to find Annabel Karmel really irritating?

[YesSirICanBoogie]

I've got a few of her books and the recipes can be fab, but...

She looks like a very groomed American. How does she have the time? Do her children really ask for salad instead of a biscuit? Is she ever so tired she buys her kids fast food? I'd like her far more if these were different!

The whole idea of specially prepared fish pies and pasta dishes for kids jars me.

Can't they juste at normal food?

he deserves something for being able to sell shedloads of silly books showing one how to make a catameran out of a melon and three cheese triangles to a nbation trhat by and large can't cook, is grossly overweight and eats shit.

The children in her books' photos are chilling. All colour co-ordinated with the crockery and not a speck of mess on them. I think she is an alien.

I do like the comment I've got in one of my AK books above a liver and bacon recipe that's something along the lines of if you managed to get your children to eat liver you're doing very well indeed..... I reckon even AK didn't manage that!

Some of her recipes are great, ds loves the kedgeree and pineapple and raisin muffins, but some of her sandwich suggestions are a bit... like dur! Cheese and ham? Well I could have thought of that!

Lol at her looking like an alien.

Otoh who would buy a cookery book with pictures showing the true reality of it all? I spent years scraping food off the floor and the wall. It was soul destroying.

AK gave me something to at least aim for, even if it was a fools paradise. Mind you, we got there in the end so maybe she is onto something.

She is very annoying - I hate the fact that she appears to be more than perfect.

But she oes have a sad background story

What is the story?

It's explained [URL='www.annabelkarmel.com/communityintro/club/annabel-club/meet-annabel/questions-answers/p age-1']here[/URL]

Her first child died as a baby due to a rare condition, which is what sparked her interest in infant nutrition as the foundation stone of good health.

So yes, genuine compassion for her there.

But when it comes to her recipes and approach, it strikes me that the AK books are just another big stick with which to beat anxious and exhausted young mums.

YANBU! She's awful. I recall something like 'my child would FAR rather eat fruit than some sticky chocolate dessert' GRRRR!

Sorry, I did that wrong! It's explained here

I don't mind her. If you have the time to devote to finding all this stuff out and coming up with original recipes then all credit to her. I have one of her books (purchased from Oxfam so well worth it) and tried out loads of the recipes in it on dd. She has a great diet now and will eat a wide variety of different foods. Grateful I didn't have to come up with ideas for healthy meals myself tbh.

I like the recipe for first vegetable puree.

'Ingredients: 1lb carrots

1. Cook Carrots

1. Puree'

Don't know how I would have managed without her .

She's highly irritating.

Far too much hairspray to be taken seriously.

I completely sympathise over the hell she must have gone through losing her child, and her anxiety to feed the rest well and build up their health. But just the same, she reminds me sooooo much of Bree Van Der Kamp. it's all so spookily perfect.

DS seems to cope just fine on spag bol and chunks of hacked-apart melon, which is lucky as I'm more Waynetta Slob, truth be told.

Don't particularly mind her ESP given her history and to be fair dd does seem to like her recipes ( I do draw the line at her puree ideas too). But are you not fascinated at where they get kids who will eat butternut squash and not spill a drop on their cashmere linen dry clean only outfit

'kedgeree and pineapple and raisin muffins'

Ooh they sound mingin'

YANBU. I still remember that godawful Guardian article she did where she was soooooooo up herself and made some appalling comment about how great it was that her recipes were written down so that her son's 'future wife would be able to cook the same food that he had at home...'

Very sorry to hear about her losing a child, but she does come over as horribly, horribly smug.

Here it is in all its godawfulness

Boak at that article - especially "It's good you've got all these recipes written down. Because when you're married, your wife will be able to cook the same food you had at home'' - I pity her DIL

I wonder if she's expect her DIL to puree and spoon feed her husband...?

Agree with Misshardbroon, the principle is great but puts new mums under a lot of unneccessary pressure. There's nothing I haven't steamed/pureed/mashed - sends shivers down my spine thinking about those early days! . She does look v Stepford Wife these days!

It is a bit strange having cook books for children. BUT I have found since having my older kids, stuff has got so confusing I found myself thinking 'what the bloody hell do I fed a child?'. It was like I had never seen a kid before let alone raised 3 of em pre DS3.

So I found her books helpful. It helped to have stuff written down even though it was stuff I already knew IYSWIM.

But saying all that, I find everybody who writes baby books annoying. Particularly if they say things like 'I always think the kitchen is the heart of the home' and 'my children adore a simple supper of brie on foccaccia' and pose for pictures in a bunting festooned, artfully overgrown garden, with mismatched crockery and little moppets in fairy wings and wellingtons.

But then I is a chav

rofl at chegirl.

Round here you can spot the 'Boden-boys haircut' a mile off.

In principle, I like the idea that if you feed your babies a whole technicolour range of homemade purees, they will grow to have a more adventurous and sophisticated palate. And there's clearly children, like sunfleurs' DD, for whom this is true.

Sadly there's others, like my DD, who would flatly refuse to eat every one of AK's rigorously scheduled purees and subsisted solely on petit filous and weetabix until she was about 2. And yet somehow, she's survived, and now eats exactly the same as the rest of us.

I quite liked her... right up until the point where she started marketing Annabel Karmel ready meals - it seemed so hypocritical after her constant message of making everything yourself that I lost patience with her.

When I was weaning DS1 I was so glad of her books. Especially the "Peel this, put in hot water, then mash it," approach. I had NO idea how to cook.

DS1 had just about every recipe in her weaning book and now eats just about anything. My DS3 had a very much more haphazard approach to weaning and is now a fussy bugger!

So I 'heart' Annabel and stuff the lot of you!