Keep Junior off the junk! Cute Iron Chef Cat Cora comes to town to instruct harried organic kosher vegan macrobiotic peanut-allergic sexless New York parents how to feed the family with stuff that’s good for them. Calling from Santa Barbara, where she lives, Ms. Cora told us she will be attempting to make nutritious eating “hip and cool.” (Honey, we already think it’s hip and cool, and that hasn’t helped us!) No easy feat, she admitted: “I have a 4 year-old. There’s all the temptations around us. We go to the grocery store. We see the cereal boxes with Shrek on it and all that stuff, but we just don’t give into that. My motto is, ‘When my child is driving, then he can do what he wants.’” And potential threats lurk in the unlikeliest places, she said: “It’s funny because my son was with his grandparents over the holiday, and they went on a day trip and bought him Cheetos. We don’t ever buy him Cheetos! But now what does he want? Cheetos,” she said. Crafty wee fellow! The secret, she hinted, is not giving in to your child’s sinister plan to ingest fatty processed foods. “People want peace at home. They want peace and harmony. I think parents tend to give in to the wants of the children much more than when I was growing up.” Hence our plan to send our own future offspring to military school in Switzerland and reclaim them when they’re 18.
[Cat Cora workshop at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, 212 West 83rd Street, 2 p.m., 212-721-1223]
