Lowcountry Cuisine Summer/Fall 2019

LC 10 www.LowcountryCuisineMag.com | www.MountPleasantRestaurant.com | www.CharlestonRecipes.com lowcountry cuisine L et’s face it. Packing school lunches can be daunting. Some children willingly graze on a rainbow of proteins, veggies and fruits like hungry rabbits in a Pinteresting garden, much to the chagrin of the rest of us parents who struggle — green bean by green bean — to make sure our kids are getting even a vague semblance of a balanced diet. We wind up asking the same dull question daily: “Ham and cheese, or peanut butter and jelly?” I can’t imagine I’m the only one. A few years ago, Lindsay Gantt fell into the latter category before her son’s picky-eating tendencies and her career as a pediatric speech-language pathologist inspired her to change her family’s approach to foods. She now shares techniques, ideas and encouragement with others — both parents and children — as a Healthy Hands Cooking instructor. “I found one meal a week where my children would help me in the kitchen,” Gantt recalled. She started small with Saturday breakfast. “I would give them a task like breading something, stirring and mixing. I found that they were trying and touching more foods, and, for my son, it was a lightbulb moment. Foods he normally would never touch or go near … instead he was smelling them, touching and cutting them. He was trying foods that he BY ANNE SHULER TOOLE Photos by Tonya McGue. Thinking Outside the Lunchbox Kids in the Kitchen