Sweet Tweets or How Bazooka Does Healthy Lunch in The City

When The Girl turned five we got on a bus in Maryland and hit the road to NYC. From start to finish, that overnight trip was the kind of experience I dreamed of when I was pregnant with her. Fast forward a few busy years and we now live a short train ride, not a long bus trip away from NYC and not an ounce of magic has been lost on us.

No matter how awkward or difficult our relationship might be as she ventures into tween and teendom, I’m certain The Girl and I will always share a deep passion for our New York that trascends anything else. A day in The City with The Girl is always a perfect day.

Saturday we headed in for an event at Taste Buds, an adorable cooking school for kids on W 27th street, right near FIT where (of course) I made her pose for a picture. I won’t ever push any type of life that resembles my un-caught dreams on her but that doesn’t mean I won’t nudge every now and then.

When we walked into Taste Buds, I realized it be the incarnation of my newest dream-a fully tricked out kitchen with kid-sized tables for kid-sized cooking lessons.

An Herb Garden-smack inside a NYC high rise. Amazing.

The lesson for the day would be healthy lunch box lunches complete with notes from home. Bazooka has recently launched a new product called Sweet Tweets which are tiny punch out note cards complete with a 3 calorie candy attached. Bazooka and Sweet Tweets sponsored our day at Taste Buds.

We started with a reusable bento box, that she filled with a large lettuce leaf.

Then she made a fruit kabob.

Next we cut up cheese slices with initial and shaped cookie cutters.

I might have eaten this part. Shhh.

She filled one side of the box with fresh veggies that she topped iwth the cheese cut outs. 
Finally, she made a sushi sandwich with delicious ingredients like turkey, egg salad or tuna salad.

She cut the crust off her wheat bread-something she’d do anyway.

Next she added some turkey and cucumber and carrots sliced thin like sushi veggies. Finally,  she rolled it up and sliced it so that her sandwich looked like some pretty great California rolls!

It was healthy, delicious and because they made it themselves, there wasn’t a kid in the place who wasn’t ready to dig right in and finish every last bite-even my picky eater.

When I was young, my mom worked and quite frankly was never much of a homemaker (she joked that’s why she had kids-to keep her house) before she got a full time job so we made our own lunches from the time we were old enough to reach the kitchen counters. I remember there was a time when all my friends had sweet notes on their napkins and I was a little jealous and sad. I may have even forged a few notes from my mom and put them in my own lunch box. Don’t judge. Everyone wants a note in their lunch box. It makes us feel connected and brings a smile to our faces-no matter how old we are. This is Bazooka’s goal with Sweet Tweets; keeping kids and parents connected and making people smile.

Needless to say after my traumatic self-written napkin notes childhood spent eating the same old balogna and mayo sandwich for six years, I vowed to make lunches every day around here and try to write my kids notes as often as I can. I am excited about Sweet Tweets because not only are my kids not going to have Sharpie marker stink on their napkins anymore, but they can have a teensy little candy that they’ll love and that I approve of because it is truly small enough to be a treat.

And with a lunch like this, one little candy is just icing on a very healthy cake!

Now that I’ve seen what she can do, I just might give into The Girl’s requests to make her own lunch from now on. I’ll just sit back and write the notes.

Thank You Bazooka for our day at Taste Buds.  Great in a lunchbox, locker or overnight bag, Sweet Tweets™ is available at retail and at www.sweettweetnotes.com at a suggested retail price of $0.99 per pack. You can also visit Sweet Tweets on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/SweetTweets or follow on Twitter @SweetTweets.