brown bag returns... with panettone!

I am back!

I am learning so much about blogging and online communities and I could not resist reinstating Brown Bag Blues. I think it has so much to offer, and is an important niche in the vortex of food-kids-parents. So many rich resources are out there, studded with lunch ideas, health updates, new snack ideas and products. Newsletters are flying all over the web, bloggers are multiplying, and companies keep trying their hand at filling our kids' lunches with the best of the best.

And ever is my goal to fill your brain---and mine---with good ideas for better lunches. To arm us with a marching food band: a regular, ticking supply of variety and honesty and interest to our kids' palates.

So here I am, ready to nab ideas from the web, share with you the lunch-rich blogs and sites that are ever popular, and of course extract recipes and inspiration from my own brown-bag-blues-beating brain. If ever there is a chance to educate our kids about quality versus quantity, about making good choices and about being open to novel flavors and textures: brown bags are the best.

And what a treat to be in Italy, exploring a whole new realm of snacks and seasonal foods. [In case you find me on this blog, you should know I blog at familyfrolics about living abroad for a year in Florence, Italy. And in case that isn't enough: I blog on talkoftomatoes about the other meal: dinner. Well, more than that. But you get the idea].

My boys are now 13 and 14, and hungry all the time. They are growing like crazy, their palates are evolving (they are growing out of the 'limited palate syndrome' that I think exists from around age 4 - 10), and snacks are of the utmost. School schedules here a bit different: they come home for lunch 3x a week, and eat lunch at school 2x a week. At home lunches are frequently focaccia sliced and filled with meat and cheese. And every day I send them to school with a snack; last week I sent them with slices of Panettone---a classic Italian dried-fruit studded bread (by the way, Panettone is fabulous toasted with butter and heavenly as french toast...).