Today, the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington board member awaits the publication of his new book on baby and childhood nutrition. At the same time, the father of three strives to make kids’ options as interesting in his four restaurants as the regular menu items.
Tracy recently took time out from running his restaurants, which employ 200 people and serve more than a half million guests a year, to talk about healthful kids’ menus.
Read on to find out what he’s doing.
Q: What made you decide to enhance your children’s menus?
A: When my kids started eating table food, I took over the responsibility of feeding them. And I moved kids’ menus up the priority list. Previously, I never thought about kids’ menus from a culinary or health standpoint.
Q: What were some of the changes you made?
A: We replaced the standard side of French fries with grilled pineapple skewers, popcorn or carrot sticks. From a kid’s perspective, it’s still fun. I include some of the purees from my new book on our menus. The purees and other items on the children’s menus change seasonally, as do the adult menus. We also offer handmade spaghetti and mozzarella. And we serve peas picked daily from the pod.
Q: Tell us about your new book.
A: “Baby Love,” which comes out in August, is about how to feed children 6 months to 18 months old. Childhood nutrition starts with kids’ first foods. If you want to get kids to eat healthy food, you have to include them in the cooking process.
Q: You were at the First Lady’s White House event in June to end childhood obesity. What are you doing to promote nutrition and healthy lifestyles to children?
A: I’ve been doing cooking demonstrations at Horace Mann Elementary School in Washington, D.C. The first year, we made potato latkes with apples in them and a yogurt sauce to go on top. None of the ingredients is unfamiliar to kindergarteners, but if they’re not connected with the food, they’re wary of it. The next year, we made potato gnocchi with a pesto of arugula, baby spinach and herbs from the school’s garden. We got 43 of 44 kids to eat it.
