"We bring the kids into the lives we live.....During the early years is when the children establish their strongest bonds.  It’s the time also to expose them to new food."

Food & Wine’s Top Ten Best New Chefs in 2006 and James Beard Award Best Chef Mid-Atlantic Nominee 2007 and 2011

"I always get the kids involved in making the dinner, picking the herbs, peeling the garlic, chopping the garlic, and things like that—with a garlic crusher, not with a knife; they are not ready for knives yet. I think it's really important to be involved in the preparation of the meal and the cleanup of the meal because it develops good habits and good sensibilities in general."

James Beard Award winner for The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen cookbook.  Author also of The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, Fresh Food Fast: Seasonal Vegetarian Meals in Under an Hour and The Flexitarian Table cookbooks.

"I study about food, I've never been into studying nutrition. I've been very skeptical about the science of nutrition only because a lot of it is so much based on one book that analyzes nutritional components in food — there's only one book that everything is based on — all the how much vitamin C is in something, how much vitamin A is in something — that all comes from only one source, which is really not very accurate. The other thing is, I found that to think that way is very analytical and very cerebral, and I've always felt that it's best to see how you feel with what you eat."

"My kids'll taste anything, some things they'll spit out and say, 'that was disgusting,' but they'll try just about anything.  Jason had seaweed soup and thought it was going to be gross, and he didn't try it the first time at all. And then the second time, he tried it and decided it was pretty cool. We order anything; I am as adventurous as I can be."

"We always have greens with our meals, like a few weeks ago I made osso bucco—real osso bucco. But I couldn't figure out how to get the vegetables in it because the dish was so different, so I made a green bean salad. I know my kids love olives and pine nuts, so I put olives and pine nuts and anchovies in the salad, and they enjoyed it."

Two stars from the Michelin guide, #1 for Top Food in Los Angeles (2006, 2008, 2009), Four Stars by Mobile Travel Guide (2001–2009), Wine Spectator Best Award of Excellence (2001–2008), and Top 40 Restaurants by Gayot.com since 2006. Keep and eye out for his new cookbook, In Pursuit of Excellence: Josiah Citrin, Melisse

"I wait for the day when I can go to a 2-star and 3-star restaurant in France with my kids. Or a bistro and order tete de veau—I think I will get that day with them, they'll get there." 

"Easton, my son, always hangs around with the cooks in the restaurant; it's created a very interesting dynamic of taste and palate."

"I always stress trying new things. For me, the person who got me to try new things was my grandfather... I wanted to be with him and be like him; so every time he gave me something new to try, I was all about it." 

Colby Garrelts was listed as one of the Best New Chefs in 2005 by Food & Wine and was nominated by the James Beard Foundation for Best Chef Midwest Region for 2007 and 2008.  Keep an eye out for their new book, Bluestem, the cookbook.

"Madi'll go to the kitchen restaurant and the cooks will give her things all the time. She's tasting things all the time. She will definitely know food." 

Forley was named one of America's Hottest Young Chefs by the Wine Spectator and is the author of Anatomy of a Dish.  

"I like to go home and make a nice piece of chicken with some cooked rice with gravy — something that's very comforting — that's what I like to eat at home . . . I want to spend time with my kid and I want to get her to eat and make sure she enjoys eating and gets pleasure out of it."

One of Food & Wine's Best New Chefs in 2009, 2009 James Beard Award Nominee for Best Chef Southeast.

"My children are raised in our culture of food, that's how they think about it. You know, they take the lead from us without a doubt . . . of course, in our household, we talk a lot about food."

2003 James Beard Award winner as Best Chef Northeast, Food & Wine's 10 Best New Chefs 2009.  Author of the Stir cookbook.

"I'm always cooking. I'm either at home cooking or we're at a gathering and I'm cooking. I make my daughter Marchesa try everything . . . She eats oysters, shrimp cocktail, artichokes, and fried calamari. When she's with me in the different restaurants, with another friend, she's much more adventurous."

"I learned how to cook from my mother, the way you learn to walk or learn how to dance. I never took dancing lessons, you just did it, you know? I did the same thing with my kids. I'd let them do it themselves. I always thought that letting them handle food was important, to just say 'look it, this is how you do this, now you do it.' I would watch, but they were allowed to do it themselves."

"One of Callen's favorite things to eat when she was four was fennel salad with smoked oysters."

"My daughter, Trina, grew up with me in the restaurant business. We started as a very small restaurant and I took her with me since she was a baby-she's always been around food. Her good eating habits started when she was young."

Three-time James Beard Award winner and owner of the Rattlesnake Club restaurants in Detroit and Denver, Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence and Gourmet magazine's America's Top Tables and America's Best Restaurants. Author of Jimmy Schmidt's Cooking Class: Seasonal Recipes form  Chef's Kitchen. He is also a food scientist devoted to nutritional product development and serves as the director of sports nutrition for GM/Corvette Racing and catering coordinator for the "24 Hours of Le Mans" race in France, since 1999.

"The big thing at the end of the day is that the food I serve to my kids is seasonal and as pure as possible — it's not manufactured — it doesn't have ingredients in it that you don't know what they are." 

James Beard Award winner for Outstanding Service in 1996, and for Wine in 1994. Wine Spectator magazine named Valentino one of the top four restaurants in the country in 1996 and again in 2000, and has given its Grand Award for wine to the restaurant every year since 1981. Author of The Valentino Cookbook.

"This morning, the highlight of my morning: I took my daughter, Sasha, to the park and put her in the swing because she is a big girl, but the highlight was I made her a one-egg omelette with kale."

2005 James Beard Foundation Award winner Best Chef Northeast. Author of Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean.

"I'm a chef and Sienna's dad's a farmer so there's a lot of variety all the time. She's really into the stuff my husband grows, and she eats stuff right out of the field, stuff that I think she's not going to like, like spicy greens. She knows where it comes from. That's a big part of it."

Best New Chef 2007 by Food & Wine magazine. Keep an eye out for his new cookbook, A Chef's Year of Preserving: The Craft of Making Sweet and Savory Preserves-and 100 Ways to Cook with Them.

"Exposing kids from seed to table is important." 

Cynthia Epps is a metabolic nutritionist, board-certified lactation consultant, and infant-feeding specialist in private practice in Los Angeles. She trained at UCLA and the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Her goal is teaching new mothers how to navigate their first year of motherhood.

Marcia Pelchat is a biopsychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia and an associate member of the faculty at Monell Chemical Senses Center, a science institute in Philadelphia, where biologists, behavioral neuroscientists, ecologists, and chemists explore the science of our senses of taste and smell and how they relate to and affect human health. 

Sally Kravich is one of the leading natural health practitioners in the country. She holds a Master of Science in holistic nutrition and is widely regarded as an authority on health, vitality, and wellness.