Dash and Bella

There are thousands of cooking blogs -- each week, we bring you highlights from the best. This week, adventures in the kitchen with a pastry-pedigreed mom.

Any mother that has her kids trying snails and licking sardine eyeballs is a friend of ours. Phyllis Grant is this kind of mother. She doesn't believe in "kid food" -- no chicken nuggets or naked pasta here -- and doesn't oversimplify cooking at home. From slow-cooking with kids (for which she was featured on Daily Candy) to involving her blog's namesakes, son Dash (3) and daughter Bella (8), in every step of the cooking process, Phyllis Grant puts the rock 'n roll back in stay-at-home life. 

A former pastry chef at New York's Bouley, Micheal's and Nobu who "tired quickly of sugar and burning her forearms and never sleeping," Phyllis has put both her maternal and pastry power towards Dash & Bella, a beautiful food blog with a purpose: to document the experience of cooking with her two children. Like the best of bedtime stories, her posts are addictive little narratives, full of adventure, curiosity, and culinary intrigue. 

Her streamlined blog is a veritable treasure chest of notes, facts, step-by-step processes, and lessons about mini-epiphanies reached by Dash and Bella themselves. A hip Berkeley-ite who takes impeccable photographs, Phyllis Grant's DIY projects have a throwback nature we love. Take, for instance, homemade butter -- very Little House on the Prairie. 

So, three cheers for a woman who doesn't condescend to her kids. With recipes like those she's added to food52 (her Corn, Goat Cheese, Basil and Lemon Tart with Basil and Lemon Oil has us hankering for summer -- and a slice or two), we see why these wee ones rise to the challenge.