Hungry Monkey

by Matthew Amster-Burton

Book Overview

A memoir from restaurant critic and food writer Matthew Amster-Burton about the joys of food and parenting, and the wild melange of the two.

Matthew Amster-Burton's experience with food has changed...a little. Since becoming a full-time, stay-at-home Dad to his daughter, Iris, he's come to realize that kids don't need puree in a jar or special menus at restaurants and that raising an adventurous eater is about exposure, invention,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0547336896
• ISBN13: 9780547336893
• Release Date: April 2010
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Loving Dad's Tribute to his daughter

This is a wonderful laugh out loud adventure of one man's quest to document and introduce his daughter to food. In the process, he paints a picture that every man should aspire to as a parent to have with his daughter--open, humorous, loving, at times silly and all about learning to be the best person that you can be. This should be required reading for all new dads (and moms too!). I cannot wait for the next adventure of Iris and her dad to begin! Bravo!!

Great book, and I don't even have kids!

This is very engaging, entertaining and interesting reading. I don't even had kids and I enjoyed this book greatly. It is a pleasure to read very good writing. I am looking forward to trying some of the recipes.

Feed Your Baby Food!

I finished this book today and gave it to my husband so he could read it while on a business trip. I am already regretting that decision because I won't have Hungry Monkey in my hands again for 6 whole days. As soon as I read the last page I wanted to start over again with some little sticky flags in my hand to mark recipes I wanted to try and passages where Amster-Burton says specifically that kaiten sushi is ideal baby food. But no, I was all, "This book is hilarious. It's about cooking and kids and Seattle. You're going to love it. Why don't you take it to LA with you?" And now I can't make dumplings or cornmeal pizza crust until Friday. If you know me at all, and you might not, you'll understand why these four reasons alone merited my five-star rating of Hungry Monkey: -Amster-Burton writes about Seattle and makes me feel like an insider, even though I live in Bellevue; -he references Bread and Jam For Frances multiple times, which is possibly the best book ever written; -he got a 5 on my humor rating scale, meaning I was laughing out loud to myself AND making my husband listen as I read funny parts aloud; -the way he talks about food and feeding his family is equal parts Anthony Bourdain and M.F.K. Fisher, which is no easy feat. What I was drawn to most in this book is the author's respect for both his daughter and the food they make together. Their relationship as depicted in the book is really quite lovely and illustrates that one does not have to dumb down conversations, expectations, ideas or flavors just because one lives with someone who happens to be a toddler. And, on a personal note, as I sat in a nearly empty restaurant today and waited for our order that I could SEE on the warming tray for over 15 minutes (including one child's order of mini hamburgers and grapes...yawn) while my own toddler got increasingly flappy and bouncy in her high chair, I thought about our last visit to our favorite sushi place where she happily ate her fill of tamago sushi and edamame as soon as we sat down. Then I thought about Hungry Monkey and realized that I'm glad to have its message, its spirit and its recipes to guide me through these next several years of eating, cooking and throwing food on the floor.

Foodie meet infant

This is an extremely funny book based on foodie dad wanting to expose his young daughter to all foods, not just the manufactured "kid-friendly" ones. So it's a trip through the spice cabinet, the joys of pad thai, and the exotic language of sushi rather than Chef Boy-are-you-uncertain-what's-in-here and powdered yellow stuff with macaroni. Setting aside the overall aim, the recipes are also quite good. And if other parents want to argue with you about what you're feeding your child, there's information to refute them here as well. Fun book that connects parenting with good food. Maybe we'll see lots of folks carrying this around this summer, a year after they were carrying In Defense of Food...

Hilarious, Insightful, and contains bitchin recipies

Super funny book about the adventures of raising a kid under a foodie's watch. The writing style and pace of the book make it tough to put down. Plenty of bacon and pirate references as any good book should have. The recipies seem to be pretty dang good. I have made the Phad Thai recipe so far and am going to try out the braised short ribs soon even though my kid can't eat real food yet.