Chef Jonathon Sawyer Shows Off His New Book ‘Noodle Kids’ @ClevelandP_L Public Library

Lauren and Jason Frank 2012

Sat 4/11 @ 2PM

When Cleveland star chef Jonathon Sawyer, owner of the Greenhouse Tavern on East 4th, Noodlecat around the corner on Euclid and the upscale University Circle restaurant Trentina, decided to write his first book, he looked no further than his own family for inspiration. And one of the things he and his wife Amelia prepared with the help of their two children Catcher and Louisiana was noodles — noodles from Italian and Japan, from Spain and Poland, from China and Morocco.

That’s how Noodle Kids: Around the World in 50 Fun, Healthy, Creative Recipes the Whole Family Can Cook Together got started. Sawyer confessed that he wasn’t a regular writer before he began the book, which he wrote himself with some help from his wife in assembling recipes and a little polishing from professionals.

“But I have a regular opinion,” he said. “It’s something I’m passionate about and I figured the most natural thing for me to write about was what we do at home as opposed to what we do at the restaurant. I think noodles are internationally recognized and universally loved by kids. It seems like a real natural way for us to start.”

 

The books contains not only the recipes, for everything from ginger pork potstickers to “classic potato gnocchi with catcher’s Italian meat saucem” but intriguing little bits of information about the history of the various pasta types and how they’re made. In fact, it’s a good basic book for non-kids interested in broadening their pasta horizons beyond spaghetti with tomato-based sauce.

“It’s for whatever your version of a family is,” said Sawyer. “If you just want to go back in the kitchen and gain confidence that’s good.”

But if you want to draw your kids into food preparation, Sawyer says it’s better to show than to tell.

“If you tell them to do some you can assure yourself they will not want to do it,” he said. “If you engage them and they have the opportunity to touch with their hands, smell with their nose, ask questions, and you start early, start in a very experiential way, then they’ll like it. I think it’s different with every family, whether you go to West Side Market or Cuyahoga Valley National Park or Giant Eagle. I’m not one that pretends everyone should buy the same foods at the same places.”

Sawyer said getting started on the book was the hardest part, but now that’s he’s up and running, he’s got two more book proposals in the works, one already submitted to a publisher. He credits the Cleveland Public Library with providing him with the resources and environment to write.

“I was resident artist and had an office there,” he says. “I could go hide there for a while and crank out my writing. I had access to their collection. I think the downtown library is really special.”

That’s where he’ll be doing a special event to introduce the book. He’ll talk about the book and offer tips about making delicious pasta dishes your whole family will eat at the Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium.

jonathonsawyer.com/noodle-kids/

cpl.org/TheLibrary/Jonathon-Sawyer-Comes-to-CPL

JonathonSawyer

Cleveland, OH 44114

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