School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3--Cookbook author and television host Lakshmi celebrates the connection a child feels with her mother and grandmother through the process of making tomato sauce. Neela's paati lives in India, but her presence is felt, from her portrait on the wall, to her collection of recipes that will one day be Neela's, to the taste of the sauce itself. At the green market and back home in the kitchen, Neela's mother teaches her about the different kinds of tomatoes, the best time of year to buy them, and how tomatoes traveled from the New World to Europe. With all of the sauce canned, Neela saves one jar at the very back of the cupboard for her paati's winter visit. There isn't much of a story arc here, but the intergenerational warmth and pleasure in cooking together are palpable. The lovely illustrations, created with acrylic and colored pencil on textured paper, are delicately ornamented with salmon-pink flowers and soft, blue-green leaves that emphasize the sweetness of Neela's interactions with her mother. Back matter includes two recipes, fun tomato facts, and a note that honors farmworkers. VERDICT Part informational, part family story, this attractive book will speak to young kitchen helpers and those with loved ones in far-off places.--Jan Aldrich Solow, formerly Fairfax County P.S., VA
Publisher's Weekly Review
Top Chef and Taste the Nation host Lakshmi lends her expertise to this stuffed picture book, exploring how cooking can preserve both intergenerational bonds and summer's bounty. Neela, a brown-skinned child, adores cooking with her amma, who pens recipes in a notebook passed down from Neela's paati. On Saturdays, Neela and her amma visit the green market, "now brimming with crops from the end of summer." After surveying lusciously painted tomatoes across two spreads, which are described in scribbled addenda ("Big like a softball. Slice them thick for toast with mayonnaise"), the duo returns home to preserve them, using a family recipe. As the story moves along, each step includes additional facts: "Did you know that 'tomato' comes from an old Aztec word, 'tomatl'?" In acrylic paint and colored pencil, Caldecott Honoree Martinez-Neal contributes warmly expressive, toothsome spreads that emphasize food, family, and the natural world. While copious factual asides would serve better as back matter, the sweet, lushly illustrated tale succeeds in showing the importance of food as connection within one Indian American family. Back matter includes recipes for tomato sauce and tomato chutney, as well as tomato fun facts, resources on farmworkers, and an author's note. Ages 3--7. (Aug.)