Aviva's Blog | The Scramble

Last week on PBS Parents Kitchen Explorers I featured 3 Kidpreneurs who started their own successful food businesses. One of them, Carter Kostler of Virginia Beach, VA has just launched a new product called the Define Bottle, which allows kids to make their own healthy sports drinks with water infused with real fruit (no sugar [...]

Save Money and Enhance Your Meals: How to Plant a Simple Herb Garden

I love the aromatic flavor and nutritional benefits that fresh herbs add to almost any dish. However, I don’t like the expense and waste of those plastic herb packets they sell at the grocery store, so every spring I plant an herb garden on our sunny deck. It only takes about 10 minutes to transfer [...]

Is Tuna a Healthy Choice?

Occasionally I share questions and feedback from Scramblers here in the newsletter. I welcome your thoughts, concerns and questions any time, as they help The Scramble improve and evolve. Please weigh in, especially on the tuna question below. Optional Ingredients Dear Aviva, I was curious about whether the optional ingredients (like the chicken, steak or [...]

We Got the Beet Soup

My dear friend Jessica Honigberg, whose daughter Clara is a vegetarian like Celia, told me about a beet and potato soup she had made that Clara loved. When my CSA delivered beets and potatoes that same week, I had to try making my own version. The whole family was mighty surprised by the deep pink [...]

Bright Horizons Well Aware initiative

Does Your Child Care Center Value Healthy Eating and Fitness? Meet Bright Horizons and its Well Aware initiative. If you are committed to feeding your family healthy meals and snacks at home, wouldn’t you love to have your kids attend a child care center or preschool with the same priorities? I remember when [...]

Give the Gift of Stress-Free Healthy Meals and Safe Homes this Mother’s Day

Recently I asked Scrambling moms on The Scramble Facebook page what would make their Mother’s Day dreams come true and here are some of the answers you posted: “Laundry, they could do the laundry.” “Clean the house, top to bottom, mow the lawn, and take me out to dinner!” “Let me use the bathroom in [...]

Mother’s Days Fly By But Still Land Around the Dinner Table

The Mother’s Days when Solomon and Celia would come home proudly bearing sparkly boxes roughly decorated with puffy painted hearts, and sweet sloppy cards made out of construction paper and lacey doilies have long passed. Now, at age 16, Solomon is more likely to bring me a finely crafted and glazed mug he made in [...]

Do you still want Freebie Friday Giveaways? Please Speak Up!

Lately I’ve noticed that the Freebie Friday giveaways haven’t been quite as popular in terms of the numbers of reader responses/entries we are getting for each giveaway. So I’m wondering, are you a little tired of giveaways? Would you prefer I do them just once a month and focus on other content like tips and [...]

How do you Make Dinnertime Sacred?

Last week I was in New York City (twice, but that’s a different story!) attending and speaking at the Family Dinner Conference at NYU. It was inspiring for me to spend a day with a room full of people who are as committed as I am to finding ways to help families make their dinners [...]

Perfect Mother’s Day Treat: Overnight Baked Blueberry French Toast

Overnight Baked Blueberry French Toast Marinate Time: 12 hours Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 60 minutes Total Time: 13 hours and 20 minutes 8 servings The beauty of this baked French toast is that you can get it all ready the night before, so you just need to assemble and bake it in the morning. I [...]