sit at a table and have a good (even if simple) meal, especially with those great surroundings. 

***

There are many other farms that offer different kind of activities according to the season. Last weekend we also went apple and pumpkin picking at Hank's farm in Southampton. 

I think it's a great way to teach children about farming, especially when it involves seasonal, fresh and local products. You can even cut your own Christmas Tree if you want!

Coming soon: an easy easy apple pie to cook with kids!

Simpler sometimes is better

The other day, P and I went to this tiny, little park, close to our apartment. There is no playground for the kids to play. Just a sandbox. Well, lately, this is one of P's and F's favorite places to play. 

I was sitting on a bench reading (yes! reading! I have time to read again!) and from time to time watching P who was either chasing some pigeons or looking at the boats passing by. This all reminded me that sometimes we try so hard to entertain our kids, when all it takes to make them happy is some space to run around and little pebbles to throw in the water.

I'm not saying anything new here. But sometimes we forget that children can have fun doing things that we take for granted as adults. For instance, a trip to the supermarket, a ride on the bus/subway or just a walk around the block can do the trick. If you haven't already, try it for a change, you'll see how much fun the kids will have.

Let's try to keep it simple!

P.S 1: Also, being bored sometimes is also fine.

P.S 2: Here in the U.S., the supermarket chain Whole Foods has a new kind of cart with a seat in front of it, for a toddlers to sit in. It's a great idea, because the children can really participate in the whole shopping experience, by looking at everything (picture below).

Sorry about the blurry face.
P was actually having lots of fun and had a big smile on his face. 

Oh! Central Park! - The boats and Alice.

We've been back for more than a week now and in  a few days we are off again. We've been, however, even if it is for a short period of time, trying to get back to our routine. Or whatever you call it during summer vacation. 

The weather has been amazing lately. Sunny but not too warm. Yesterday, I took the kids to Central Park and we decided to rent one of the model boats at the park's Conservatory Water. Everything was nice about the experience. The quietness of the water, the calmly way the boats move around the pond, the excitement of the kids, the nice breeze while I watched them seated below the trees, the birds chirping, the ducks swimming around the boats. Exactly what I needed yesterday and what we frequently need when living in big metropolis - some quietness and nature.

Just next to the pond, there's a huge sculpture representing Alice in Wonderland. The kids love to climb on top of her head. 

Jane's Carousel

We've finally made it to Jane's Carousel and I have to say that it is really worthwhile. The carousel is beautiful and the structured designed by French architect Jean Nouvel is very nice as well. When well done (which is not that easy to achieve), I usually love the mix of modern and old and it works amazingly well in this case. 

Jane's Carousel is an old carousel from the beginning of the twentieth century that was completely restored. To protect it, Jean Nouvel was commissioned to do a modern structure made of glass. It is located in Brooklyn, right below Brooklyn Bridge in a very nice area called Dumbo. There's a nice park right on the shores of the East River and several restaurants nearby. We went by taxi but decided to return by ferry, which was another adventure for my sons. 

Activity for the kids: the giant paper doll

We could use any material to dress our doll. We decided to leave it bold and sorry about the horrendous teeth (that was F's idea - it was his project after all!)

You probably all know what paper dolls are, right? And you've probably played with some when you were young. Well, a couple of weeks ago, F came back from school with a giant paper doll. Our project was to design an outfit for it. I thought it was a pretty fun and original idea. So I decided to share it here. 

I hope it will inspire you as well!

Kiddie songs for grown-ups?

Are you tired of the traditional nursery rhymes? Of that childish melodies in your car and your house? Do you hear yourself sometimes singing "The Wheels on the Bus" in the middle of the supermarket?

Is it possible to find kiddie songs that would please both children and adults? Yes! As a matter of fact, I recently discovered that they do exist.

Meet Elizabeth Mitchell. She's actually being around for some time now (she's been recording children's albums since 1998), and I'm a kinda late "discoverer" of her talent. But I thought that maybe other people, like me, didn't know her. She has a sweet voice and sings old-fashion songs, accompanied just by the sound of a guitar. Some songs are well known, but they she gives them a special touch, singing them in her own version and rhythm.

Educational Toy: The Responsibility chart

Lately, F has not been excelling in terms of obedience. So following the advice of a friend of mine, I decided to reward him for his wrongdoings with a "Responsibility chart". It consists of setting some simple goals for the child and try to make him responsible about achieving them. I don't really like giving "rewards", but if this is what it's going to take for F to start acting the way that I want him to, to be more responsible, then so be it. As adults, we usually work for money, so let him "earn" something if he cleans up his toys after playing with them.

We chose together some obligations for him (for instance: no whining, say "sorry", clean up toys, etc) and everyday he accomplishes them, he gets a magnet. If he manages to complete the whole board during the week, he'll receive a present (a DVD, for instance, that he's been asking for some time). If he completes a full line or more than one I'll treat him with something nice during the weekend (we still have to figure this one out, but probably an ice-cream or something like that). 

So far, I can already tell you that he won't complete de board this week. However, he's in good shape to have one or more full lines and he's starting to get a grasp of the game. 

Indoor picnic for breakfast

The day is absolutely gorgeous today here in New York. The kids wanted to have a picnic this morning, however I didn't have time to take them to the park. The solution? An indoor picnic. They helped preparing everything, we put our blanket on the wooden floor and that's it. Sometimes, we just need a little imagination (and lots of patience) to entertain the little ones.

Have an excellent week!

New York is just special

From top left hand corner: Jazz at Lincoln Center, Puss in Boot at Puppetworks, Central Park, ceiling decoration at McNally Jackson's bookstore's cafe, New Museum

Everybody agrees that New York is a special city, right? Whether you like the city or not, there is always something to do and that's true for any taste or age.

Nonetheless, a lot of people still find it hard to believe when I tell them that I would probably never find the kind of life that I have here, somewhere else. To which I usually hear back that New York will always be there and that I could come and visit often. True. But, what those people don't get, is that the things they can enjoy when they come to visit (even if they come often), I can have them everyday, all year long, without having to wait for a trip.  

Last weekend, for example, some of our activities included a puppet show* at Puppetworks in Brooklyn, a visit to the New Museum, a jazz concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center featuring Wynton Marsalis and his band, not to mention the restaurants and the simple strolls around town admiring the blossoming trees (although the weather wasn't great). And I'm not talking about a special weekend or anything, this is normal for us. Where else can you have all this, with the same variety, the same quality, at the tip of your fingers all the time? 

My weeks are also usually full of various activities. I get to talk and be with different people as well. This is something that I think is really hard to find somewhere else. Maybe in Paris or London or a place that I don't know (but would love to)? Certainly not where I have lived before. 

I'm organizing my week with the kids now. As always, there is too much to do and not enough time. New York is just special.

Have a great week!

* We went to see Puss in boots and I really recommend it. They are having their last presentation next Saturday, April 7th. If you can, don't miss it!

Play with your imagination

F loves to listen to stories while he's having dinner, but not any kind of stories. It started more than a year ago and, at the beginning, I would tell him well-known stories, like The Three Little Pigs or Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But he soon started to ask me to invent "out-of-my-head", like he likes to say, fantastic stories. 

Usually, the characters are: himself (as the hero, obviously), his brother, friends from school, his cousins, a big bad wolf, dragons and witches (we have a good one and a very bad one). It's a lot of fun. However, I must confess, that when you need to invent a different story each day, one more extravagant than the other, with very complicated plots, it soon may become a headache to invent such stories. 

One day, I spotted the Tell me a Story card game from Eeboo and I immediately bought it. I thought it would save me from my crazy stories at dinner time. Well, it didn't. On the other hand, it saved me from long and boring winter afternoons at home. The cards come without any text, just images. So you have to create the stories. There are various ways to play with them and you can even create your own rules. 

The instructions that come with the deck give three suggestions: 1) put some cards together and make-up a story; 2) ask your child to create a story using one of the cards and then adding some other cards to the plot; 3) the Silly Story Game (for 2 or more players), in which the youngest player draws a card and starts a story based on the illustration, subsequently the players take turns drawing cards and continuing the initial story, always based on the illustrations. The result can be completely non-sense but is certainly hilarious.

Our favorite one, and actually the only one we've been playing lately, is the third version. It's a great entertainment. It challenges our imagination, creativity and our storytelling abilities. And I'm always so impressed with F's imagination and how he manages to link one card with another in order to make a somewhat coherent story. 

MoMA with kids - Tours for Fours

Henri Matisse. The Red Studio. Issy-les-Moulineaux, fall 1911. Oil on canvas, 71 1/4" x 7' 2 1/4" (181 x 219.1 cm). Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund

Saturday morning we tried one of the tours offered by the MoMA for young visitors - Tours for Four. They have two Family Programs: one for children aged four and another one for children between 5 and 10.

The tours are for free and they are organized by subject. The one that we went, for example, was about "places". Our guide gave us a small introduction of what we were about to see and then took us to one of the galleries in the museum to observe three different paintings. In front of each painting, she asked the same question to the kids: if we were looking at a place inside or outside. It was really interesting and funny to hear the comments.

The tours take approximately 50 minutes, which, I found, a little bit long for young children (especially for my hyperactive son). Nonetheless, it was well organized, interesting and a nice way to introduce children to art and, more importantly, to teach them how to observe and learn to interpret an art work.

P.S.: I forgot to mention that the entrance to the museum is free when you go to one of the tours and, at the end, you will receive a Family pass to come back to the MoMA with your family on another day, for free. This is pretty sweet, considering that each ticket cost US$20.

Shadow puppet show

If you've been following me for some time now, you probably know that we like anything related to puppets here at home. So, here's our newest show: shadow theatre. Although, at the beginning, it was hard to coordinate everything and to keep the kids far from the wall so that we could create some shadows, they really had a blast.

Our shadow puppets are from Moulin Roty, a very nice French brand, specialized in high-quality products for children (i.e. wood toys, educational toys). I really like the ones we bought, however I think it's probably very easy to make simple ones at home.

The Obliteration Room by Yayoi Kusama

The Obliteration Room,  The Guardian (Photographies by: Mark Sherwood, Stuart Addelsee and Natasha Harth)

The Tate Modern, in London, is currently hosting a major exhibition from Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. If you happen to be in London (which unfortunately is not my case), it seems to be one of those unmissable things to see.

However, the reason I'm really writing about it, is because of The Obliteration Room, which is part of the main exhibit Look Now, See Forever. Yayoi Kusama had this fantastic idea of making a fun interactive project for the kids. It started with a completely immaculate white room (including furniture and objects) and each person who enters the room is given a sheet of colored stickers dots and is asked to stick them wherever they want. How fun is that?

Masks for Mardi Gras

Given that today is Mardi Gras and that we are celebrating Carnival this week, we've decided to make some masks. For Christmas, F received the set Mask'Animo, which contains 8 masks to assemble and paint. They are very easy and fun to make. We had made already some in Punta del Este, but we still had two left. So we've finished them today.

Take a look at the video of the making of in Mitik's website. Ours don't look as professional, but the kids had fun making them. This brand is not very commercialized outside France, but once I saw the masks at Moma's store.

Also, instead of painting them, we colored them with these great pastels from Djeco. It was less messy and the gel pastels are smooth and colorful, which makes them very pleasant to color with.

Play with your food!

The other day I got inspired by this post in Babyccino Kids (a great blog/website about everything related to kids) and made these little pear and grape cars. My children loved them. And they even had the idea to create an airplane using strawberries as the winds.

Before eating them up, we made a race and the cool thing is that the wheels, made out of grape, do actually turn.

Park Here - the indoor pop-up park

Today, while we were waiting to pick-up F from a play date, P and I went to this indoor "pop-up" park in  Openhouse Gallery, located in the heart of Nolita. 

Isn't the idea fantastic for a long and cold winter like we usually get in New York?

There were kids playing around, people reading, others using their computers, others just chatting - just like a real park, except that we were in an indoor space. Unfortunately, the park will close on Wednesday and tomorrow (02/14) is the last day opened for the public. 

Given that we were in a gallery, space and infrastructure were not great for an indoor park. Nonetheless, wouldn't this be a great idea for any big city to have an real indoor park?

While I was hanging there, sitting on one of the benches watching P playing, I did a small list of things that I thought worked here and others that I would have liked to see or to be different.

Let's start with the pros:

• Great great great idea for the winter;
• The park was quite big (for Manhattan of course);
• Free for everybody;
• Free Wi-fi;
• There were some picnic blankets, bean bags, benches, tables, hammocks;
• Many events during the two months it was opened (movie nights, activities for mothers with their kids, games, afternoon tea, and more);
• It became a place to hang out with friends or just to enjoy a cup of coffee while reading a book, just like a real park

Now the not-so-good things I found about it:

• No windows, no natural light - felt a little bit too indoors;
• The illumination wasn't good, so it was a little bit dark;
• Since it's an indoor space and people come to eat, there was a strong smell of food when we entered the space;
• All the flowers and plants were fake. They looked very nice, but it would have been better if they were real;
• The ventilation system was making too much noise;
• I said that the park was quite big, considering that we are in Manhattan, however, the bigger the better.

Anyway, those are just ideas in case someone decides to build a real indoor park. In the meantime this was a really nice initiative from Openhouse Gallery. 

Storytime

Story Time at a country school, by Norman Rockwell

Storytimes are a great activity to do with the kids. They (as well as you) can just sit down and enjoy a quiet and relaxing time hearing some nice stories. What I like about that is that. first of all, the person reading is usually a great reader and story teller (sometimes it can even be the author). But, also, the person may choose some books that you would have never chosen because you either didn't see them or you thought they wouldn't interest your kids. Until you see them with their mouths opened, static, barely blinking their eyes, listening to the story.

On Saturday we went to McNally Jackson Books bookstore for a story time and crafts. Although a little bit crowded, it was very nice. And, more importantly, the kids loved the program. I wrote here about this bookstore and it has definitely became one of my favorites here in New York. They have a lot of events going on during the week, for both adults and kids. So make sure to check out their calendar. Every Saturday they host this story time at 11:30am, which is usually followed by some crafts activities. They announce on their website what will be the books read and the theme of the craft. 

There are many bookstores around New York (and certainly near you, wherever you live) with story times and activities for the kids. They are usually for free. So take advantage of that!

Here are other bookstores that you may want to check out for their events (I'm sure there are plenty more):

• Books of Wonder
• Barnes & Noble
• Barefoot Books store at FAO Schwarz