CHILD'S PLAY

26 WINTER 2010-11 palisade • hoboken & beyond

Now that the cold weather is upon us, parents have agreater need to seek out indoor activities for their kids.Distracting them from computers, TV, and the Wii is no

easy task. However, kids of all ages love to cook, and dinner needsto be prepared anyway, so why not call in the troops?

But be forewarned: War stories abound. Take Jersey City mother Jennifer Greenstein. What started as a

pizza party for her son’s birthday turned into a fiasco when theharried mom forgot to take the pizzas out of the delivery boxes asthey were reheating in the oven! Fifteen minutes later, a smokyroom, a brain-numbing fire alarm, and uninvited guests in the uni-forms of the Jersey City Fire Department reminded Jennifer whatall urban parents should know: Slow down, you move too fast!

So who better to provide parents with practical cooking tipsthan Celeste Governanti, founder of Made with Love Organics, adowntown Jersey City bakery and café providing healthy andtasty baked goods and prepared foods.

Celeste has been a presence at local farmers markets for a longtime. When she opened her café two years ago, she had a strongfollowing with local families, who were among her biggest fans.Soon she was asked to share her sweet and savory secrets in cook-ing classes. (Celeste also serves weekend brunches and reserva-tion-only communal dinners.)

For the past two years she’s offered classes for adults—and kidsas young as two and a half. She limits the classes to 12 to keep theexperience intimate and hands-on. Her most popular classesinclude funny face pizzas, cookie and cupcake decorating, andpasta making.

Celeste finds that children are very creative and uninhibited. Hertips to avoid craziness in the kitchen include:

Be Prepared: Plan ahead and consider the child’s skills and abilities. If the kids

are young, have everything pre-measured ahead of time. You canroll the dough on a floured board to control the chaos with young

BY ANNE MARUSIC

Kids in the Kitchen

PHOTO BY ROBYN POLANSKY

palisade • hoboken & beyond WINTER 2010-11 43

besieged with queries. Only problem is, it’s under renovation, slat-ed to open this summer.

Boston is a haven for art lovers. The fabulous new Institute ofContemporary Art is a glass-and-steel stunner that cantilevers overthe harbor, housing works by Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman,Shepard Fairey, and myriad other art-world luminaries. TheMuseum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner museumsare world-renowned for their collections which include everythingfrom Rembrandts to Monets and Matisses.

Shoppers, fasten your seatbelts! Not to be missed during the hol-iday season—or any time—is Faneuil Hall, a sprawling contempo-rary marketplace housed in three restored 19th century buildings,boasting 112 stores and 13 restaurants. It forms the backdrop formany street performances and seasonal events.

Speaking of which, the city is famous for its First Night Bostonweekend, which kicks off on New Year’s Eve. The festival of exhi-bitions and performances, created in Bean Town 34 years ago, hasbeen copied by many other cities in the last three decades. The nextday, check out the Boston First Day Polar Swim. The oldest polarbear group in the country, these stalwart—or crazy—New Year’sswimmers brave the frigid waters off Carson Beach. Why? You’llhave to ask them.

If you visit in February, take in Boston’s Chinatown and celebrateThe Year of the Rabbit on Feb. 13.

In late December, enjoy a Menorah lighting on Boston Common.On a snowy winter’s night the common is a magical place, callingto mind a 19th century Currier and Ives calendar. Skaters circle thepond, yellow lights sparkle in the trees, and the steep, narrowstreets of Beacon Hill just ask to be explored. They are lined withbeautiful old brownstones and are haunted by the history of earlyAmerica.

Boston and winter, happy together.—Kate Rounds

bostonusa.com

WEEKEND GETAWAY

FIRST NIGHT IN BOSTON. PHOTO COURTESY OF GREATER BOSTON CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU

U.S.S CONSTITUTION