Family Travel Tips, Dog in Tow

We brought our dog on a family trip to surprise our middle daughter

Whether you are traveling by car or plane, dogs have special needs. You will have to plan extra stops if you are driving, and may need to limit food for a dog before he rides in a car or airplane.

Car Travel with Dogs
Don't let dogs sit in the front seat of the car. The safest place for a dog is in the back seat, secured with a harness.

If you are crossing state lines with a dog in the car, you need to have the pet’s health certificate; visit the vet to get a copy.  

Weather Considerations

Our dog had the whole back of the SUV to herself

Never leave a dog in a car with the windows all the way up- in summer, or even spring, a dog can quickly overheat.  The safest thing is to take the dog with you. In winter,  bring unscented baby wipes to clean your dog’s paws; rock salt and anti-freeze can harm his paws.

Airplane Travel with Dogs

Dogs over a certain size (which varies by airline) have to travel in the cargo hold. Certified therapy or guide dogs of any size can travel in the cabin, but you may need to bring certification.

Traveling in the cargo hold can be very stressful for dogs, and in winter or summer, downright dangerous. Air cargo holds are not temperature regulated. Make sure your pet has plenty of access to fresh water.

Giveaway: milk for the lactose intolerant

Cooking vegetarian meals for my family got more challenging when my oldest daughter stopped eating dairy. She loves cheese and milk, they just didn’t love her back.

So cream soups, cheesy lasagna and pizza were all out. Or so I thought until we tried Lactaid. This lactose-free milk looks and tastes like regular milk (it is just slightly sweeter, though without any added sugar) so we could sub this into regular recipes.

Chef Melissa d’Arabian is a mother of 4 daughters, one of whom is also lactose intolerant. She said recently that even many lactose-intolerant people, like her daughter, can eat hard cheese and yogurt. So aged cheddar and Gouda, which are quite tasty, can be eaten in small amounts.

And goat cheese has less lactose, so many people with dairy insensitivity, like my sister, can eat goat cheese.

I am also lactose intolerant, and can almost never eat ice cream. I was pleased to find out that Lactaid makes 5 flavors of lactose-free ice cream, including chocolate.

And if you like buttermik, you can make your own by adding a little vinegar to Lactaid. My kids like ranch dressing, and I found this dressing recipe on Lactaid’s website:

'Buttermilk' Dressing'

·       3/4 cup mayonnaise

11/3 cup LACTAID^® Fat Free Milk

·       1 teaspoon chopped garlic

·       1 teaspoon chopped onion

·       1/4 cup cider vinegar

·       1 teaspoon chopped parsley

·       1/4 teaspoon salt

·       1/4 teaspoon white pepper

·       2 ounces goat cheese

Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a large bowl, mixing until smooth. (The cheese might still be somewhat lumpy, but that is fine). Refrigerate until ready to use.

But things couldn't be easy forever. One of my daughters decided to become a vegan.

Lactaid provided me with a coupon to try a product free, and I am giving one away to a reader. To enter, please leave your email address below and tell me who in your family is lactose intolerant.

Fitness Challenge: Disney

Getting in your exercise is easy at Disney, as long as your exercise is walking. If you use a pedometer, or an app to measure your steps, you may be surprised at how much you walked (over 7 miles, on a recent family trip).

But if you crave more strenuous exercise –and not the Disney Princess Half Marathon, most Disney hotels offer fitness centers and other ways to stay in shape.

At Disney’s Yacht Club Resort, you can swim, play tennis or rent a surrey bike at The Boardwalk (1/2 mile walk each way, too – or take the free boat ride).

I made use of the excellent fitness center, adjacent to the spa. The well-equipped fitness center had a variety of stability balls, a bosu balls, mats for stretching and a barre.

There were also ample free weights, treadmills and ellipticals with individual televisions, and headphones in case, like me, you forgot your own. Or you could listen to good tunes playing throughout at a reasonable level.

For strength training, there were a few new well-maintained weight machines, plus weight benches. And mirrors throughout the fitness room let you watch your form (or your biceps pop).

If you have a late flight, you can swim or work out, and shower. The locker room had nice towels, shower gel, shave cream and razors and self-locks. And everything  at the gym was very clean, without smelling like chemicals.

Note: I was a guest of Disney at the TravelingMom retreat.

Fitness Challenge: Cross Country Skiing

There are hardy souls who run year round, and fair weather outdoor enthusiasts, like me, who only want to ride a bicycle when it's between 60 and 70 degrees. But cross country skiing is a whole different animal. For one thing, you warm up really quickly, particularly in southern Vermont in January. For another, you get that runner's high, a blissful, peaceful feeling when you schuss along a mountain stream or through a forest. We enjoyed just such a scenario at the Okemo Valley Nordic Center at Okemo Mountain Resort. The cross country skiing takes place at the Golf Club, with 22 km of tracked and skate-groomed terrain. My children, dedicated down hill skiers, scoff at cross country skiing, finding amusement in the intermediate and expert terrain. But the hills are real, and the level of fitness required no joke. And like biking, you end up skiing, constantly using your legs, for hours on end. No standing around on lift lines or just engaging your core while you slalom down the mountain.

Fitness Challenge: JCC in Manhattan

The JCC on the Upper West Side has facilities for the whole family, from a nursery school to programs for seniors. While this all in one approach can sometimes shortchange areas, the fitness center is state of the art. There is a huge pool, two gyms, and classes galore. About the only negative is the slow elevator, so if you use the locker rooms, on the 5th floor, you might need to run up and down the stairs. But think of it as the start of your aerobic workout. The locker rooms are spotless and loaded with thick, soft towels, lotions and soaps, and cotton balls and Q-tips (though why do you have to ask for a tampon?). I took a spin class, which comes with free cycling shoes, and nice bikes where you can keep track of your calories and RPMs. There are also classes in yoga, martial arts, strength and conditioning and Zumba. Pre and post natal classes, teen fitness classes and senior classes address the needs of the whole family: a rooftop playground helps kids keep active.

Family Fun: Orlando

Whether your family has little or big kid, teens or grown ups, you can find plenty of ways to spend your family vacation in Orlando.

Although the theme parks are expensive, hotel deals in Orlando are relatively easy to find. If you stay on site at a theme park, you get perks like a line-skipping pass at Universal’s Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida or special hours at Walt Disney World Resort.

Some Orlando Family Hotels offer free breakfast, or kids eat free specials, along with discounted theme park tickets.

Whether you are a foodie, picky eater or vegetarian, you can eat feel in Orlando. Top restaurants in Orlando include sushi, Italian and Thai restaurants.

Fitness Challenge: Day 81

It is easy to stay fit on a beach vacation. Just walking on the sand is more difficult than a regular walk, and if you run on the beach, you work even harder.

If, like me, you don't swim, you can run in the waves, rent a kayak or bike. Or all of the above.

We biked a lot around Martha's Vineyard, to justify the bike schlep. We have to put a bike rack on our rental car, and pay extra for bikes on the ferry, all to enjoy the flat, paved Martha's Vineyard bike paths.

It was worth it.

The wide paths can easily accommodate 3 across, so if you are riding with your family, you can stay together - and let someone going the other way pass.

Drivers on the island were almost universally respectful. Only one driver, on a cell phone, pulled out without looking to cross the path. But there was plenty of room and we felt very safe.

Virginia Beach for Foodies and Families

Peanuts come to mind when I think of Virginia. I figured that Virginia Beach food would also center around peanuts, maybe with a fudge store or two thrown in.

But it turns out that Virginia Beach is so much more.

The area has become a foodie destination, so much so that Coastal Food Tours of Virginia offers a Virginia Beach Boardwalk Food Tour and a Farmers Market Food Tour.

When you look at Virginia Beach closely, this attention to food makes sense. The area is on the Atlantic ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, so fresh seafood is a given. Blue crab, rockfish, flounder and mackerel are some of the local seafood.

Virginia Beach for vegetarians
The year round Virginia Beach Farmers market sells seasonal, fresh vegetables and fruit as well as organic groceries, local dairy and ice cream and candy. When our kids were little, we gave them money to spend at farmers’ markets, and they usually chose unique, healthy foods they wanted to try: purple carrots or a whole grain bun studded with pumpkin seeds.

Virginia Beach for families
If you are traveling with young children, be sure to check out the Rural Education Center at the Farmers Market, which offers Rural Heritage Tours. Kids can milk a fake cow (that produces real milk), churn cream into butter and feed pigs.

Virginia Beach is also famous for its ham, not too appealing to my vegetarian family, but the pigs are adorable.

At Brookdale Farm, you can pick your own strawberries and shop from a small farm stand. Even if you are staying at a hotel with no cooking facilities, fresh corn from the farm should not be missed. You can actually eat it raw, bursting with juice and flavor.

Family activities in Virginia Beach
In between eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, and thinking about food, there is plenty to fill your day. The salt air at the free ocean beaches whets your appetite for the meals to come. If you overindulge, work off a meal by strolling the three mile boardwalk, or riding a bike.

Families with young children should head to the protected waters of the Chesapeake Bay Beaches. The gentle waves are perfect for kids and swimmers can also enjoy the water.

Hike almost 20 miles of trails at First Landing State Park, where English settlers arrived on April 26, 1607. The park also offers kayak rentals and guided kayak eco tours, bike paths, picnic areas and campgrounds.

And if you want some Virginia peanuts, get the Virginia Beach caramel apple version at The Royal Chocolate, an apple dipped in caramel, then rolled in peanuts and chocolate.



I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Virginia Beach blogging program. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

Camping to see Family

When you calculate the cost of sending your child to camp, you have to include visiting day costs. And if you send her to a camp far away, you may have to spend the night, and either fly to camp or rent a car.

We have treated our camp visits as mini-no-family vacations, but the wonderful camp where my daughter goes is near B & B’s that don’t seem worth the cost. One year we had mold in the room, and another, our friends were yelled at for coming towards the end of breakfast time (I thought that 7-9 time was a range).
S
o last summer, we went camping. Aside from getting a tent for camping this made our stay virtually free. We paid $15 a night for the campsite, vs $200 for a B & B.

We had a basic camping tent which kept us protected from the morning dew. We brought egg crate mattresses to keep our ancient bones from feeling every stick and we slept relatively well.

And we got to eat breakfast at the excellent café at King Arthur Flour.

Once you buy your tent for camping you can use it over and over. Will I forsake the Four Seasons for camping?

Not likely, but I can certainly see using it for a yearly budget vacation, and putting the money saved towards a nice dinner.

Fiji family adventure

While you may associate Fiji all inclusive resorts with romance, you can also have an active family adventure in Fiji. Namale Resort offers Fiji vacation packages for honeymooners and well-heeled families.

Vegetarians will appreciate the emphasis on fresh produce at meals, and kids can expand their palate with foods from Fiji and the South Pacific. In addition to all meals, the all-inclusive rate also covers snacks, wine and beer and hard liquor.
Scheduled activities at Namale include snorkeling, water-skiing, kayaking, knee boarding, reef and tide pool exploring, hand line fishing, guided reef walk and scuba diving. There are two freshwater pools for swimming or relaxing.

This Fiji all inclusive resort also offers hiking, tennis, and a game room, perfect for teens, with a ten pin bowling alley, foosball, darts, table hockey, virtual golf simulator room, billiard table, board games and an arcade. Mountain biking and horseback riding are part of the all-inclusive deal; extras like scuba diving, fishing, and spa services are also not included

You can also experience Fijian life at the resort; villagers in traditional costumes perform weekly dances and local artisans bring their wares to a weekly crafts sale.

Excursions from the resort include the family friendly dolphin watch, where you can snorkel in the tropical reef.

London Apartments

When my family and I last took a family trip to London, we decided an apartment rental was the way to go. Our family vacation was for a week, and with a London Apartment we feel like natives.

Turns out London Apartments are a great deal only if rent from the right place. we got ours from a site that no longer exists, and the apartment was extremely cold, with barely working heat and inadequate lights.

But friends who have rented from London Apartments have had much better experiences, with family friendly apartments vetted by a local family.

Still, we had a lovely post-Christmas week, shopping the Harrod’s sale, visiting Kew Gardens, cooking vegetarian curry in our apartment and exploring London’s museums. My kids loved the city view from the London Eye, and making friends with the owner of the local chip shop. We also got half-price tickets to two West End productions, including an all-male version of Swan Lake.

Our apartment, near Portobello Road, offered easy access to the Tube, so we got weekly transit cards and explored every inch of the city.

Patagonia family vacation

On Christmas Day, people drove convertibles around New York City – with the top down.
It is time to see the Patagonia glaciers before global warming melts them away.

Navimag runs multi-day boat trips that take you up close to the Patagonia glaciers. The family friendly adventure trips include a whopping 80% off the trip price for kids under age two. But even families with older kids get to enjoy discounts; 20% off for ages 12 and under, and 10% off for students. Cabins can accommodate up to four people; larger families need a second cabin.

Another bonus for families; low season, with correspondingly lower rates, runs April – October, so families can go over summer break.

The ships, called ferries, are nothing like cruise ships. One ferry take sup to 52 passengers, while the other can accommodate 320. The smaller size means more personal service, though also fewer activities. For kids who love wildlife, the scenery is the main attraction: you can see dolphins, sea lions, wild birds, and whales. There is a game room for down time.

The Chile Patagonia Tours are also great for budding photographers, who can catalogue the fjords, glaciers and snow-capped mountains that they see.

The meals are all inclusive, and vegetarian food is always available.

Decluttering: a pack-rat’s tips

An earthquake recently jolted New York City. While damage was minimal, my oldest daughter posted a photo on Facebook of her youngest sister’s playroom, “apparently the only part of our house affected by the earthquake.”

I have raised a slob.

Now, I don’t profess to be all spic & span, but I do prefer a clutter-free zone. Yet I am at heart a pack rat. This is why I believe strongly in closets.

Our family has a lot of them.

When we built an addition to our house, we added a wall of extra deep closets, where the television, DVDs and board games live. We also have a ton of videotapes, which no one watches. I’m not even sure our VCR works. The kids watch movies on their computers.

In our battle to reclaim floor space, I have these 10 tips:

Bins. I love color-coded bins, so kids can remember that crayons go in the yellow, markers in the blue.

Baskets. I use baskets throughout the house, for hats, gloves, makeup.

Shelves. All those bins and baskets can’t be in the floor, because then there would be no place to walk, or play.

Clear boxes. These are best for high closet shelves, so you can see which has the sweaters, which the ski socks.

Rotation. Most kids simply have too many toys. If you put some out of reach – in the basement, under the bed, on the highest shelf, it limits kids’ options, plus it seems like they have new toys when you bring them back out.

Donation. When they clearly have outgrown something, I donate it. But don’t donate too soon. My youngest decided she was done with Barbie, but I knew she was too young to completely give them up. I put them in the basement playroom and, although she denies it, we know that she still plays with them.

Stoop/yard sale. In our Brooklyn neighborhood, families have frequent stoop sales, where they unload extra or unwanted toys. Be beware. Some kids use the opportunity to buy new toys with the money they make (we usually donate the money to whatever cause the kids choose).

Digital camera. Get rid of school projects, but preserve them by photographing them before you trash them (and don’t let kids see them in the garbage).

Less is more. I really like when beds are made, but blankets and covers make it more difficult for kids. We have sheets topped by comforters with print covers. All you have to do is pull the comforter up and the bed is made. And laundry is simpler. You don’t have to wash the comforter often; just wash the cover.

Build. If you run out of floor space, build a new closet.

Family at Play: Kids on Bikes

Biking has been one of my favorite activities since I was a child. When I was a teen, I went on bike trips with American Youth Hostels, and even when I had a car at college, I used a bicycle to explore St. Louis. It seemed natural that when my husband and I bought our second brownstone, we built a closet specifically for our bikes.

Like many kids, our girls played soccer, and the fields were a couple of miles from our house. We used to drive over, but the extremely limited parking meant we could circle the fields for half an hour, with one kid missing practice and the others growing bored. We told the kids, “if you want to play soccer, you have to ride to the field.”

This turned a couple of hours at soccer into a day-long adventure. In our first house, we stored 2 bikes in the cellar, 2 on the ground floor, and the third up the stoop. Just getting all the bikes out took 45 minutes. And when the kids were younger, they rode very slowly.

But as their skill level and confidence grew, so did their speed. Our youngest daughter, now 13, rides a 35 mile round trip to the beach with no complaint, and she went on a bike trip with camp, New Hampshire to Maine, biking 45 miles a day.

Our middle daughter, now in college, often rode her bicycle from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side for high school. She was a competitive soccer player, so she didn’t ride when she had soccer practice, but we rode our bikes to her games.

Family vacations have included Backroads bike trips in Denmark and Italy, and shorter bike trips as part of a family trip. We have ridden bike trails in Northampton, MA, Jim Thorpe, PA, and Cincinnati, OH. We rode bikes over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and through Mayan ruins in Mexico.

We were trying to decide what to do to celebrate Nickelodeon's 8th Annual Worldwide Day of Play this weekend, but the 13 year old has practice for the Ultimate team. So we will go on a own bike ride without her.

Our kids all played varsity sports, from track to soccer to Ultimate, they ski, they swim, they hike and rock climb. But they go their start on tiny bicycles with training wheels. Get your family started on exercise today.

Family Meal: Where are the veggies?

It was always challenging to raise vegetarian kids who didn’t eat vegetables. For years, we fell into a pasta trap, making a vat of pasta most nights and letting the kids carbo load.

At a certain point, I’d had enough. I wanted my daughters to eat vegetables. It took some work, but eventually, I was able to get them to eat a more balanced diet, one that included many different vegetables.

I didn’t want to hide the veggies, like The Sneaky Chef Missy Chase Lapine so I came up with a few tips:

1. Drop the pasta. The first thing I did was just stop buying pasta. If I didn’t have it in the house, I couldn’t make it or offer it.

2. Rethink the sauce. Ok, so I do now make pasta once every other month. But I make a tomato sauce that includes an entire package of frozen chopped spinach and the girls are none the wiser. I dub this sauce ‘puttanesca’ and add chopped black olives, capers and hot sauce, along with shredded carrots and chopped tomatoes. So they get plenty of vegetables.

3. Go to the farmer’s market. The unusually colored vegetables, like orange cauliflower and purple carrots, have enticed my kids to try an array of veggies.

4. While I make dinner, I put out carrot sticks, slices of red pepper, jicama, or sugar snap peas. If a child comes by fainting from hunger, I point out the spread, which also includes hummus or another dip. If a kid is truly hungry, she will eat the veggies.

5. One of my kids just won’t eat salad. She hates leafy greens. Since my husband and I love salad, this causes great consternation. But, she loves fresh peas. We used to buy them just for her – snapping them is so time consuming – but the other girls figured they were missing out. So now they all eat fresh peas.

6. Read cookbooks together, and not just ones specifically designed for kids. The photography in Chez Panisse cookbooks makes almost anything look appealing. Except meat, but that’s another story.

7. Bake with veggies. Roasted acorn squash puree enlivens my waffles and muffins. You can even cut down on the sugar in muffin recipes when you add the puree. In a pinch, I have used prepared baby food.

8. Eat at ethnic restaurants. When kids get served food they don’t recognize, they might be more apt to try, not snub it. Since my kids like spicy food, they will try almost anything pungent at a Korean, Indian or Vietnamese restaurant.

9. My husband and I would sometimes treat ourselves to a snack before feeding the kids; samosas, or Spring rolls, saying we just had to eat right away and we couldn’t share. Of course, this made the kids really want to try our vegetable-filled treat and we’d ‘reluctantly’ offer a taste.

10. Finally, don’t stress too much. Soon enough, they go to school, on play dates, or out with their own money and make their own food choices. Model good eating habits and hope some of it rubs off.

Vegetarian Indian Dining

Eating vegetarian is easy at Indian restaurants, and Tamarind Tribeca elevates the often austere experience of going out for vegetarian or Indian food. This is fine dining, with great cocktails (the signature ginger martini, with Absolut peppar). But still kid-friendly.

The huge, bi-level restaurant is elegant and refined, in an Art Deco building flooded with sunlight during the day. At night, dramatic lighting transforms the space, creating intimate areas.

We started with samosas, of course, my kids’ favorite. These had a twist; a pomegranate sauce that leant a touch of sweetness. The kachori, lentil and green pea pancakes, had dried mango powder on top.

The tandoor baked nan had none of the greasiness you sometimes get. I was able to convince the kids to get the onion version, but not the wild mushroom and truffle oil; I’ll have to save that for another visit, without the family.

The saag paneer was a more refined, less buttery version of the take-out Indian were are accustomed to, and the channa masala had a hint of pomegranate powder in with the ground chickpeas and ginger.

We loved the rich nargisi kofta, dumplings made of lotus root and cheese, in a saffron-cashew sauce, and achi khumb, shiitake mushrooms with pickled vegetables.

Tamarind is about twice as expensive as a neighborhood Indian restaurant, but more than twice as good.

Ordering In

Here is the usual scenario when we want to order food. We poll family members (up to 5) to see who wants what cuisine. Then we look for menus. Usually, we don’t have a menu for the kind of food we want, or we only find an old menu for a Chinese place that closed.

We have been saved by Allmenus.com. This nationwide service lets you search nearby restaurants, narrow them down by cuisine (e.g. Thai, vegetarian, Mexican) then read menus and Yelp reviews and order your food. You can even find deals and specials on the site.

You don’t pay any extra for this - places that don’t charge for delivery don’t charge when you order through Allmenus.com.

Another cool feature - if you are on vacation and have a hankering for Indian food or pizza, you can find a place.

Now if we could only all agree on what to order...

Little Switches: New Vegetarian Dinners

No matter how much you try to innovate in the kitchen, you can quickly fall into routines. My husband grew up in a house where every Monday was spaghetti and meatballs, every Tuesday, steak, every Wednesday, overcooked fish, every Thursday, dry chicken, every Friday a pot roast (also over cooked). They went out on Saturday nights or the parents went out & the kids ate TV dinners. Apparently, they didn’t eat on Sundays.

My mother served a more eclectic, and less overcooked, mix, but she did pretty much serve chicken one of 3 ways, (I hated all of them) fish 2 or 3 different ways and everything with no salt and little flavor.

I vowed to be different, but now as my kids have gotten older, they make odd declarations, like “you know I don’t eat lentils” or “when have I ever liked (insert name of that night’s dinner).

So I’ve decided to just make new vegetarian foods every night and, in a little switch, not even take into consideration everyone’s likes and dislikes. You eat it, great, If not, leftovers.

I found a recipe for a cabbage and potato gratin recently. I was not even sure I would like it - I grew up hating cabbage. One kid sneered, then ate all the potatoes. I could swear a teensy bit of green was clinging to some of the potatoes.

The other kid expressed surprise, said she didn’t like cabbage, took a big helping, and ate it all.

And you know what? I liked it, too.

1 pound Yellow Finn potatoes, cut into ¼ inch slices
1 ½ pounds green cabbage, cut into ribbons
Salt and black pepper
¼ cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons fresh sage leaves, chopped, or 1 tablespoon dried
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/3 cups skim milk
3 eggs
½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/3 cup flour

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
Bring a gallon of water to a boil.  Add the potatoes and boil until nearly tender (about 6 minutes).  Remove from boiling water with a slotted spoon.  Set aside.
Add the cabbage to the water and boil for about 5 minutes.  Drain and dry in a kitchen towel.
Combine the potatoes, cabbage, and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl.

I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Cottonelle blogging program, for a gift card worth $25. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

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Earth Day star

Rouge Tomate is an elegant restaurant on the Upper East Side that also walks the walk on sustainability. The restaurant’s philosophy is SPE, based on respect of ingredients and combining delicious food and nutrition. Rather than butter, Executive Chef Jeremy Bearman relies on pure flavors.

Rouge Tomate also supports local farms, fisheries, and producers who use sustainable practices.

Of course a restaurant with this commitment also has many options for those who shun meat. Inventive soups and salads, ricotta gnocchi, and tagliatelle with Oregon morels are great for those who won’t eat fish; there are also a number of fish dishes with no hidden veal stock or beef marrow.

On Sunday, April 25th, Bearman is cooking at the NYC Grows Festival at Union Square at 1pm. The family-friendly even, from 10am – 4pm, includes workshops on healthy living, gardening, tree planting and sustainable cooking.

Family Farmers Market

In the nice weather, we make it a habit to visit farmers markets regularly. The food looks more appealing than in conventional supermarkets, the kids are naturally drawn to the fruits and vegetables, and they make a connection with the food they eat, where we buy it, and who grows it. In New York City, year round Greenmarkets bring kids close to the food source.

In the fall, we travel to our food, to go apple picking and to a pumpkin patch. It was a revelation to the kids to see that pumpkins actually grow on vines, not at produce stands.

But in winter, hunting for food becomes more of a challenge. The farmers market isn’t as appealing in the very cold weather; besides the cold, the choices are limited. So we turn to indoor cornucopias.

One of my kids’ favorite places is the giant Fairway Market at 125th St. If you think the ordinary city supermarket is frenetic, this one is on speed. It is not for the cautious, the claustrophobic, or the newly emerged walker.

Like its older downtown sibling, this Fairway begins in a sumptuous produce display, tempting even the most persnickety. Then there is the huge selection of bread. But outweighing all is the ‘cold room’ filled with fish, meat and dairy. It’s so cold that Fairway provides jackets. My daughters love to shiver their way through here, pausing at the lobsters and choosing a yogurt.

Chelsea Market, at 9th Avenue and 15th Street, is a collection of small shops under one roof. Here, kids can see bakers at work, and try wonderful selections from Amy’s Bread, Sarabeth’s Kitchen, Fat Witch Bakery. There are also places to get nuts, veggies and fruit.

We've eaten our way through Reading Terminal in Philadelphia, Logan Square Farmers Market in Chicago (both indoors and outdoors) and the Farmers Market LA.