Alanna Stang, Executive Editor

I've recently become a devotee of Heidi Swanson's cookbook, Super Natural Cooking. The photos are beautiful and the recipes are truly delicious and truly healthy. The buckwheat noodles, cauliflower salad, and amaranth biscuits all went over well with the whole family, my 2 1/2-year-old included. The little guy even went for the hummus, which is made with a blend of chickpeas and toasted walnuts and served with red-pepper-infused olive oil on top. But his favorite concoction was the yogurt and açai popsicles I whipped up in about five minutes. The best thing about this book is that it inspires me to get out of my rut and use healthier ingredients (agave insted of honey or sugar; tofu instead of cream cheese; buckwheat soba instead of white-flour pasta) even when I'm not making one of her recipes. (By the way, Swanson's website, 101cookbooks, is also awesome.)

Adriana Velez, What I Made for Dinner

At my son's school fund-raising dinner this weekend, one of the parents donated children's cookbooks as raffle items. They were all from the Handstand Kids Cookbook series: Mexican, Italian, and Chinese cookbooks geared towards children ages 3 to 12 and featuring a multiethnic cast of five kids. The cookbooks are actually kits with clever packaging containing the book and a cooking accessory, like a chef's hat or oven mitt (for example, the Chinese book comes in a takeout box with chopsticks). Inside, recipes include translations of key words in the respective language and focus on fresh, nutritious foods. The recipes are also rated by difficulty, so your child can choose based on her experience level.

The recipes themselves are not necessarily the most authentic you will ever encounter. (I don't believe Diana Kennedy included "apple-licious taquitos" in The Cuisines of Mexcio!) But they seem fun and just adventurous enough. The Handstand Kids website also lists volunteer opportunities for kids, helping them to learn the impact they can make in their communities.

Elena North-Kelly, Home Assistant

For those of us who hate throwing away food lingering in the fridge but are not terribly confident in our innate abilities to know how long various ingredients can last, there's a wonder site that should instantly be bookmarked in our Web browsers. StillTasty.com, the ultimate shelf-life guide, has the answers to all your freshness queries. It's incredibly specific, so you won't just find out how long bacon will generally keep, but you'll actually know the difference between leftover cooked bacon, raw bacon (in both unopened and opened packages), bacon drippings, and commercial bacon bits. Amazing! It's even a helpful tool for managing the family budget--you'd be surprised by how much money can be saved by getting the most out of your groceries. Check it out here. 

Sarah Engler, Associate Editor

A few issues back, we sang the praises of bento lunch boxes for picky eaters--for our moms, a smattering of bite-size favorites has a much higher success rate than the standard sandwich. (Not to mention the young eco-police watching Mom and Dad's every lunch-packing move toward the Ziplocs.) We showed off a few of our favorite bento boxes here, but how cute are these new ones we found at Print & Pattern?

Carl Germann, Assistant Managing Editor

Has the White House community garden inspired you to start one in your own neighborhood? Or at your child's school? As luck would have it, Alice Waters's new book, Edible Schoolyard: A Universal Idea (Chronicle), is out this month. Waters tells the story of how she rallied her Berkeley, California, community to transform and enlighten a woefully neglected local school by planting a schoolyard garden. Edible Schoolyard--part manual, part coffee-table book--provides ample inspiration, of course, but more important, it explains the execution, beginning with the five "principles of edible education."

In the back, it also lists several garden-driven recipes that are easy to make with groups of 10 kids. We liked this one.

Julie Alvin, Editorial Assistant

The debate over breastfeeding can turn playground into battleground, and with recent articles by Hanna Rosin in the Atlantic and Judith Warner in the New York Times, the feminists and the naturalists (as well as the feminaturalists? Is that a word?) are more at odds than ever. With all the discussion of IQs, allergy statistics, maternal bonding, and the general politicization of nursing, we let out a collective giggle when we came across this guide to introducing solid foods (click on the image to enlarge), in Dale Hrabi's hilarious The Perfect Baby Handbook: A Guide for Excessively Motivated Parents.  (The rest of the book, which is out as of this month, is worth checking out too.)

Sarah Engler, Associate Editor

We love this letterpress poster featured on Creature Comforts. What better way to motivate your kids to eat fresh fruit than by turning their consumption into a sticker collection? Just peel off the label that's stuck to their fruit, place it in on the grid, and you have something quite cute for your kitchen walls (as well as a record of how good a parent you are!)